{"id":542,"date":"2009-01-14T20:38:22","date_gmt":"2009-01-15T03:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/?p=542"},"modified":"2009-01-14T20:38:22","modified_gmt":"2009-01-15T03:38:22","slug":"new-kid-on-the-block","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/?p=542","title":{"rendered":"New kid on the block"},"content":{"rendered":"

The new kid on the block\u00a0around my little studio\u00a0is stainless steel wire<\/strong>.\u00a0 I mentioned that I wanted to try working with new<\/em> materials this year, so here’s my first step.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve long admired the time-worn jewelry style of Deryn Mentock<\/a>.\u00a0 Her\u00a0jewelry incorporates beautiful vintage pieces, “found” items, and often tell a story.\u00a0 One thing that gives her work that aged look is the annealed stainless steel wire that she uses.\u00a0 It looks like oxidized sterling silver, only darker.\u00a0 I knew I wanted to give this wire a try, and ordered a bunch of different gauges (from a hardware store online!) last year.\u00a0 Then along came this book….<\/p>\n

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A Charming Exchange <\/em>by Kelly Snelling <\/a>and Ruth Rae <\/a>is an absolute fabulous book filled with all kinds of unusual\/breathtaking jewelry projects.\u00a0 What makes this book so rich is that the pieces are all collaborations amongst various artists.\u00a0 The artists come from\u00a0varying backgrounds such as\u00a0fiber, metal-smithing or mixed media….and each add a technique or element in the process.\u00a0 When I read the very first paragraph in the Intro, I knew the book was speaking to me<\/em>….”It is late:\u00a0 The children are finally asleep, the dog has stopped his click, click, clicking behind you, and now you are alone.\u00a0 You can think.\u00a0 This is when the magic starts bubbling.”\u00a0<\/strong>Aaaah!\u00a0\u00a0My husband agreed, these words describe ME\u00a0(aka midnight beader).<\/p>\n

I poured through the projects in the book, the photographs are just beautiful.\u00a0 There are so many projects I’d like to try, and artists that are new\u00a0for\u00a0me to discover.\u00a0 I decided on a particular necklace (because yes, it involved that stainless steel wire I had ready and waiting).\u00a0 As I got started, I began to have a few questions about this new wire and contacted the stainless steel wire queen herself.\u00a0 Deryn saved me from myself saying that working with stainless steel is a “whole different animal” than sterling.\u00a0 Thinking that I could give the\u00a0finished piece an extra polish, I was planning to give it a run in my tumbler.\u00a0 \u00a0Luckily Deryn warned me against this, noting that the steel will rust if it gets wet (but\u00a0that rust could be again cleaned with sand paper)!\u00a0\u00a0 Also, the\u00a0very feel of the wire is very different, it seems much lighter and easier to bend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

My first piece from A Charming Exchange <\/em>is based on the project entitled “Nature’s Gift” by Ruth Rae, Shari Beaubien and Deryn Mentock.\u00a0 Using fibers in a necklace was certainly new for me.\u00a0 Here you’ll see I chose a yarn\u00a0in various shades of brown.<\/p>\n

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This next necklace is also an experiment in using annealed stainless steel wire.\u00a0 The etched lampwork focal is by Laurie Hyatt<\/a>.\u00a0 This is a super long one ~ 30″!\u00a0 It is great to wear over a sweater, for those of you in the bitter cold here on the East Coast.\u00a0 Alright, it may not be as cold here in VA as it is for our friends up in NY! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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There you go!\u00a0 More than you ever wanted to know about wire.\u00a0 See, I do post about jewelry every once in a while!<\/p>\n

Before I go, here’s a picture taken today of me and little Sweet Pea (P for his middle name).\u00a0 Or you can call him “chubby cheeks” as my Dad liked to call all of my guys when they were a baby.\u00a0 Sweat Pea Chubby Cheeks is already 3 months old!<\/p>\n

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The new kid on the block\u00a0around my little studio\u00a0is stainless steel wire.\u00a0 I mentioned that I wanted to try working with new materials this year, so here’s my first step.\u00a0\u00a0 I’ve long admired the time-worn jewelry style of Deryn Mentock.\u00a0 Her\u00a0jewelry incorporates beautiful vintage pieces, “found” items, and often tell a story.\u00a0 One thing that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,6,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-good-reads","category-inspiration","category-jewelry-design"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sweetbeadstudio.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}