Indigoskye Bead Fashions

Over a year ago, my friend Derek Andrews created “The Carnival of the Creators” back when blog carnivals were not all that common.  His idea was to develop a carnival that would promote artists and their artwork.  I am hosting the carnival this month and below are several submissions by various creative people for your view.  I hope you enjoy them!

Interior Designer Mark Cutler presents us with Voices of Design: Richard Johnson an interview with an interior decorator posted at Mark Culter Design.

Recently, I created a poker champion bracelet that served as a trophy in a local poker tournament. I normally do not create jewelry for men, so this project was quite a challenge to me. I am available to make champion bracelets for other events, please feel free to email me for details.

This bracelet is 8 1/2 inches in length and is made of solid sterling silver. The chain is 8mm wide and is a handwoven “Queen’s Link” chainmaile pattern made entirely from jumprings. The centerpiece was cut from sterling silver sheet, handstamped with the name of the event and the year and then joined to the chain via 16 gauge jumprings. The clasp is a large lobster claw that lends a more masculine appeal to the bracelet. The entire piece was tumble polished to give it a lustrous shine.

Years ago, I developed a style of delica earrings that I affectionately called “pompom earrings”.  The fringe pattern was based on the pompom of a knit cap from a standard earring pattern.  Not only did this earring have an unusual fringe, but I also worked on the “innards” to make the interior as sturdy as any of my metal and stone earrings.

My friends asked me to create a tutorial for these earrings that I’ve sold in my booth for years.  This month, I gave my friend Cyndi permission to reprint that tutorial on her blog Bead Arts.  I hope you’ll stop by and take a look at the tutorial.

One of the new wire wrap designs that I did for my booth last fall was a neckpiece/collar design that I discovered in Step by Step Wire. I used the tutorial as a starting point and then went on to use my own materials and created a series of necklaces that were unique to me.

The double drilled carnelian stones were the first challenge of this project. The holes were too small for the thicker gauge of wire that I was using for the frame of the neckpiece. Since they are the supports of the collar, the wire absolutely had to go through the stones. I ended up using my dremel with new diamond bits for it and teach myself how to drill stones. After many false starts, I figured out a technique of drilling the stones under water that worked quickly and prevented the stones from cracking. Once the torque was wrapped and the ends hammered, I made a byzantine chain for the necklace and a big loop, hammered clasp to finish it. The necklace is 18″ in length, but can be shortened to choker length. The carnelian stones have agate banding in the large focal beads and are a tomato red hue.

Update: This item has sold.  Thank you!

This past winter, I’ve been experimenting with new wire wrapping techniques that feature twisting of very fine sterling silver wire around stone beads to create an interesting bezel effect.

These earrings feature a pair of 25mm aventurine pi stones with black onyx accent beads that have been wrapped with fine gauge wire and tiny hill tribe silver beads. The look is classic, yet different enough to turn heads. I will be featuring many more of this style of earrings in my booth this spring along with similar style pendants.

Update: This item has sold.  Thank you.

Back in 1997, I wrote an article about how to do simple beadweaving on a loom. This is a simple tutorial on how to make a bracelet or headband on a little “indian loom” that you can find in any craft store. My friend, Cyndi Lavin, has republished this article in her blog Bead Arts. You can see it here.

I personally have made dozens of bracelets and a lovely turquoise and ivory hat band that I wear in the summer time when I want a bit of extra color on my sunhat. If you are interested in trying to weave beads, but was not sure how to get started, please visit my tutorial today.

Cyndi Lavin was gracious enough to give me an artist profile on her new Bead Arts blog.

Wendy Van Camp’s Artist Profile

A little about Cyndi Lavin:

Cyndi is a mixed-media artist living and playing in central Massachusetts. She is completely convinced that life and art are intertwined. Every person is a work of art, designed to be a creative being, and life consists largely of discovering the things that he or she was meant to create.

I took workshop with Connie Fox yesterday and I thought that I’d share a few of the earrings that I made via techniques inspired by her class. This is my second workshop with Connie. It is such a genuine pleasure to learn from a giving and gifted instructor. I’m grateful for the opportunity to study with her.

Education as an artist is something that I didn’t value during the first eight or nine years that I was in business. I felt that being self-taught was more important in order to develop your own unique style. While I still feel that it is important to have your own voice as an artist, I’m starting to realize the value in learning from others. I no longer reinvent the wheel when I attempt new techniques and at a class I’m able to meet with other like minded artists and gain more understanding of the medium.

The earrings on the far left are turquoise and bali spacers. The hammered sterling station is the “eyelet” pattern that I learned in the class. The earrings are hammered french hooks. The earrings at the top have a handmade cone earwires in sterling silver with african turquoise coin shaped beads dangling below. Finally, the all sterling earrings are a combination of the cone shape and coiled swans. Learning how to create a loose enough coil to hammer after coiling was very interesting. I love the little swan hooks too.

Earrings similar to these will be part of the new line of jewelry to be found in my booth this coming spring. I’ll have them in a wide assortment of stone choices. For those of you that request copper earwires, I will try and stock a few of the new earwire shapes in that metal. Please feel free to ask me about them while you visit my booth.

Whew! I think that 2006 had to be my busiest year in business to date. I did far more venues than I’m used to and was happy to see most of my jewelry find new homes with my customers. What I have left I’m going to be photographing and popping up into my esty store which can be found at the link in the topbar of this blog. My art prints are available there as well.

2007 is going to be the year of changes for my jewelery business. I’m going to continue to do many of the new venues that I started this past year and I’ve earmarked one or two new venues to add to my schedule this year that should be plenty of fun. You’ll be able to see where my booth will be in the “event” section of my blog. Just press on the link and all the shows will be listed as they approach on the calendar. Venues for 2007 will start to be listed there as my confirmations come in.

Another change this year is that I’m currently in the process of setting up a new area in my studio to do metalsmithing. While I don’t expect to have anything of a gallery quality to showcase this year, I am hoping to have sterling and stone rings, pendants and earrings to add to my usual wire wrapped work possibly in late spring. I’ve been growing fascinated with hot metal and all the fun things that you can do to it with a torch. I’m not sure where my inner muse will take me, but it is going to be an adventure.

Despite being swamped with work due to the time of year, I decided to participate in a group necklace project slated to be sent in to the Belle Amorie contest that has a deadline in Feburary.  Our group decided to have an autumn theme to our work, with the ruddy hue of copper being one of the chosen colors.  The ladies of the group are all members of “Jewelryhaven” one of the many jewelry themes yahoogroups here on the net.

I was uncertain what to make as my contribution, but I decided to make up some leaf shaped frames in copper and then to embellish them with a thinner gauge of wire and a swirl to give them more substance.  Each charm is 1 1/2 inches long and about 1 inch wide.  The frame is made of 16g copper wire that has been either coiled or hammered and the interior is wirewrapped 24g copper wire.  Everything has been tumbled to work harden the wires and make them nice and shiny.