After a week of preparation, my jewelry pieces will now be carried  on Ruby Lane as well as Etsy. 

  Here are some earrings I made the other day, during Isaac’s (shortening) naps.  They are hung on handmade sterling silver headpins, then attached to sterling silver ear posts.  

I spent the better part of today working on some ceramic pendants and beads.  I have a huge kiln, and it will take a long time to fill it unless I get some other, larger pieces made.  I’m trying a new clay which is giving me fewer problems with warpage; I’m also sandwiching the flat pendants between boards. 

  Just a little teaser…this necklace will be posted on etsy tomorrow.  Rose quartz, cultured pearls, cloisonne and Swarovski beads, and sterling silver wire.

Just a quick post today.  “The Boy” is up from his nap…

Since I sold my last pair of earrings with the etsy theme “Flowers for Mom” I decided to put another pair up, even though the sale will only last till this saturday.  Here are my cherry blossom earrings, regularly $24, but on sale this week for $18.  They are made from lucite and sterling silver.

 http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11801596

Well, I was going to post these new earrings that I made yesterday here with a link to them at etsy, but when I got up this morning, they had already sold!  I guess it was worth battling the computer to get the images up.  My first sale on etsy (that seemed to take forever….).  Here’s a picture of them, anyway.  I’ll be making more, probably with different colored centers….

  This is a jade pendant with cultured pearls and glass seed beads.

   This is the first pearl necklace I’ve strung.  Knotted between each pearl for protection against wear.  The clasp is 14k goldfill.

     This is a combination of jaspers, black onyx, and bronze freshwater pearls (dyed).  The small round jaspers are gold lace, and upon close inspection they look like woodgrain.

These will be appearing in my etsy shop shortly (I do wish Etsy had some sort of turbo lister like ebay, so most of the same settings could be saved.  Uploading to the shop takes a while:

Vintage German plastic earrings, sterling silver earwires and beads.

 Vintage lucite beads, sterling silver earwires.

 Cultured Pearls (yes, they are real, and they are BIG! 11mm), Swarovski Crystals, Sterling Silver beads and earring posts.

 Rose Quartz, Swarovski Crystals, Sterling Silver beads and earwires

 Millefiori beads, Swarovski Crystals, vintage lucite drops, sterling silver chain and earwires

Told you I’ve been busy.  Necklaces coming soon.

 available in my etsy store.  $12

I made this pendant late the other night.  I was itching to do something with my new stuff, but by the time I get home and get Rugraticus to bed, I’m bordering on brain dead.  This is a 20mm rhodonite faceted stone with sterling silver wire.  I had a hard time getting the pictures to accurately portray the color of the stone (it’s sort of a salmon pink), without making the whole picture look washed out.  I’m still working on the photography tricks.  I have an older Sony Mavica, which, although it does have a macro function, I still can’t get as close as I want to the item.  I guess I better hunt down my manual. 

I was able to finish up another necklace last night.  I’ve had a bad back all week (from all things, coughing), so I haven’t done much at home except lay down.  Sitting has been bad.  Very bad.  But I’m starting to feel better now.  I started this last week when I received my order from Rings and Things.  I received some beautiful carnelian beads, wavy ovals and rounds, and I thought the orange-red color would look great with copper.  I did a herringbone weave on the oval beads, and all the wire components were handmade by me.   It’s difficult to keep the weave even on a wavy bead, which didn’t occur to me until halfway through wire-wrapping.  I’m still pleased with how it came out. 

 I take all my necklaces on a test drive before I sell them.  I want to see if they’re comfortable to wear, and also if they will stand up to monkey-boy.  I’m glad to say that he grabbed right onto it this morning and it passed the test.  Look for it in my Etsy shop  soon.  I’m also thinking that I could do the same necklace with some coin and round pearls that I have……hmm, bridal jewelry?