Colours of darkness (Jewelry Making Mojo Challenge)

Wow, it get's late too fast when you're working on the computer! I should soon get ready for bed, but I have to blog about this first of I'll forget. You see, I've participated in the Jewelry Making Mojo Challenge this week again.

The challenge of the week was to be inspired poem, quote or song. I chose the latter and more specifically a song by Laleh called, simply, Colors. Now, you might ask why I chose it, but I don't have a good answer. I'm a fan of Laleh so it's not a random choice, not something picked just off the radio, but it isn't my favourite song by her. It's one heard on the radio almost as often as Stars Align right now and usually I like to be inspired by something I haven't heard that often and that recently. Anyway, regardless of why, I picked it.

As the focus felt like it was on words it's nothing like e.g. this challenge where I was inspired by the sound of the instruments and the melody. Here, focus was more on the lyrics -- and my very literal inspiration. First it was the age old idea of light-dark that I wanted to do something with, but in the end it was the chorus that stuck: "just because it's black in the darkdoesn't mean there's no color". And I made two, as I said very literal, creations based on that.

First literal interpretation focused on darkness and colours -- dark colours. In certain lights the beads look almost black even though they do have colour: dark bronze and montana burgundy luster respectively. For the bracelet, I was also inspired by the many delicate, simple bead bracelets I've been fond of for some time. This could be more delicate, but I still like it. The idea is to use it as part of a bunch of stackable bracelets, but it can also be used on its own.

Now, for the second piece I focused more on darkness AND colour. In a way, there's also light as you need light for the colours in the darkness of the stone to flash. Initially I wanted use just labradorite, but my light grey labradorite beads doesn't really convey darkness at all. So I picked up a larvikite bead -- it, too, has a schiller effect, but sadly it isn't very visible in my bead so it had to be paired with one of the labradorite beads. (First I added a second lab. bead over the larvikite bead, but it didn't look right so I took it off.) It's strung on three rows of medium braided silk cord hand-dyed in shades of grey and black.

The photo above gives a good idea of the colours of the stone, but not the lovely labradorescence. So I took the pendant out in the sun for this shot:

Colours very much hidden in the darkness (well, light grey can feel dark if it's, say, the grey of a sunless november day), but which needs just a little flash of light to reveal itself in all its glory.


These are two simple pieces, but I still hope you enjoyed seeing them.

Dendrites!

I love dendritic stones. If you don't know what that means, check out the photo above of my sandstone/limestone (I'm guessing) pendant. Those organic-looking branches are called dendrites. A stone with dendrites is called dendritic, e. g. dendritic agate. Dendrite is also used for other similar tree-like structures such as neurons, the patterns metal can make as it solidifies after being poured in an open mold and a certain mathematical shape (no, I didn't understand the Wikipedia description of that).

One of the main reasons I really like jasper and certain agates are that the colours and patterns can create beautiful images. It can look like like landscapes or scenic views, satellite or aerial photos or like abstract artworks. It's the same thing with dendritic stone. The dendrites look like seaweed, herbs, juniper branches, ferns or sometimes even whole trees. In agate, the translucence can create a fairytale mood, foliage veiled in milky mist and dreamy wisps of water. In sandstone and limestone, it can look like pencil drawings on aged and crumpled paper.

I found this particular piece in a charity shop. A very nice find in deed. It's not as big as in the photo, the close-up is for you to be able to see all the lovely details in the stone. I've also collected a few pics on this pinboard. A few pins ended up on other boards because they were sandstone, not jasper or agate so be sure to also check out pin 1, pin 2, pin 3 and pin 4 if you like dendritic stone or just want to get more ideas of what it can look like.

Random bead photos -- and a rant

The photo above is one I took for a forthcoming blog post on my other blog (stones sold as jasper, but aren't really). One of the last bead photos taken with my camera.

I've tried to take bead photos with my sis' camera too, but just don't feel they turn out the way I want. First of all, she doesn't have a minimum focus distance (närgräns) of 1 cm like. She isn't sure exactly what it is on her camera, perhaps even as much as 10 cm, all I know is that I can't be as close to the beads as I'm used to. Also, I can't change the white balance when using macro on her camera. Which annoys me a lot as the automatic WB doesn't always work well in some lights. Also it makes me think of the fact that the one not-too-expensive camera I've found with similar features as my Z3 (1 cm min. focal lenght, 12x zoom, P mode etc etc), the one camera I've found I could perhaps buy within a few months, is constructed just like her camera. I can't shoot macro i P mode, according to Canon's costumer service, which is usually the setting you have to use to be able to change the white balance. So one camera had all I wanted. Or so I thought and when asking about it and receiving a negative reply, I was so disappointed. Stupid cameras...

Above are two bead photos taken with her camera. The best ones, which neede balancing the white balance and tweaking the exposure more than usual. Maybe I'm overcritical. Maybe it's just that I'm upset and tired what with Sötis and Vitfluff. Maybe it's just that it takes a little time to get used to a new camera, especially getting used to the less stellar min. focus distance. Maybe I'm just to attached to my old Konica Minolta Dimage Z3 and to its -- in my view -- better and more predictable results. And it's a bit unfair using these unsual matt-finish beads as an example. But I'm just not pleased with the pics I get. Landscape pics are ok; they're pretty easy and mostly a matter of getting the exposure right. It's the close-ups I don't like the look of. You know, the kind of photos that make up pretty much 95 % of my other blog's and perhaps (including macro shots of flowers) 60-70 % of this blog's image collection. Photography turns into frustration rather than fun right now. So I'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself.


PS! Do you think many people would big on a used Z5? I just bidded 116 SEK for one on Tradera. Stupid as I don't know the seller and can't inspect the camera? Perhaps, but if it just last a few months it would still be ok value. It's within my budget and a so-so old Z-series is better than no camera. Keep you fingers crossed. For both that I'll be lucky in the bidding and win it dirt cheap and that the condition is ok. ;) Not making any illusions, though. Have lost many auctions before (one for the most fab embroidery book, Bonniers stora bok om broderi -- that was sad).

Just a stone

So while working in the potato fields, I collect stones from time to time. Some I pick straight from the ground during the breaks, others I pick from the conveyor belt on the machine. Apart from the flints, which are my all-time favourites, this stone must be my best find. Just really fell for the striped pattern and multiple colours.

Other stones are trickier: you don't really see the colours and patterns unless you wet (or polish) the stone. Sometimes when it's wet, you pick up a pretty stone and put it in the pocket. Then, when looking at it later, it looks just so drab and dull, you wonder why you picked it up. At that point it's important not to throw away the stone (I usually cull them a bit, can't take them all with me) but to try and find out if it has a hidden potential. Ordinairy stones can be fab if you just keep them long enough to give them a tumble.

Unfortunately, I don't have a saw or grinder so there's no way for me to cut these stones for use in jewellery, but some of them are small enough to wire-wrap into pendants, put in a setting or bead a bezel for. The one in the above pic, however, isn't.

Leftovers

 
Yes, I should be working on my bead soup right now, but I'm taking a break to play with some photos. Photos of "blog hop/challenge leftovers" you might call it.

When I participate in challenges and things like that, I often start to pick out beads I think would work for the theme, palette or beads given to work with. All too often I don't have that many beads of each sort so I end up scrapping ideas based on that (or the fact I lack a matching focal). It's really all about having a really tight budget and loving colours so I rather buy a few beads of each colour or finish than enough beads of a fewer number of colours. Sometimes the lack of materials only become apparent after a while.

It can also be that I begin working with one idea in mind and then it evolves or is scrapped and I can no longer use the beads first picked out. Here are two examples of that.

These are half a dozen beaded beads I made, using marbled druks and seed beads that seemed to go perfect with the bead soup focal (also seen in the pic). It was just last weekend I finally had to give up and face the fact that while beaded beads might be a good idea, I didn't have a good idea of how to make a whole design using the beaded beads and focal. Couldn't make it work. Not with the other supplies at hand.

The other leftover is my unfinished wrap bracelet intended for yesterday's Challenge of Music. As mentioned I had to give it up when I couldn't find a focal I liked. Instead I made something else that I, in the end, quite liked. So it wasn't all bad. Even if it felt frustrating and stressful to scrap an idea in the last moment before a blog hop.

The beads are purple aventurine (sometimes called purple jade) and czech druks in frosted milky pink apollo gold. Much more subtle and earthy than the twilight colours used for the brooch/pendant that became my challenge entry.

I'm not sure whether to finish the bracelet or not, nore about what to do with the beaded beads at the moment. Right now they're somewhere between WIP and UFOs. I liked putting the beads together, though, and that's my reason for showing them here. (And also, I took the photos because I liked the beads toghether. Nothing beats purple and green.)

Autumn leaves

It's Sunday and I'm as usually spending the weekend writing a week's worth of posts for my other blog so today will be more pictures than words. As it's (still) autumn I thought the colours and theme in these old photos was fitting.

This is a handmade boro glass cab surrounded by hessonite garnet chip beads. Like a lot of beaders, I'm not a big fan of chips, but I like how they can feel like autumn leaves sometimes. So I figured they might look good with an autumnal cab like this one. This is how far my ideas for this cab has come.

It's almost like a flower, a chrysanthemum of some sort, in that flat cab. Love it!

Vaucresson rose necklace

In pretty much the last minute, I uploaded my entry in the Art Bead Scene monthly challenge for July. For a long time I couldn't think of what to do and figured I'd skip the challenge just as I've skipped or missed most challanges for months now. After playing with my stash or embroidery floss, yarn and ribbons this week, I finally got an idea last Friday: wouldn't it be a perfect opportunity to make a new ribbon flower pendant? I haven't made any for ages now and hopefully one will pass as an "art bead". The artwork that was the theme of the month, Morning in the Garden at Vaucresson by Edouard Vuillardit,  features some lovely white and pink roses that seemed perfect to translate into ribbon roses.

Bias cut silk ribbon is pretty flimsy so the flowers you make are very delicate. Just like the flowers in the paintings (though I admit in jewellery "delicate" and "flimsy" are not normally properties you strive after as it makes the piece difficult to use without damaging). I used hand-dyed pink and grey ribbon for the petals and then stitched the rose to a old rose ox dapped filigree. The metal adds some needed weight, makes it easy to attach bails or jump rings and protect the flower from some of the wear and tear.

The rose pendant is made from hand dyed bias cut silk ribbon, mounted on a piece of filigree. The necklace chain is made from space-dyed viscose gimp that I stitched into a three-strand necklace and added linen thead on which I knotted vesuvianite chips and yellow "jade" beads. It's a pretty simple necklace, which is of cause due to me getting the idea so late and finishing the flower even later (petals are easy to stitch, tricky to puzzle together to make flowers). That's the real reason, but it also makes the necklace look like the rose bush in the painting where the flowers sit on winding branches with few leaves.

From the palette I choose just to work with the pinks and greens with a hint of yellow, omitting the periwinkle/mauve/greyish blue tones eventhough I liked what they added to it. If I'd come up with my idea earlier perhaps I'd have time to think of a good way to use them, but of cause I had to come up with a last minute idea and had to think of a design on the top of my head.


Instead of the dull and simplistic collage I ended up uploading on Flickr, I initially wanted to make an inspiring and beautiful etc etc collage incorporating the painting that inspired the necklace, but I just couldn't make something nice today. This is what I ended up with and I'm adding it here more just to show the painting I'm speaking of than to show a good jewellery collage.

Flint for jewellery

As a kid, I used to collect flintstones. We don't have that much flint on our land, but the clay soil further South are packed with them. That meant I could find so many lovely stones when visiting my grandparents in Vejby. Often, when going home, I'd filled the floor of the car beneath my seat with chunky stones. My granddad once ploughed up a flint axe, which he gave to me as I was so fond of flint. After that he found half an axe, which I also got. Can you imagine what a treasure a stone age flint axe is to a small child?

These last few years, I've taken up flint collecting again. Now I do it with a vague idea to use the pebbles and shards in my jewellery. I no longer look to find the biggest chunks, now I prefer smaller pieces more suitable for pendants and I'm also pickier, discarding stones that don't have an interesting shape or colour. Luckily, fields that are ideal for potatoes are also rich in flint around here. So we -- my sis and I -- simply search for pretty stones during the breaks while we set or pick potatoes.

The stones above are some that I singled out from my new and old collection as my sis planned to tumble a new lot. Ever since the first lot, we've said the next one (after the glass tumbling) wouold be flint. So right now these stones and tumbling in a rubber drum along with a bunch of flints my sis has found.

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Wondering what the first lot of tumbled stones look like? I haven't got any pics yet, eventhough it was weeks ago since they were finished. The reason is mostly that we've done other things and then it's been about deciding which beads we want to keep matte and which ones we want to give more of a high polish. Besides, it was our first try so the stones aren't perfect in any way.

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PS! The flint pendant you found in this post isn't made by me or anything like that. The flint does however come from my grandparents' fields and has been cut and polished by a lapidary hobbyist nearby.

Afghanistan jade

I did some accidental bead shopping in Helsingborg yesterday. In an effort not to begin calculating how much I spent I'm going to talk about something completely different.

This is afghanistan jade. Like many other "jades" it's not actual jadeite or nephrite, but a fancy stone called jade. According to Wikipedia, the reason for this is that the Chinese and Koreans use the same word for jade as for pretty/decorative stones in general. That is, anything fit for jewellery is "jade", or yu. Just using the word yu does not on it's own signal true jade, zhen yu, but if translated to English, the word for yu is jade. I don't really speak a word of Mandarin or Cantonese so I'll just trust the sources about this, but I have seen some Chinese auction listings that hint towards this being a factual source of confusion. (I also think it's an important story that can reflect that there are many reason a stone is called by a descriptive name, it's not just always that the seller is trying to scam someone as some people sadly seem to believe.)



Afghanistan jade is not the same as afghan jade, which is serpentine, according to the seller who says that the stone is most likely a dyed calcite or limestone [source]. In fact, unlike Afghan jade, Afghanistan jade doesn't even come from the country it's named after. I wasn't planning on buying this stone. I hadn't even seen it in the shop prior to placing my order, but then I saw it and thought it was pretty. The price was very reasonable so of cause I had to buy a strand.


I'm glad I did because these beads are very pretty with a lovely fresh green colour. A sweet colour that makes you smile. The beads are not uniform in appearance: the colour is very even, but there are natural variations in the stone. Most beads are slightly transparent while some are fully opaque. Some beads show lighter banding and a handful have light brown/taupe flecks. About three beads or so are half sand brown, half green. I'll probably cull those and use the all-green beads in one design and the sand/green beads in another: sometimes it's nice with colour variations, but sometimes I like a more uniform colour.


(That last pic is taken in strong sunshine: hard not to get all the colour washed out, but I think you can see the difference in opacity more easily in this photo.)

A bead orchid

This little "orchid" is a bead photo I made for a post, referring to a blogger, Jean Campbell, writing about a slightly different way of utilizing the "powers" stones are said to have according to crystal therapists and new age people. The blog post that inspired this photo can be found at Beading Daily. The bead combon shown in the pic is one she calls "Honey, I just crashed the car" with garnet for protection, rose quartz for acceptance of self and peridot to heal marital relationships.

It's not the world's greatest bead photo. I just wanted to show it as some sort of inspiration for what you can do with a handful of beads and a camera. To begin with I just wanted to arrange the beads in a pleasing way, choosing the beads for the material rather than shapes that would go well together, but soon it morphed into a flower. I didn't see it until I had the camera in front of me and had already snapped a few pics...

Natural MOP goes with...

As a newbie I once bought some round naturally beige mother-of-pearl beads. Something I shouldn't have because I soon realised I didn't have anything to go with them. Nothing seemed to match both the colour and shine. They ended up on the bottom of a bead box. Soon I got the same problem with tiger eye beads. I've never bought much tiger eye, except some dark red beads, since.

This winter I got some tiger eye chips in my advent calendar and this time I think I have found a match. Both for the chips I just got and those MOP beads that have just been laying around for ever. Mix two "problem beads" and problem solved. Now I just have to figure out what other colours -- if any -- I want to add. Must say the beads look better together IRL than on photo. Think I got the stone beads a tad too dark.

I actually did buy some more natural MOP. A pair of dragon pendants, half-drilled. I can't resist dragons, even if they're in a colour or material I've had problems using before! Maybe I'll use this cute fellow with my new bead mix, but I'm not sure yet. He seems to like the beads, though.

Heat-treating tiger's eye in my oven

OK, not only to I torture my beads by crackling them, I also put tiger's eye in the oven to colour it. I've been aware for a long time that red and blue tiger's eye beads are heat-treated, but it wasn't until a beader at Pärlplatsen, a Swedish beading forum, brought up the subject that I felt an urge to test this myself. She in turn had gotten the tip to put here brownish tiger eye in a regular oven at maximum temperature from a stone and bead shop in Stockholm.

She heated the stones for an hour in her first try, I didn't really have the patience to wait that long. But still I got some nice results in the two sessions I did. I put the stones into the oven when it was cold and also let them slowly cool down before removing them from it after I had turned it off. So that I wouldn't get unfortunate results similar to my crackled beads...

I think I could get even better results if I had had more time, but I'm still pretty pleased with how some of the stones turned out. At the photo above you can see three tiger's eye pieces. The one on the left is unheated (by me at least). The stone in the middle took on a dark caramel tone that I like and the stone on the right, which was in the oven longer, became more reddish brown.

I also had a pair of stones in red tiger's eye. On was not the prettiest of stones and the other was a broken 16 mm round bead. Both I was willing to sacrifice. It's not easy to see much of a difference in the photo below, but they did change a bit (bead in the middle is for reference and untreated by me). The stone was heated the longest and turned a brownish purple, but also the streaks became lighter and much more visible. The bead is just a darker version of the untreated one.


I just put my stones and beads in the oven on a pan or aluminium foil, but after researching online I found a bit more "advanced" methods that used clean fine silica sand to embed the tiger's eye, thus keeping them from heating up and cooling down too fast. I did not heat my beads for such a long time as in the instructions I found online, nor did I let it cool down for so long, but on the other hand it is adapted for larger slabs of rock. Those instructions I came across can be found here.

Crackling stone beads and glass pebbles

As usual I was online googling something from my bead blog when I stumbled over something else. That time it was FireNFusion's How to Make Fried Marble Necklaces (in the oven), that caught my eye. After reading that I felt like trying to find some of my old glass marbles, but failing that I had to use the second best, glass pebbles originally intended for flower arrangement but also useful to make beaded bezels for.

(Bead in the middle not crackled, used as reference.)

Then I began thinking of crackled quartz, glass beads and fired agate so I got out a few beads I felt I could afford to lose (the process is rather tough, not all beads survive and some don't crackle "the right way". My czech glass beads and glass mosaic didn't crackle at all. In the end, they got a few miniscule cracks -- which broke the bead when I put pressure on it. Too hard or well annealed perhaps? But I got some nice crackling on my "smoke" quartz (which lost its colour) and the agates. The somewhat opaque rose quartz did crackle, but the lines don't show up very well.


I know this is bead torture, but it's really fun. And I haven't broken that many of the sacrificed beads yet.

PS! Crackling means making actual cracks in the beads. It can make them very prone to breakage sometimes.