Inspiration from Buttons

Button Bracelet

Long time no post. In fact the well of jewellery inspiration has been pretty dry for most of this year until yesterday when I took a new friend on a visit to the so called Haberdashery Souk north of Dubai Creek in Deira. Tucked away by the door of one shop I found some small bags of buttons, 10 dirhams (less than £2) acquired a bag of each. An hour or so at my workbench and I'd conjured up a pretty nautical themed bracelet in blue and cream with plenty of buttons to spare for another bracelet and or some earrings. Here's how:

You'll need a length of memory wire to fit round your wrist with 4 or 5 cm overlap, I used about one and a third loops of smaller diameter wire (31-32cm). The key to this design is that the buttons overlap whilst the wire remains hidden behind them.

Cream Shanked Buttons, Blue Flat Buttons & Memory Wire

I chose some cream buttons about 1 cm in diameter with a shank that were decorated with an anchor design. As a contrast the blue buttons are a similar size, flatter so they lie behind the shanks of the cream ones but still have the thread hole at the back. The anchor buttons had been moulded from plastic and as a result the end of the shank was a bit rough but easily filed smooth with an emery board. I used 15 contrast buttons and 14 anchor buttons, if your bracelet is smaller then fewer buttons will be required.

Bend the final end back and tuck in

Make a small loop at one end of the memory wire and starting with a contrast button, thread on alternate buttons. Check that all the anchors are facing the same way. Finish with another contrast button. Once you have all the buttons on the wire check they all lie right way up then carefully bend back the last centimetre or so ensuring that the last button is held firmly in place.Tuck the wire end into the shank of the last anchor button. All that's needed now is to slide it on your wrist and wait for the admiring glances from your friends!

Helping Hand

The non-working threads stuck down

 Don't you sometimes wish you had someone around to hold things whilst you use both hands to work on a tricky bit of jewellery?

I found myself in this situation when working on piece of bead weaving. Having created a seed bead loop to attach the threads to a pendant I needed to keep the tension on the loop whilst working on the bead weaving for one side of the necklace. My solution - stick the pair of threads that would eventually become the other side of the necklace to the worksurface.

Having adapted a project from a magazine I wasn't entirely certain how long the side I'd beaded first needed to be so, rather than finish it off with a crimp and one half of a clasp, I again resorted to sticky tape to hold the ends whilst I worked the other side. It took me a couple of tries to find the right position to stick the threads down to ensure I could comfortably work on the second part.

Once the beading was complete on both sides it was simple to hold the piece at my neck in front of a mirror and find that I needed to remove several pattern repeats to achieve the right length. I was quite relieved to have used tape rather than a crimp!

You can see the completed necklace here

Handmade Thursday

Green Glass Band

This weeks bracelet is one that has been sitting on my workbench for a while. I finished stitching the bead band last month in just a couple of days but then how to complete it? I had ideas of ornamenting the band with fringes and beaded flowers but after adding just two flowers decided I didn't want to cover up these lovely square glass beads and unpicked my additions. 

A rumage through my button box turned up the "Roman" coin, then it was just a case of creating a loop for the other end but it sat for ages while I argued with myself on whether or not to add a fringe, eventually impatience won out and I simply added the button and a loop fastner.

Seasonal Challenge

This months MJ Challenge is to produce a piece of jewellery based around the main theme of Christmas, or one of the other themes or projects in Issue 32 of the magazine. So either a unique creation, or a piece based on one of the featured projects could be entered.

I decide to mix and match basing my entry on the cross-weave technique project (MJ page 69) but using Christmassy shiney red glass beads and a rhodium plated flower pendant that looks a little like a poinsettia. By using slightly smaller beads than those originally specified the result is a open lacey collar. The interspersed seed beads are silver foil lined clear glass which just add to the sparkle. All that's needed now is an outfit to wear it with over the Christmas season!

If you'd like to enter the challenge yourself then click here for more details. It closes on November 30th, overseas entries welcome.

Handmade Thursday

I love earrings but have always shied away from making my own hooks until recently when I bought a book* offering a myriad of wire earring ideas. I own a beautiful pair of sterling silver earrings that I bought in Sweden several years ago that consist of a single wire bent in half with a loop at one end from which dangles a tiny silver ball. Inspired by them and guided by the book here are my first entirely-made-by-me earrings!

Take ten centimetres of wire, turn a tiny loop at one end, add some beads, bend the wire at right angles in the middle above the beads then use your fingers to smooth one or both sides into a pleasing curve. Finish off by carefully filing the tip of the wire smooth so it won't tear or scratch your ear.  Also ensure that the loops face the same way on each earring, I noticed when photographing this pair that mine don't quite match!

These wires are silver plate as I didn't want to waste any expensive sterling wire but I am so pleased with the result I think I now trust my self to remake them in sterling silver.




For more Handmade Thursday ideas click on the image to the right

* The book is called 101 Wire Earrings by Denise Peck and is published by Interweave ISBN: 9781596681415

Bracelet Inspiration

Pink craft wire coils made on a size 2 knitting needle,
blue glass beads and "silver" daisy spacers, 
all threaded on memory wire with a simple clasp

Reversible bracelet in right angle weave using creamy glass pearls,
green crystal rondals and gold seed beads,
overstitched with crosses in god seed beads 

Ready made caged beads joined with twisted wire jump rings
to create four circles of beads. Two circles were
placed either side of a larger bead as a focal.

A bracelet stack - four circlets of plastic beads threaded on
beading elastic with a couple of metal beads to add sparkle.

Crystal hoops - glass bicones on memory wire.
The blue and grey one also includes some African seed beads

Crystal clusters are easy to make. Thread 8 bicones onto
individual headpins and wrap a loop on top. Take 5 or 6 cm of
wire wrap a loop at one end thread on a bicone then all the
headpins top with another bicone then arrange the pins to
make the tightest possible bundle before wrapping another
loop in the open end of the wire as close to the beads as
possible.

A Small Disaster Averted

It's been a while since I made any earrings at all but recently when working on an as yet unfinished silver clay project I had a scrap of rolled out clay left. Having impressed it with a swirly texture I hand cut two tiny squares and pierced each piece of damp clay close to one corner.

Once dry the result was a bit of a disaster. Sadly I realised that the texture was somewhat marred by my pawprints! The two disappointing squares sat on my workbench accusing and challenging me everytime I sat down to work for several weeks. Silver clay is expensive and I really felt I'd wasted these particular pieces. Then inspiration struck, I could cover up the fingerprints with more clay...

Holding both dangles together I sanded their edges to ensure both pieces were a similar shape and size. Next I brushed the fronts with a little thin paste to dampen them before using a syringe to add some random squiggles to each. Once dry, torch fired and brushed, a little burnishing picked out the top layers of squiggles so they gleam when worn.

There was another small hiccup when I realised that the hole on one of the resulting dangles wasn't quite large enough all the way through for a jump ring. Twenty minutes patient work with a needle file and a beadreamer and this was soon rectified. So all in all my beginner mistakes were overcome, lessons were learnt and a potential disaster averted. And as a bonus I now have a shiney new pair of earrings to wear! I just need to practise my photography...