And Happy New Year!

So long!

We're off to visit our son in Guatemala next week! I'll see you when we get back :-)

Don't forget to watch Nate's "home video" if you want to see what he's been doing...sort of!

Locks of Love

For the second time now, my daughter Dani has gotten her long hair cut off to donate to Locks of Love. Originally we were told that the hair had to be at least 10 inches long to donate, but it turns out that they actually will take any reasonable amount of hair, and if it's not long enough for LOL to use it directly themselves, they will sell it to other wig manufacturers. Either way, they benefit!
Locks of Love provides hairpieces to financially disadvantaged children who have the need because of any long-term medical need.

Dani's hair grows incredibly fast, so she was able to donate two years in a row.

Two handmade necklaces return home!

Handmade beaded necklaces

Floral Fantasy

Cave Paintings 2

Instructions and step-by-step photos for making both of these necklaces are in the current issue of Jewelry Crafts Magazine (Jan/Feb 2007).

Floral Fantasy is a really fun piece that's a lot faster to make than it looks like. It uses bead embroidery techniques, but because they're worked dimensionally around a shell piece with holes drilled in it, you can stitch it up much faster than most handmade bead embroidered necklaces.

Cave Paintings 2 uses handmade sand casted African trade beads, but any large roughly finished beads will do. These are mixed with brass dog tags that have cave paintings from Lascaux France applied to them.

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Trials of a Missionary Life

My son Nate shares what a typical day is like for a missionary to a children's home in Guatemala.

Making a mixed media necklace from piano ivories

Andante

When my husband began restoring an old player piano, I became interested in all of the hundreds of pieces that needed to be cleaned, repaired, and replaced. The old ivory keys especially caught my attention, particularly when I thought about the elephants that were destroyed to create these beautiful objects. Why is it that so often beauty and destruction, delight and tragedy are so closely intertwined?

The only ivory that it is currently legal to use in the United States is old recycled ivory or ancient fossilized ivory. The keys dangling from Andante are authentic ~ antique ivory that has been reclaimed and recycled from pianos that were otherwise destined for the junk heap. I chose the name Andante, a musical term, to signify the stately (and perhaps melancholy?) pace of the elephants that became part of the heritage of the piano.

The main strand of the necklace is strung white bamboo coral, carnelian, and agate, all of which have an earthy glow that complements the patina of the ivory. The central portion is wired links of horn, another organic material that blends nicely into the color palette. The keys were drilled, and then attached to the horn links by means of sterling silver wire work, using only hand tools. A selection of stone beads and Bali sterling silver beads that are wired to the ivory keys create continuity with the rest of the necklace.

Metals:
64 inches 20 gauge SS half-hard wire
SS french wire, headpins, crimps, crimp covers, chain, cones, hook, and beads (see below)

Beads:
44 carnelian, 6 mm rondelles
17 white bamboo coral, 8 mm rondelles
11 agate, 10 mm rounds
11 white bamboo coral, 10 mm rondelles
17 sterling silver, 3 mm rounds
23 Bali sterling silver, 6 mm daisy spacers
4 sterling silver drops, 9 mm
8 Bali sterling silver beads, assorted

Misc materials:
22 recycled antique ivory piano keys
5 horn rings, 25 mm
16 inches SoftFlex beading wire

Standard tools:
Wire cutters, round nose pliers, chain nose pliers, small file

Figure 1

Figure 2

1. Wire 5 horn rings together with headpins. Insert the headpins from the center of the rings outward through a small white bamboo coral bead and a small carnelian bead (figure 1). Make wrapped loops to hook all of them together (figure 2).

Figure 3

2. Crimp a piece of beading wire to each end, using French wire bullion to cover the wires, and crimp cover to hide the crimps. String a pleasing pattern of white bamboo coral, carnelian, agate, and Bali sterling silver beads to complete the strand (figure 3).

Figure 4

Figure 5

3. Crimp the free end of the beading wire to a 3 inch piece of 20 gauge sterling silver wire, looped at the bottom (figure 4). Pass the wire through a cone and a few beads, and make a wrapped loop around a hook on one end and a chain on the other. Add a beaded dangle to the free end of the chain (figure 5).

4. Drill small holes through the ends of 11 piano key tails and 11 piano key heads.

Figure 6

5. Using 20 gauge sterling silver wire, make large looped hooks to attach the long tails to the horn rings (figure 6).

6. Use more 20 gauge sterling silver wire to attach the shorter heads to the tails. Add beads randomly and creatively, looping and spiraling some of the wires for more variety.

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Copyright 2006 Cyndi Lavin. Not to be reprinted, resold, or redistributed for profit. May be printed out for personal use or distributed electronically provided that entire file, including this notice, remains intact.

Creative resolutions

I recently posted on my mixed media art blog about running across some wonderful articles on creativity. Well, I just found yet another, and the focus of this one is to make sure your creative resolutions stick! So I thought I'd share these links with you. As we come galloping up to the New Year, it just seems like (one of the) perfect times to pause and set goals. Actually, I sit down and concentrate of goal setting three times a year (January, May, and September), but January is my biggie. I'm a sucker for tradition :-)

Creativity. We could all use more.
Your creative resolutions

Handmade necklace with polyclay frames

"Framed"

Make-Art Monday was in full swing today! I came up with the idea for this necklace...where else?...in the shower a few days ago. So this morning I was finally able to get down to business. It worked out exactly the way I was hoping. That might even be a first!

Before it was even finished I began to write it up to send to Jewelry Crafts Magazine.

We're leaving for the airport very soon now. I don't expect to get too much more done this week, so I'm relieved that this project went so well :-)

See you soon!

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Midnight trip to the airport!

Nate is flying in from Guatemala today...or is that tonight? I guess it's really tonight or very very early tomorrow morning! Fortunately, Dani will be driving herself home sometime tomorrow after her last final.

Mike and I might also be making another trip to the airport tomorrow to pick up Nate's lady friend if she is able to join us. I guess we won't know about that for sure until we pick him up tonight... Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of "Logan's Run", also known as "Mike and Cyndi run to Logan Airport" :-)

Another copper and turquoise beaded necklace

The other day I shared a handmade beaded necklace of copper and turquoise. Now there's a new one! I stamped the copper discs with a crackle-patterned stamp to give them a more textured look.

Copper & Turquoise 2

Maybe you're wondering why I got on the copper kick. When my beaded bracelet won second place in the Fire Mountain Gems and Beads beading contest, I received a gift certificate from the company. I decided to spend it on products that were new to me. Since I mostly work with sterling silver and vermeil, copper seemed like an interesting change.

But that's not the only new product I bought. Stay tuned throughout the new year: there are many new mixed media jewelry projects ahead!


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The holiday issue of Jewelry Crafts Magazine...

...has three of my projects. The three projects that I put together while sitting directly in front of the air conditioner in July LOL!!

Here's the big one:

Flurry

The other two projects are smaller: earrings for Hanukkah and Christmas tree pendants made from circuit board!

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The Two Fridas

I received a request for two pendants made to honor Frida Kahlo. These heads both came from the same painting, The Two Fridas. The strong images and saturated colors came out quite well!


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Carnival of the Creators!

My friend Amy at Exalted Beauty is hosting this month's Carnival of the Creators! I can't believe the line-up she's assembled and all the different categories of submissions she received this month. It's absolutely amazing!

There's the usual list of projects to ogle and to try yourself, but there are also some posts on creativity and what to do when you decide to take a creative break! Visit the Carnival...you won't be sorry :-)



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Copper and turquoise beaded necklace

Copper & Turquoise Necklace

So, I've finished this piece too, and it's a really lo-o-o-o-ong one! When a piece is going to be heavy, I often end up making it longer in order to balance and distribute the weight better. This one adjusts from 27 to 30 inches!

I haven't worked with copper before, so it was a bit of a surprise to me just how hard a material it is. I mean, I guess I should have known that from occasionally having to cut through copper pipes, but I just really didn't think about it. Do yourself a favor if you decide to work with copper findings...make sure you have two pair of chain nose pliers and save the wear and tear on your poor fingers! It is considerably harder than an equal gauge of sterling silver.

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Handmade beaded necklace with a floral medallion

It's finished it's finished it's finished!!

Handmade beaded necklace...with no name yet

Now it just needs a name...and all suggestions are welcome!

You know how pathetic I am at thinking up names for my pieces, so once more I'm asking for help! My friend Amy's floral medallion should figure prominently in the name, I'm thinking. There's freeform peyote stitch on a hammered silver armature, and the accompanying necklace strap has a toggle closure so that it can be worn without the centerpiece as well.

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Some new digital art work too

Daylight Fades

Since I've been spending a lot of time not doing the things I'm supposed to be doing, I've found I have more time to do lots of other things. Did I say that right?

Daylight Fades is a digital art collage, a composite of a handpainted background with a couple of my photographs.

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Copper and turquoise beaded necklace

I know you're really not supposed to start new projects until you've finished your old ones, but...

OK, I couldn't help it! I got a load of beads yesterday, my "pay-off" from Fire Mountain Gems and Beads for the bracelet that I sent them. I got it into my head that I'd like to try working with copper, and the next thing I knew, I had compiled an order of almost exclusively copper and turquoise.

So of course, as soon as it came in, the other projects on the table (rather, in their respective baskets) got pushed aside and out came the new toys!


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The beaded centerpiece for necklace is finished!

Amy's medallion arrived in the mail the other day, so everything else got thrown aside in my excitement! Here's what the centerpiece looks like now:

I hope you'll agree that we picked the right medallion. There were so many gorgeous ones to choose from. You can find the rest of them still pictured on Amy's blog, Exalted Beauty. I'm not sure how many of them are already sold, but I know Amy's been gearing up for the holidays and doing a lot of parties, so contact her quick if you want one of these!


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Beaded snowflakes

Don't forget about jewelry for your tree! Beadshop.com has instructions on how to make wonderful beaded snowflakes for your tree, using the simple wire forms that they sell. They come in a pack of 8 for just under $4. Can't beat that! There's no reason that you couldn't attach a loop to the top and string 'em up to wear too :-)

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Pearls, pearls, pearls!

Fire Mountain Gems has placed the video from their PBS special online so you can watch it if you missed the series! They have also added a lot of interesting information on the history, quality, and care of pearls.



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The secrets of good design

Lapidary Journal has a really good article online called "Common Questions on Design". I highly recommend reading it. Sara Sanford has covered a lot of ground here that I encounter people asking every day: what makes a good idea? where do they come from? how do I move them from idea to reality?



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Carnival of Jewelry Design

Metal clay and bead bracelet by Lynn!

Adornments by Lynn is hosting a Carnival of Jewelry Design today. I kinda hogged it, but there's lots of other neat stuff to see. Check out Lynn's gallery while you're there!

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A brilliant idea for jewelry display

I love this idea! It is shared by Carolina, of NeoVamp jewelry. She has transformed the idea of the simple necklace bust into something that's a work of art on its own! Here's the directions for how to make your own stunning jewelry display piece.

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