November Reveal for Echo Creative Club

Welcome to my reveal for the Echo Creative Club November Blog Hop.  I was so excited when I opened the package from Jeannie Dukic (Jewelry by Jeannie) and found this pretty curly pink and gold paisley and pink button inside.

As you can see, I pulled a lot of beads and wire out to work with. Pink is not a color I work with very often, so that added to the challenge.  

I love the delicate look of the paisley and didn't want it to be overpowered by any stones or beads. In the end, after a lot of experimenting I decided to create a viking knit necklace to hag the paisley from.  I sewed tiny pink freshwater pearls to the  length of the viking knit. I created two brass wire connectors that mimicked the genera shape of the paisley and wrapped those in the pink freshwater pearls. 

One of the connectors is also part of the clasp - the pink button fits perfectly into it.

My sister has already claimed the necklace - because she "has the perfect sweater to wear it with". Well, it DOES make the perfect birthday gift!

Please check out the other blog entries for this months Echo Creative Club:

Alicia Marinache http://www.allprettythings.ca/

Jeannie K Dukic http://site.jkdjewelry.com/blog

Kristen Stevens  http://kristen-beadjourney.blogspot.com/

Another experiment.......

Not too long ago, I bought a wooden doming block (from Magpie Gemstones, of course!) because I like the look of domed, curved metal - and to tell the truth, a new tool is always a great thing!
I had some old pennies (the pennies from 1982 and earlier are the ones to use, those minted after are only a covering of copper over a base of zinc) so I started with those. I found some information on the internet to guide me along on this journey, and got to work.
I found out soon enough that the lip along the outside of the penny is heavy and although not a seam, it is thicker at the edge - and so because my doming block is wood, it created ridges in the curves and now my curves have dents. Will definitely have to upgrade to a metal one to do more pennies.

I also experimented, using other things to pound with besides the wooden punches that come with it - they work great but I was just looking for some other tools that I could use. I found a couple of bolts with round smooth heads, one was about 12mm and the other one was about 20mm. I used the bolts on some pennies instead of the wooden punches and, as you would suspect, using the steel bolt as a punch worked oh so much faster than using the wood. So I found two 1963 pennies, domed them, drilled a hole through each one, wired up some freshwater pearls and some green stone (I got them from Magpie Gemstones - I am not sure what the stone is I got it in a multi-stone rondelle strand) and then crafted a sterling silver (with a coil of thin copper wire) earwire and, there you go............"My Two Cents"!!!!!!!!!!