I have to admit it took me *quite* a while to get this one made. The rings for the chains were teensy-tiny. Tiny. Very, very small. This is how it all started:

A lot of tiny rings turned into two tiny chains. I (or my eyes) needed a few more breaks when working on these tiny chains (though I do LOVE them when they’re finished!). I’m *so* thankful that Patty is a patient woman. First, I’m going to go fix a small problem I found when photographing the bracelet. Then, we’re meeting at Chuy’s so I can deliver the bracelet. Next, we work on a necklace for the remaining three beads. See y’all again soon…

True confession: I’m behind on EVERYTHING. And I felt it tonight. Or last night rather, right before it turned into this morning.  I listened to Module 3 of the business class (even though we’re technically on Module 4 but now I’m only ONE lesson behind). Let me say Tonya’s class is SO full of an incredible amount of useful information. Which is precisely my problem. After I listened to the class: I immediately went to where I always go mindset-wise: I’ll NEVER catch up; it’s too much; why oh why am I doing this, et cetera, ad nauseum. At the end of every class Tonya reminds us to GO TAKE ACTION. So I did. I quit whining and made a mind map for all my major projects; that way I can actually see what needs to be done and TAKE ACTION. And then I went and made something (well, sort of).

A major component of the earring class is drawing a bead on wire. (for those of you that don’t make jewelry: you heat the end of a wire up until it just about melts, the metal draws up into a bead. Please hold & I’ll show you what I mean). So I cut lengths of sterling silver, copper and bronze wire. Turned on the torch and trial & error’d my way into feeling proficient at drawing a bead on all three types of wire.

These may look like little burnt sticks. They are, in fact,  full of the potential to turn into the hoops (and a few other types of earrings) you may have seen in this post.  See those little tiny balls on the ends of the wires? That’s what I was practicing. I’ve got to say, I’m not nervous about that particular task anymore.

I don’t know why it’s so hard for this procrastinator to realize that just taking even the tiniest bit of action makes me feel better and not so overwhelmed. And now I have lots of earrings to work on. And I’m feeling rather full of myself; I’m even thinking I might LIKE this take action stuff. I certainly feel better about a whole mess of things than I did a few hours ago. With that, I’m off to sleep, I’m going to take a yoga class in the early morning. I feel SO productive (what a fabulous feeling to end the day)!  ;-)

Sweet dreams!

These hoops are forged sterling silver. I made every bit of them, *including* the ear wires (confession: after working through some of the lessons in the class, I’m chagrined that I haven’t always made my own ear wires. That will be changing.). It always amazes me that I forget how much I love hammering metal.

Aren’t these lovely? Same hoops as above but I’ve added a metal clay medallion and some very pale Aquamarines.  I’ve got lots of ideas for embellishing these hoops. Lucky for me, there was a bead show in town this weekend. Check out my haul:

I wanted garnets and I was so happy to find some in the perfect deep, deep red that I adore. Also there’s some labradorite that’s going to be lovely paired with black leather for a wrap bracelet. See all the ‘white’ beads? It’s faceted moonstone! I usually see smooth moonstone & it’s kinda, meh, to me. But I fell in love with the faceted variety; the faceting highlights the colors & lights in the stone.  You’ll be seeing more of it in my designs. Yes. Those are skulls. I haven’t figured out *exactly* what I want to do with them but I was drawn to them, so now I own them. I’m really looking forward to working with all this loveliness!

Sidenote from the bead show #1: If you’ve ever seen my arms, you’d know that I’m NOT the customer that needs the how-to-build-a-collection lecture.

Sidenote from the bead show #2: Many of you have asked me about what to use to clean your silver jewelry. My first choice is my tumbler but since I know that’s not an option for most of you here’s my second choice:

I’ve used this biodegradable metal cleaner for years & years. It’s from that booth that’s always at any kind of show (Home & Garden, Holiday Markets, etc) & they offer to clean a ring for you. Both of their products are great but I was more interested in the metal cleaner this trip. It really works well, it’s safe for your fine & sterling silver jewelry & it lasts forever. If it ever dries out just add water & it’s ready to go! They also told me if you put some in a jar with water, soak your silver overnight, it’ll be shiny by morning. Fabulous! Email me if you’re interested in a jar ($10) and I’ll ship it to you. Or later this summer…

You can place an order for it ON MY WEBSITE! I’m [this] close to actually having a real, live, working website WITH a shopping cart! I spent time today loading the earring category. Really! My goal is to have it up and running by my birthday. That gives me just over a month. Stay tuned. Of course, I’ll be mentioning it EVERYWHERE once it’s ready.

Hope you’re having a great summer. We’re having a hot (normal), dry (not so normal) one here in Houston but I’ll take the heat over the chilly any day! It’s going by so quickly, the kids will be starting school in no time. Stay in touch, say hello anytime!

Feast your eyes upon the beauty of potential. These beads and leather cord and Art Clay could become anything. But we all know this particular stash of supplies has a specific purpose.

Coming up next? The making of the buttons. Stay tuned.

Some of you may have seen my new leather/gemstone wrap bracelets on the Facebook page. I’ve been wearing mine now for a couple of weeks. So I’ve pinpointed a couple of design/fabrication things to tighten up. I only have one big problem with the bracelet: I keep leaving it all over the place. As you may know I wear a lot of bracelets. All the time. If I had a dime for every time some one asked me if I practice/teach yoga/shower/sleep/relax on Sundays in all those bracelets (yes!), there’s a house in Hawaii that’d have my name on it! But those are all sterling bracelets. This foundation of this one is leather. When leather gets wet it tends to stretch. So, I’ve been taking it off for to practice and to teach and to shower. Therefore, I find it in the car or the pocket of my jeans or on the counter or in the deep dark recesses of my yoga bag. Other than that I love it! You can see it mixes in lovely with silver.

Here’s where I need your help. I need to practice making more of these, the ‘sewing’ part is rather new to me. I could also use some practice getting the dimensions and other design details ironed out. The buttons are good, but I could be better, neater, cleaner with those. So rather than make another 10 for me, I’m giving you the opportunity to buy-in to my first 10 of these wrap bracelets. Once I get the making of the bracelets streamlined, they will sell for $85. For the first 10, I’ll be offering them at $65. Not only will you get a discount but you’ll be among the very first to own one of these lovelies. Trade-off: your button might be a tad off-center, there may be a bead that needs to be coaxed back into place every so often, or some other minor, minor imperfection.

Right now, I’m planning on making the ruby quartz/black version (as seen here), an onyx/black and a smoky quartz/brown. There *is* the possibility I could be talked into taking requests. The button I’ve worked on so far is the ‘Tree of Life’ (again, as seen here). I haven’t decided what or if there will be other options. When you sign on to help me out here, you’ll be in on this bracelet as the details get hammered out. We’ll definitely be in touch via email and the Facebook page. And I may ask you for your feedback after you’ve worn the bracelet out & about.

Interested? Email me at info@studio219designs.com (Over to the left there’s a ‘click here to drop me a line or two’ that works too; this is one of those it all ends up in the same place deals)

In other news, I still have a few bracelets (and earrings and necklaces) that I’ve made over the last few months to share with you, so be on the look out for that. And well, I’m going to have to address the skyrocketing silver market and how that may impact us all here. The charts on the rising price of silver are making me dizzy! But trust me, if that’s our biggest problem, we’ll survive.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon!

Justification, Part 2. Not all of the things we mother are our children. We mother puppies and horses and our friends and our ideas. We mother other people’s children as teachers, nurses, coaches, doctors, friends, aunts, step-mothers, neighbors, et al.   Or maybe you’re grateful every day for the time you have/had with your mother. This mothering business is not always clearly defined or as black and white as a birth certificate. And…

Justification, Part 3. I love my kids. But I’m not such a fan of letter blocks and Swarovski crystals. Sorry. There are some beautiful Mother’s bracelets out there but they just don’t *speak* to me. I’d try them on and they might have fit my wrist but they didn’t fit me. So…

I was teaching myself the full Persian weave a few weeks ago. Lovely weave. Lots of potential. Thin & ropy for necklaces, chunky & weighty for bracelets. Or chunky & weighty for necklaces, thin & ropy for bracelets. Like I said: potential. Then my sister had her baby. So..

The charms are (from left to right): Emerald, Citrine, Citrine. Or May (new baby 2010), November (Baby Boy 2000), November (Baby Girl 1999).  A bracelet conceived from a traditional need to celebrate motherhood. But that can be worn and given in appreciation of any of the ways Mothers, in all their myriad of incarnations, touch our lives. And my take on the Mother’s Bracelet was born.

details: Mother’s Bracelet: Full Persian weave in Sterling Silver, all gemstone charms. $185.00

]]> http://studio219.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/my-take-on-mothers-bracelets/feed/ 1 studio219 Full Persian Bracelet with Emerald & Citrine charms http://studio219.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/im-famous-if-you-live-in-the-woodlands-flip-though-this-magazine/ http://studio219.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/im-famous-if-you-live-in-the-woodlands-flip-though-this-magazine/#comments Fri, 04 Jun 2010 02:37:26 +0000 Cara http://studio219.wordpress.com/?p=764 ]]> Just thought I’d share with those of you that don’t live in The Woodlands. Or the Cy-Fair area. I was written up in a local magazine, The Woodlands Lifestyles & Homes. It turned out smashing, if I do say so myself. Here’s the link to the article. Once you get to the magazine, go to Content (upper left) and click on ‘Interview with an Artisan’. Then, let me know what you think.

P.S. I’m working on editing a couple of pictures to share a new bracelet with you. If you ‘like’ Studio 219 on Facebook, you know that procrastination completely took over when I tried to post the new bracelet last week. {sigh} Story of my life.

So I just got a BlackBerry Bold (RIP Curve). WordPress has a BlackBerry app. This post is an attempt to use said app to post. So let me share with you a necklace that I made this weekend that I’m afraid to say I’ll never be able to duplicate!

The first picture is the front. I love the little cracking/missing piece at the bottom, which of course I’ll never be able to do again. Part two of why-I’ll-never-be-able-to-make-this-necklace-again is that I bought the chain on closeout from Rio Grande years ago. Hmmm. The second picture is an attempt to show the texture on the back.

This pendant was the first one I’ve tried with that round bezel around it, so I look at it & see beaucoup de errors. So the pendant along with this posting from the BlackBerry is an exercise in trying something new and then figuring out how to do it better. On that note I’m going to add the pictures (also taken with the BB) then try to publish this thing. Since blogging fom my phone is important because…

And this my friends (the perfect people are gone, right?) is why my 40 days of yoga in 8 weeks challenge is working for me. Well, so far. Let’s have a brief check-in on this, the 16th day of the challenge: 12 yoga classes taken thus far (right on schedule, so far so good. Though I know next week will be tough, I’m not throwing out the baby with the bathwater. We’ll just see what I can fit in and will adjust future weeks.) The organization/Studio 219 portion of the challenge: tough & slowly but surely. I’m making better use of my calendars. I (just) made my task list for Studio 219. Oh, fine, I’ll admit it: I was procrastinating. I have a lot to do and it’s frightening. But the list is made and now it can be dealt with and attended to. Onwards… The 11pm bedtime, y’all believe me when I tell you I am terrible at this. I’ve made the earlier bedtime lately. Confession: I’ve had a cold, so some of that-getting-to-bed-early is really passing out with the lights on under a mountain of Kleenex. With six more weeks to go, I’m going to keep moving forward.

If I had just decided to adopt this lots of yoga coupled with productivity as my way of life from now on, I’d be freaking out and so quitting this challenge right about now.  But instead I get to try it out and at the end I’ll be able to see what works, what doesn’t and apply it to my life. I feel so virtuous right now. (totally kidding. My halo is never on straight) Lent starts in the morning. Technically my 8 week challenge will be over before Easter Sunday.  We’ll have to see if I add an extra week/five more classes to the challenge to make it a Lenten challenge also. I’m in for at least 6 more weeks of less than minimal make-up and sweaty ponytails (and getting things done and going to bed early).