Jewellery-Making Class, Day 1

Joyfully, the class didn't get cancelled this time, and I booked it out of work, super-excited to get started.  It's a comfortable class of five students and an experienced teacher, and we got along pretty well even if most of the time we weren't saying much, concentrating on our work so much.

Another nice surprise was that we were provided with a whole new set of tools, so I got another pair of wire cutters, round nose pliers, and flat nose pliers.  I already bought a set for the class I was supposed to take in September, and brought them with me because I didn't know. 

On Day 1 we made two pairs of earrings.  We were only supposed to make one pair, but everyone in the class either had some previous experience, or picked it up really quickly, so we finished them rather ahead of schedule.

The main focus of the class seemed to be learning how to make connecting loops with eye pins and head pins instead of just stringing beads on wire, and we put that into practice a lot with the pair of earrings we made next:

So, being ahead of schedule, I must say I'm excited for the rest of the classes beacuse we may end up learning things we wouldn't have done otherwise.

Neat Pendant Idea

Firstly, I want to express my love for Etsy (Link Here).  It's a great website where people sell their home-made crafts, and I've already purchased some really nice beads and pendants from there.

Having said that, I found one girl who sells pieces of broken Chinese pottery made into pendants, and I bought a couple of pendants from her.  This is what I did with one of them:

I had some (real?) jade beads kicking around that went with the light green on the snake's body, and I finally bit the bullet and got some gold-coloured findings to use on it.  I don't particularly like yellow gold, but the metal the shard sits in was that colour.

The other piece that I bought from her is a little bigger, more of a circle than an oval, and has a red and blue bird in a tree.  I think I'll put a little more thought into what I'll do with that one.

My First Commission!

I have finally received my first request to make a necklace for someone!  My cousin wants me to make something to match a shirt she bought, and she's already bought some beads she likes for it.  I haven't seen them yet, nor found out what she'd like it to look like, but I'm glad that someone's starting to trust me enough for this!  I hope I don't let her down!

I'll definitely take a picture and post it once it's done.

Startin' 'Em Young

We had Christmas at my place, and I broke out my kit during a quiet spell.  One of my cousins got interested in what I was doing and I let her help out.

I also let her pick out whichever beads she liked that I had on hand, and made her a pair of earrings.

Jewellery-Making Class, Take 2!

Durham College is offering their jewellery-making class again, so of course I signed up again.  It starts at the end of January, as long as enough people sign up for it.  Still, if it does get cancelled, there's another one in April, and there may be a better turn-out for that one since the weather will be better by then.

Necklace # 4

I finally did something with the filligreed pendant I have.  I was going to use the beads to make a bracelet since I originally thought they were too small for the pendant, but I found some oval metal beads with a flower pattern on them to break up the smaller ones, and the necklace came out nicely.

Idea Book

Last night I got a book chock-full of beading ideas for my birthday.  Didn't really look through it very well, but I suppose there are some nice designs in there.

It doesn't feel the same working from a plan that someone else designed, though, so if I do anything from the book, I'll probably change something up so it feels like it's my own thing instead of copying another person's idea.