This has been a year full of new beginnings for our family. Two new grandsons were born and are the most beautiful, intelligent, and amazing little guys you ever saw. My hubby decided to retire a year earlier than expected and we moved into a retirement community in another state. It has been difficult to do much beading or chainmaille with all the packing and unpacking. At last we are settled in our new home and I hope to get back to work very soon. I can’t wait to start making some new pieces!

Gus

Noah

Our New Home

This year give her something unique for Christmas. I have designed a collection of chainmaille coin purses (and one beaded) that are really cute and fun. It always amazes me the way these metal bags feel so silky. All the purses are available in my Etsy shop. 

http://www.beadedbaubles.etsy.com

I’ve been making some new bracelets getting ready for Christmas. The first one is made using anodized aluminum. Aluminum is very lightweight and comes in vibrant colors. This bracelet is done in a bright turquoise color and has stainless steel trim. Two silver plated clasps make it easy to put on by yourself. I don’t think it is too feminine for a guy to wear – what do you think?

Turquoise chainmaille bracelet

 For more views of this bracelet go to my Etsy shop at: http://www.BeadedBaubles.etsy.com

The second bracelet is made using Sterling silver rings. The pattern is called HoneyBee and if you look carefully you can see the tiny little bees with their striped bodies and wings. This is really a gorgeous bracelet and a weave that is one of my favorites. The weave was designed by Legba on The Ring Lord’s forum.

HoneyBee Chainmaille Bracelet

You can see alternate views of this bracelet at: http://www.BeadedBaubles.etsy.com

Our second grandson was born on July 20, 2008. His name is Noah and we have enjoyed visiting with him and his mom and dad this summer. Grandsons are so much fun!

This summer I decided to try some very simple designs. Since my natural tendency is to over embellish this was a lesson in keeping the embellishments down and letting the beauty of the beads and weaves shine through. The results were even better than I’d envisioned.

This is the Classic Gold Necklace. Graduated gold filled balls on a curved wire are suspended by a gold filled hand crafted chainmaille chain. Because if its simplicity, it could be worn with jeans or with an evening gown and not look out of place.

This necklace is the Love Knot Maille Necklace. Sterling silver rings are woven into a “love knot” and suspended from a very fine chain. I tried using a hollow Sterling bead to hold the chain together just above the knot so it won’t slide around. Another very basic piece that could be worn almost anywhere.

The matching Love Knot Maille Earrings are suspended from Sterling silver ear wires. 

All of these pieces can be found in my Etsy shop. 

http://beadedbaubles.etsy.com

This blog has a complete list of all kinds of Etsy selling tips – things you wanted to do but couldn’t figure out how. What a wonderful resource to bookmark if you’re an Etsy seller.

http://loosewirestudio.blogspot.com/2005/06/etsy-helpful-links-not-found-via-etsy.html

We have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our first grandchild. On Monday, June 2 baby Gus arrived safe and sound. Our daughter and son-in-law are the proud parents. We think he’s just beautiful!

A friend of mine makes the most incredible poly clay beads I’ve ever seen. The detail and colors are just amazing. Recently we did a swap and this is one of the sets of beads I chose. I’ve never worked with polymer clay myself but love Valerie’s beads. She is a true bead artist.

This is a close-up of the focal bead. It is done in shades of blue and aqua with flowers, leaves, and tiny yellow butterflies. There is just a touch of orange in the outline of the leaves.

This is the necklace I designed to compliment the spectacular beads. I call it Flutterby of course. 

If you would like to see more of Valerie’s stunning beads, visit her website: 

http://www.valeriebeads.com/

I’ll share more of Valerie’s beautiful beads in a future blog . . . I promise. 

Choosing the right colors for your beaded jewelry can be tricky. How do you know which colors will look good with other colors? As every school child knows, there is something called a color wheel which shows the primary colors and the blends between colors. Here is an online color wheel you can use to experiment with color.

http://r0k.us/graphics/SIHwheel.html

Here is a color picker that uses the HTML color codes

http://www.allprofitallfree.com/color-wheel2.html

Now say you have a bright red bead you want to use as your focal piece. What colors will look nice with the bright red? There is a little free program called Color Schemer Galleria that I like to use. It shows me a variety of colors that go together. I browse through the program until I find the same red color as my bead in one of the schemes. Then I can see the suggested colors that will look nice with my red bead. The Spring Rose set has my lovely deep red with a hex (HTML) value of (660000) and the suggested colors that go with it are a spring green (669966), a soft gray (333333), a light terra cotta (CC6633), a deeper terra cotta (993300), and a peachy flesh tone (FFCC99). 

http://www.colorschemer.com/

So, for my necklace I will use the red bead, and add touches of peach, gray, spring green and a pop of terra cotta. 

Another good way to find interesting colors is to use fabrics you like. I have a skirt that uses purples, browns, golds, and teal. These colors work well in the skirt so why not in jewelry? Oriental carpets, upholstery fabric, art works, even the flowers in your garden are all good places to look for colors that work well together.

This spring try making something that is outside your usual color palette. Go bolder or softer and play with color combinations you don’t usually put together. You might come up with a masterpiece!

Here is a name badge holder I just finished that combines some unusual colors but it works. You can see more shots of it in my Etsy Shop: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=11568809

People often ask me how I learned to make chainmaille. I taught myself from the internet. There are lots of sites with tutorials and information about making chainmaille. If you do a search, be sure to also look at different spellings. I’ve seen it called chainmaille, chainmail, chain mail, chain maille, maille . . . well you get the idea.

The first place to check out is M.A.I.L. The Maille Artisans International League. They have a huge listing of maille weaves and many of them also include instructions. The forums are a great source of help if you have questions.

The Ring Lord is another good place to check out. They sell the largest variety of rings of anyplace I know. There are also tutorials, information about ring sizes, and a forum for asking questions. 

C.G.Maille has fantastic tutorials with graphics that help you see exactly how the rings are inserted into the weave. Phong has most of my original weave tutorials on his site.

Derakon’s site is another great resource for weave tutorials.

Spider Chain has lots of information on her site and also sells rings. Her DVD’s are the best way to learn new weaves if you are like me and need to “see” it done. 

Need to know how many rings you need for that bracelet or necklace? Zlosk’s site has a ring quantity calculator that I find very helpful. If you click on one of the weave links, the calculator will open up and you can type in the size of wire and diameter of the rings and it will tell you how many (approximately) you will need. I always order 10% more just to be on the safe side and to take care of any defective rings you have to discard. All of the information you need to enter about the rings can be found on The Ring Lord’s site.

There are a couple of my newer weave tutorials on my website as well. Beaded-Baubles.

Pick up some pliers and start creating chainmaille!