Thursday, September 11, 2008

Fall colors



In honor of the cooler weather today and yesterday, I took some time lately to make some nice fall colored beads. They are mokume gane beads, set off with blazing combinations of bronze, green, ivory and brown.



Look for two sets of these on my etsy site within the next day, as well as several larger pendants, not shown. They are still cooling. Contemplating fine sanding of each bead makes my arms hurt already but the effort is worth the end result. Each bead is sanded to a 2000 grit finish and then soft buffed.



This effort, with frequent interruptions from animals, phone, email, diet coke breaks and just plain thinking out the best design combination for each bead to match each set of five, stretched the day past the intended point of quitting. But it was fun to get back into playing with clay, after a long absence.



Since I'm chipping away at a long overdue to-do list, tomorrow's agenda includes finally finishing up those memory necklaces. Since those two necklaces took my silver sheet stock down to about zilch, I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to learn that silver prices (at least yesterday) were down to a low not seen for several years. I think I paid something like 10 bucks and some change. Nice!! The same order from four months ago was about $40 more. boy. Just like gas prices.

4 comments:

Gberger said...

Those beads are gorgeous! I can just see them on a beatiful, solid-color t-neck sweater or with a lovely blazer...they would really jazz up the fall season. You amaze me.

HappyDayArt! said...

You need mechanical sanding power! The colors in those beads are so nice.

Catherine

Jennifer Stumpf said...

thanks, ladies! i know i need to do something. i'm going to have carpel tunnel of the entire body soon. i have no idea what to get or how to set it up, any suggestions?

Gaea said...

These are DELISH! Soooo pretty!