Many times, I end up “fishin” too, but it’s usually not in a bucket. It’s usually in my head when I’m fishing for ideas. I may be looking for something new and different to add to a design or for some way to solve a problem. This week it was the latter.

I’ve been stuck on making birds lately and have explored how to do it with embossing and torch enameling.

After making a couple of these, I realized that the two don’t mix real well. For embossing, we need a light gauge metal and for torch enamel a heavier metal. When I use the gauge I need for embossing and then enamel the piece, it curves a bit toward the back. Yesterday, while fishing for ideas, I tried riveting another piece of metal to the embossed one and then enameling. It was NOT a good idea. Much of the heat was lost between the layers and I completed a very rough and ugly bird. No, you cannot see it because it’s in the trash. So, I guess I’m going to need to get my idea fishing pole out and try again.

I did, however, have one bird that turned out well. He/she is a sample piece that combines elements from several of the classes I teach, soldering, riveting, wire wrapping, forging, etc. Although you can’t tell from the photo, I used tube rivets to help the bird stand about 1/4 inch away from the back plate. The bird is mixed metal including copper sheet, 1/10 silver wire and brass wire for the nest. Today’s issue is how to make it smaller.

I asked my spouse if he thought I needed eggs in the bird’s nest, but he didn’t think so. We decided that bird was just too young to mate. After all it did just hatch at Dreamcatcher Designs.

Here’s hoping you catch whatever you are fishing for.

Do you color within the lines? My first reaction to this question would be “absolutely not;” yet on second thought . . . the idea of coloring within the lines might be situational.  When someone poses this query, they usually don’t actually want to know about color, but rather about whether you follow the rules or parameters set for a task. While most highly creative individuals intentionally stray from the rules others try to impose on their art form, they may follow the rules in other instances. For example, this might be to pay the bills on time, get the car registration sticker to avoid a ticket, etc. Rules and parameters can be important.

This is the case with some jewelry techniques. For example, on Sunday I did some etching on copper which requires mixing an acid solution. I read the directions three times before ever opening the bottle of acid. The rules were important to keep me from burning myself. I’ve also found some of the suggested “rules” for torch enameling are quite helpful for this technique.

If I use counter enamel on the back of a metal piece, it has less of a tendency to curve under when I apply several enamel coats on the top. Also, I’ve found that it’s helpful to use the suggested liquid that helps hold the enamel powder on the surface of the metal. Go ahead. Ask me how many tiny bits of colored enamel threads rolled off my pieces and fell on the floor of the work room before I discovered this agent.

A past post showed a few examples of torch enameled pieces of jewelry, but I wanted to share some of the newer work. The necklace at the top shows a variety of techniques with which I’ve experimented. Below are a few of the earrings sets I’ve made.

The Gingerbread family below was tricky to make and I’m not sure why Gingerbread Pop has more sugar on him than the others . . . ?

It’s rather obvious that I didn’t color between the lines on these pieces but rather I often just let the enamel stay where it landed. I’ll follow the rules/lines on something else that I’m doing, but not in my art form. How about you?

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to go to Britex Fabrics (www.britexfabrics.com)  in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. My daughter and I had allotted ourselves 45 minutes before we needed to hop a trolley and move on. It wasn’t enough time! There are multiple floors to this shop but I went straight up to the third floor filled with notions. I was pretty overwhelmed by the ribbons, trims, cords and buttons and had to keep talking to myself about remaining focused on what I needed. The pieces below utilize a couple of the ribbons I purchased.

The pendant for the blue piece below is polymer clay and made by Nora Pero of Austin, TX. I intended to use the ribbon around the back of the piece, but used too many beads and then realized it wouldn’t show. I’m pleased with the colors.

The bright piece below is whimsical and initiated with the torch enameled owl. I like the amber in it and appreciate the lightness it brings both in color and weight. I also used some faceted carnelian which hangs from the handmade chain. I thought the ribbon was a good match.

The challenge for me with fiber seems to now be how to do something besides a side bow. The additional challenge is to find one of the boutiques I serve or an independent customer who will like the look of fiber.

As I mentioned in a previous entry, I’ve been playing with wire trees just a bit more and wanted to create a scene in the piece below. (Yes, my family and friends are probably saying I’ve created a “scene” before, but I’m not talking about that kind!) I created a small wire bird for it, but the winged creature was too big proportionally for the tree. Oh well, it was a nice thought – cute bird.

Finally, the double strand piece below made with turquoise, lapis and amethyst sports a new finding, shown on the right side of the photo. I’m trying to develop some new types of multi strand links and separators. I made this piece to see if one of them which takes a necklace from two strands to one would work. Thus far, I’m happy with it, but the truth is in continued wearing. It did great on its initial wear around the house last night. You can see that this piece makes its way around the neck with a chain. (I wouldn’t want to make a piece without some kind of metal on it!)

So when will the bright Spring colors show up in the designs here at Dreamcatcher? I may just have to wait for inspiration from the redbud tree in the front yard since it’s usually one of the first harbingers of Spring. I don’t think it will be much longer and I’m sure those readers in the North are wishing even more than I that the season would make a happy change. Until then, we’ll just be pleased to see the sun and know that more warm weather will soon follow.

I looked at my cluttered bead table and realized that I have a few things I could call tangerine if I removed the word orange from my current vocabulary. Doesn’t Tangerine Tango sound much more expensive than orange? While in Hawaii last week, I obtained a piece of calcite that I think borders on the topic color.

Calcite is a primary mineral in cave formations and produces those stalactites and stalagmites we learned about in school. It’s usually white or colorless but can be light yellow, orange, blue, pink, red, brown, green, black or gray.

Another Tangerine Tango piece was laying in the demolition box. This is where I keep the things that didn’t work out. I put them there when I’m too lazy to take them apart and then I can grab a bead here and there when I need it.

Although the blue beads in this piece are not natural, you can see that turquoise would be a good complimentary color with this orange.

I’m hoping that Tangerine Tango won’t take over summer garments and accessories the way pink did several years ago. I remember everything that year was pink and by the next year it was totally gone. Yet, perhaps a little tango with this tangerine might be a good dance to try in a few designs. It really is pretty nice.

Frequent and long time readers may recall that fold forming was the new technique I chose to develop last December and January during the winter lull between completion of the Fall products and the development of the Spring designs. Unfortunately, I may have moved too quickly from fold forming last year and back into rapid production for my customers. Also, I “closed” on the technique partly because I couldn’t figure out new things to do with it. I chose not to face the somewhat discouraging struggle that forces one into creative generation. I currently have renewed interest in fold forming due to a couple of happenings. Two of my lucky friends took a recent workshop with Kim St. Jean at the Texas Beadfest and their discussion of the class helped add to my refinement of the technique. Also, I gave a demonstration on the technique at a recent gathering of wire workers. Therefore, I had to practice.

The trick for me with fold forming has been trying to make something besides a leaf that would comfortably work as a piece of jewelry. First, I practiced some different ways to hammer on a few leaves and learned how to better ruffle the edges. Then I created a couple of copper cuff bracelets. I like using a long diagonal fold to start the bracelet design and following this with appropriate texture. I quickly learned that it’s important to begin with a longer and wider piece of metal than the size of the anticipated product. I folded the metal first and then cut the final bracelet shape. When I annealed the metal bracelets with a torch during the fold forming process, beautiful colors appeared on the pieces.

I’ve also been experimenting with a star shape shown in Newton-Brain’s book. First I made several pairs of earrings and then I created a larger star and used it as a pendant on a strand of coral. I gave the pendant a liver of suphur bath, tumbled it and then used the torch on it again. It adopted a very rich color.

Now the struggle is to try to develop some ideas of my own for fold formed shapes. Hopefully, I’ll have the time this year to stick with fold forming until I’ve either developed some new ideas or convinced myself that I CAN’T come up with anything new. Wish me luck.

If you are a designer or type of merchant who makes changes in merchandise with the seasons, you may be experiencing my difficulty. At the height of a given season or perhaps even before that season begins, we need to switch gears and plan for the next one. So here goes. I’m layered in warm clothes from head to toe and I have the Spring palette of colors laid out to work with. It just doesn’t seem right, but it IS necessary.

Luckily, the owner of Dovetails of Wimberley gave me the Casual Corners catalogue displaying the Spring line. I’m using it to help plan jewelry to go with the garments. Take a look at the beautiful mixture of colors shown in the catalogue.

Inspired by these photos, I began to play with the fiber I had on hand. This included yarns, ribbons and cording.

This gave me a better understanding of what colors coordinated and might work best in beads.

I’ve begun now to work with the beads matching these colors that I got from Magpie Gemstones (www.magpiegemstones.com). I can show you the one new bracelet below and the lapis necklace that just went into my etsy shop (www.dreamcatcherdesigns.etsy.com).

I used a new style armature for the bracelet and think it will be nice for those customers who have enjoyed the wave bracelets. This one is not as wide and displays more gemstones and pearls.

The lapis necklace is a piece that finally hatched. I made the pendant at least two months ago and then it sat and sat on the work table waiting for further inspiration. The blues from the Casual Corner catalogue finally led me to finish this piece. Just a few charoite beads help set off the color of the lapis and make it look more like Spring.

Today, the sun is out even though it is still cold outside. I guess I’ll have to continue to imagine the warmth of the Spring breezes. I think I’ll go put on a floppy hat to get in the right frame of mind.

The last few days I’ve been working with tree shapes. It may be the anticipation of the changes soon to occur with the leaves on the trees or simply an inclination to get away from things that are circles. For whatever reason, I’ve been working with the shape of some trees, triangles. This is always a bit of a problem since triangular shapes in jewelry mean you must deal with three sharp corners, but I decided not to let that deter me.

The first trees are a bit large, yet interesting looking. These earrings are copper triangles sweat soldered together to imitate firs. The liver of sulphur patina seemed appropriate on these.  I also made a smaller, upside down pair.   

The next pair is made of copper that spent several days turning blue. The household concoction worked well and I didn’t want to spoil the color; therefore, I chose not to solder them. That would have removed the blue patina. I made them into pretty good swingers by using the copper rings.

The last pair of earrings initiated with a picture of a pair that a friend gave me. I intended to use silver circles as part of the embellishment, but the bottle caps sitting on the work bench begged to be used. The star in the cold connection adds a little western flair to this pair. Yes, I do realize that this tree shape is upside down, but it seemed like the way to go.

Maybe the next tree shapes should be rounded at the top – I’ll have to give that some thought.

In the last line of her tree poem, Kilmer wrote:

Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

I could certainly say the same about these silly earrings.

I say “hurrah!” I think we should all wear a little purple now and not wait until we’re too old to get a kick out of it. I’ve actually been practicing for years now. Once while shopping with my young adult daughter we saw a rather rotund lady going in a store with curlers in her hair and an orange housedress on. I asked my daughter to not ever let me do that. Then, on her wedding day as we rushed around with our preparations, there I was with curlers in my hair and my lime green and orange housedress on. I went to the nursing home to pick up my Mother in that garb. I’m thinking that when I’m old no one will worry about what’s in my hair or what I’m wearing. I guess I was just practicing on that wedding day.

Today’s jewelry pieces fit with all this practicing. They’re PURPLE! As I looked around at my products and caught up on what had sold at the stores, I realized that purple goes out the door pretty quickly. See what you think about these two new pieces. The pendant at the right hangs from a lightweight strand of amethyst chips and sterling rounds. The bezel is one of those for which I became brave enough to use all sterling silver. Other pictures are in my etsy store at the following address:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/53924047/sterling-and-amethyst-pendant-necklace

The second piece is based on the colors of a specific garment at one of the boutiques. The amethyst is highlighted with just a few olive colored Czech crystals. You can see one of the larger stones best in the side picture blowup. http://www.etsy.com/listing/53963222/amethyst-and-sterling-necklace?ref=v1_other_1

Now that I’ve got my purple to wear, the poem also says I can gobble up samples in shops and wear my slippers out in the rain. It sounds like I’ve got all sorts of things to practice for when I’m an old woman. Does anyone out there want to join me?

      “Counting Flowers on the wall, that don’t bother me at all

       Playing solitaire ‘til one with a deck of 51”

It seems that each time I’ve finished a ribbon or felt flower that song pops back up in my head. I’m beginning to dislike it!

I started making the ribbon flowers after the Renegade Craft Fair that was held several months ago in Austin. One of the vendors, the Stitch Lab, taught how to make ribbon flowers and attach them to headbands. I was hooked! These are great fun to make and I just keep making and making and making them. I have a slew of them on clips and headbands at Paper Bear in San Marcos, Texas and have given many away to friends. Now I’m seeing flowers everywhere I go. I’m trying not to accost every little girl who walks by me with a flower in her hair, but it’s been fun to notice the many ways they can be attached to hair.

My daughter told me that felt flowers would be good for fall and I was off and running again. I’m amazed at the beautiful colors of felt that can be located and had fun creating numerous rosettes for the pins below on the left. The flowers on the right are flatter and I haven’t decided what they will be. The smaller ones may be added to ribbon to become bookmarks. Do you have suggestions? I’d also be interested in vending opportunities for these little beauties. Ideas?

By the way, I wait until after I leave the house to put a flower in my own hair. The concern on my husband’s face about whether or not at my age I’ve really lost it is just too much to bear.