Leather....

I have been conducting experiments of the leather variety trying to come up with a bracelet design that I just love. 

Sample 1:

 This is my first try.  I made it to close at 7 1/2" and 8 1/2".  I had thought that making it versatile would be good, but on second thought I think they should be made as close to the actual wrist size as possible.  I can live with the doubled up section, but I'm not really loving it. 

I have always been particular about my bracelets.  I like them to fit not tight, but not loose. The 7 1/2" closure works perfectly for me. 

I also think the snaps would fit a bit better if the beaded border wasn't there.

Overall, the design is a keeper.  I've been wearing it all day and love it more and more.  I just need to make a few adjustments here and there.  I'm also considering making it more like a bangle bracelet.  I'm thinking I could let it dry on my bracelet mandrel after stamping it, and it should retain the round shape.  We shall see.  More experiments to come.  Give me some feedback please!  What do you all think? 

And..  I finished the rugged little leather butterflies.  I picked these up off of the clearance table when I went to Tandy a couple of weeks ago.  I could not love them more!  These are perfect for summer.  I picture them with sundresses!  :-)

Rugged Butterfly with Turquoise

Snow White & Rose Red ~ Fresh Water Pearl and Ruby

Buttercup ~ Carnelian and Calcite

Bluebell ~ Lapis and Kyanite

These have all fluttered into my Etsy Shop.  And they are included in my 20% off sale.  The prices may not be updated yet.  I am trying out Etsy on Sale, and it is supposed to update my new listings to be included in the sale. 

That's it for me today!  See you all again soon...  :-)

New goodies to play with!

Does anyone else get excited over supplies?  I do.  I had to go to Tandy Leather today to get some supplies for a project for my daughter's religious ed. class.  And of course I had to pick myself up a few things.....

 Summer is just around the corner, and summer means leather bracelets.  With metal.  and stones.  :-) There was a discontinued items sale table, and I picked up a couple of new stamps and the little butterflies too!  I think I'm going to make some earrings with them....  The alphabet stamp set I've been wanting for awhile now.  I'm going to start with making some bracelets for my sister and a friend.  I just adore the font. 

Then I had to go to the bead store.  I probably only buy about 30% of my materials in person, so my trips to the bead store are few and far between.  I found this great wooden hoop mandrel, just in time too as my daughter wants me to make some earrings for her teacher's birthday. 

What I went to the store for was seed beads.  This particular store has all kinds of colors, sizes, finishes, etc to choose from.  I wanted bright colors for Spring and Summer.  I think some plain seed bead necklaces will look faboo with the charms I've been making lately, so I'm going to make some up and add them to the Charm Shoppe.

Well, I've been running around all morning.  I'm off to my shop to see if I can't work on a little something before it's time to pick up the kidlets.  Have a great day all!

Basket weave...

I got a basket weave stamp for leather on Monday, and haven't stopped basket weaving since.

So.  Much.  Fun!!

It's time to start stocking up for the art show in October at my church! 

Have a good day all...

The key fob obsession continues....

 This is the Savannah pattern I told you about earlier...

And this... is a Tudor Rose!  I think this is my best tooling so far....  I took a pic before I antique it because I know the colors will change some, and with my limited experience,  I can't quite predict how it will turn out.  I love how it looks now...

Getting to know.....Leather

Just finished this morning, and they are all ready to fly to the fabulous women in my life who just happen to also be Mothers.  

Working with leather has been a bit of a sanity break for me.  

I have not sat down to work at my bench in over a week.  The full 2 weeks before that I was having bad dreams about metal working.  

I don't know why for certain.  I think it had a bit to do with trying to sort out where I was headed in working with silver.  The rapidly rising cost of silver really threw me for a loop.  

I can't lie.  

I don't even know what led me to working with leather.  All I know is late one night I was lying in bed surfing around the net and somehow landed on a leather site that sold beginners leather kits.  

I thought, why not?  

I've told you guys before that I'm a craft jumper right?  :)

I never used to think so, but I'm pretty sure I must have some form of ADD.  Things pique my interest, and I dive in.  The bad thing, is once I have them figured out, I tend to lose interest.

I'm not giving up metal.  I do love it.  And I have more invested in it than I have ever invested in any craft.  

But I also don't want to limit my creative flow.  I want the freedom to follow wherever that creative path wants to go.  

We received some bad news yesterday.  My cousin Anna passed away at the age of 28.  She had health problems all her life, but she was the sweetest, kindest, most gentle person I've ever known.  She lived her life knowing that she would never have the things other women have.  A husband, children, a home of her own....yet she seemed content and touched all of us right to the core of our hearts.  I will miss her greatly.  

My heart hurts, and hurts even more that I can't be in Nevada with my family.  I'll miss you Anna....

What I've been up to...

I'm not even stopping to take a proper photo!  I took this one with my iPhone, and it's not the best, but does give you an idea of what I've been playing with.

Dear Leather, 

I think I love you...

You are so much fun to carve, and stamp, to dye, and paint, and stain....

You are easy to work with, but not so easy that you don't challenge me.

I hope to get to know you better!  :)

Tooling leather, the carving and stamping feels so familiar.  So much like stamping metal, but yet so different at the same time.  

The results come much more quickly (at least in a project the size of a Key Fob), and I am finding leather working immensely satisfying.

Look out everyone who knows me!  Chances are gifts coming your way will be in the form of leather key fobs.  

I bought a pack of 25 pre cut key fobs and I am just getting warmed up.  

With the help of my husband, I even re-arranged my whole studio to add a leather table.  Woo Hoo!  

Have a great week everyone!  I'm going to try to force myself away from the leather table and get to the bench to play with some metal and stones this week.  Maybe tomorrow ;)

Midnight Iris

I have several things on my bench right now that I am in the process of putting the final touches on. It just seems that every day life always cuts into my working time.... I did manage to get this fleur de lis design finished up. Irises are my favorite flowers, and I have always loved the stylized fleur de lis. When I got this piece of labradorite with the most beautiful blue flash, I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it. I hope to re visit this design again in the future. I'm offering it as a custom sized ring, and it is already listed in the shop.

In other business related news, I dropped my pro status at ArtFire for AmyNicole. I try my hardest not to put any negativity or drama out into the world, especially when it is associated with my business. So, all I will say is that I couldn't justify keeping the shop. I've been there since September of 2009. No sales at all... ArtFire tries really hard. They are great about helping their sellers in any way they can. They are on top of everything it seems...answer questions uber quick, keeping the resellers out. You know all the things that people complain that Etsy doesn't do..... But if they aren't drawing the buyer traffic, all that other stuff doesn't really seem to matter as much. It makes me a little sad, I really wanted it to work out. I am going to keep RubyMtnBeads there for the time being though.

I guess I have more business news than I thought! I just remembered I need to tell you guys how I'm all official and stuff now. Which also means that I have to collect sales tax on sales I make in Texas. I had been putting this off (as usual), thinking it was going to be a real pain in the butt to get it handled. I even looked into LegalZoom at one point to get them to handle it. But it was going to be $ 200. $200?? I can buy a lot of goodies to play with for that!!! I mentioned this to a friend who has a business in the arts, and she told me that I was crazy. I could do all that stuff myself for free. And she was right. All it cost me was the stamp to mail in the signature forms. And it took less than 30 minutes to fill out all the forms on line. Sweet...

Is it just me? Or is summer the perfect time of year to strap leather and beads to your wrist, wear it day in and day out, removing it only to shower, or jump in the pool? The feel of leather on my wrist takes me back to summers of my youth when I did just that. Actually, I don't think I took them off even in water. Just wore it until it was worn out.

I started playing with leather, I guess about a month ago. Seeing if I still remembered how to knot it, tie it. I was digging around in one of my old buckets of junk, and I found the center part of this bracelet that I had made at least 10 years ago. Hematite and Red Poppy Jasper. I decided that it needed a little something, so I Lashed it to black greek leather, and then I made a little hammered fine silver button for the closure. Since the woven beads were already made, it determined the size of the bracelet for me. It is a size large, and already listed in the shop as well... I definitely have more plans to play with leather, I'm really having fun with it!

Well, I guess I better get on with my day! Hope yours is wonderful! :)

TGIF!

These purply blossoms bloom in our front yard every year. They are my absolute favorites, they attract every butterfly from miles around. Or perhaps it just seems that way. I don't know what kind of butterfly this is, but we get these visitors every year as well. I love the dots of blue and orange against black wings.

TGIF!! I love Friday. It always has such a good feeling for me. I always try to cut myself a little slack on Fridays when we don't have anything that we have to do. Since I like to run errands on Friday, it is also the perfect excuse to do a little shopping as well. Nothing big slated for today. I've bribed the girls into cleaning their play room, so that will involve a little trip to the toy store. They want some little animals that move around like the Zhou Zhou hamsters. It really is a rare treat for them to get to go to the toy store for themselves. I'm usually more likely to talk them into getting books or art and craft stuff.

I need to hit Target for some essentials, and Central Market since I'm out of my very favorite Brown Cow blueberry yogurt. Probably should get ribs for the 4th of July cook out. Nothing too exciting today, but it does feel good to get out and about....

I'm working on a fleur de lis ring. At least I think it will be a ring. Or perhaps a pendant. We shall see. I also ordered some lovely greek leather that came in yesterday. The first time I saw "Greek Leather" being advertised like it was something really great, I thought "What, Greek cows are better than American cows or what?" And then I bought some leather cord from Tandy Leather.

Now mind you, Tandy has some great products. The store I went to in Ft. Worth didn't have the best selection, and they only had the 1 mm leather cord. I found out later that the reason everyone loves the Greek Leather is because it is stronger. Yeah, I kinda found that out the hard way....and, that 1 mm cord is just too thin. But, live and learn. So, anyway, this Greek Leather is wonderful. I'm hoping to get a chance to work with it this weekend. I have bracelet and necklace designs floating around in my head.

Well, I hope you all enjoy this lovely Friday, I sure plan to!

A few newies..

Something new for summer! I've been wanting to combine leather and metal, and here is my first offering. Another first for me in this bracelet is the PMC butterfly.

For those of you who don't know, PMC stands for Precious Metal Clay. When fired, it turns into solid .999 fine silver. I've been having a lot of fun playing with it and trying to get to know it better. It can be a little finicky, likes to be handled just right, but I think I am starting to get the hang of it.

I've made a couple more pieces using PMC....


I was able to combine the fine silver pieces with sterling in both of these pieces...I read somewhere that you either hate PMC, or love it, and I would have to say I LOVE it!!! So expensive though...but aren't all precious metals these days? So, as you can see, I am experimenting with textures, and am really loving it.

I am forcing myself to try something new....I am usually bothered greatly by lack of symmetry in my designs, I like everything to be just so....but there is beauty in imperfection...after all, nothing is perfect is it? It is a lesson for me in letting go, creating without constraint, so... Viva la Rustica! I'm hoping to create some additional rustic designs, as you can see, I'm starting out very simply....

The butterfly bracelet, and both of the little heart rings have my "rustic" elements in them...well, rustic for me anyway....:)

And because I can't step too far away from refined, I also made this beauty...

Featuring a vintage West German plastic cab that I coated in resin for durability and shine. I'm also loving the double band on the ring shank. I just love the pattern in this cab... I have several other vintage cabs that I have plans for if I can ever get around to it!


Lastly, a custom order. I had a lovely customer request my Sleeping Beauty's Rose Wreath ring with roses on the band. Truth be told, it scared me a little to attempt it, but was so glad I did! The band turned out beautifully, and I am thankful to my customer for suggesting it, I just may have to incorporate the idea into other designs!

Everything will be listed in the shop as time permits. Right now, I have housework that needs to be done.

The first official day of summer was just this week, but we have been enduring 100 + degree days here for a couple of weeks. I am having a hard time adjusting to the heat. I always do. I've been tired, lethargic, wanting to do nothing but sit in a dark cool room....It's hard to want to play with fire when it is already so hot.

I've been on a tv watching jag as a result, and have been catching up on episodes of Little People Big World that I recorded last November! I love that show. After the Jon & Kate debacle, I have had a hard time watching anything on TLC...but I love the Roloff's...I hope they stay the same great family they have always been.

I've also been watching The Big Bang Theory.. Have you guys seen this show? I love it..smart, funny, Star Trek references, what more could I ask for? ;)

I hope you all have a fabulous weekend! I plan on playing more with leather and PMC, spending endless hours with the girls at the pool, and trying to stay cool!