WONDERFUL TUTORIAL SOURCE – Lan Anh

If you like wire work, and you like enjoy finding new well-made, easy-enough-to- follow tutorials to learn different things, you may well enjoy the free YouTube videos of Lan Anh.  I came across her simple elegant work a while back, and I stay informed of her latest creations by being subscribed to her YouTube channel.

The pictures I’ve added here show but of a few of her wonderful ideas. She really has something for just about everyone.

 

UPDATING ON-LINE SUPPLIERS PAGE

I’m always looking for a wire supplier, and I’ve seen people recommending their favorites quite often on-line, so I figured it was time to revisit my  online suppliers list page. 

Everybody is still in place, but Metalliferous‘s page is a bit weird to navigate. It took me a while to figure out that the site was always going to look like a blank page, but I could scroll down and find what they were offering. (They’re probably still having growing pains from going all on-line earlier this year). 

MOVING SURPRISES

I haven’t made much in the past month because I was in the process of moving. Always a delight. I’m moved in now (whew!), but not yet well-organized. The only two areas that are really well-organized as of yet are my closet and, wait for it….. my jewelry-making stuff (what? You’re not surprised?)

Until this morning, I’ve been very good… not dragging out beads, not playing with wire…. but, then…. I decided I needed a new turquoise magnesite necklace. I thought I knew how it was going to be. Ha! When I opened the turquoise color box, I noticed some chunky robin’s egg blue magnesite with black veins. Then I had to play with all the magnesite in that color range. Then I had to play with all the other magnesite. Then I had to put everything back. Then I couldn’t find the right silver beads, so I had to look in all the boxes of miscellaneous. I opened a box from storage that I’d labeled “bead repairs”, and, to my astonishment, found a boatload of the first wire jewelry pieces I’d made, as well as my first turquoise necklace, and some other exciting stuff.

Then, I started trying to figure out what to do with that nice chunky blue magnesite. I went through a magnesite acquisition phase last year, and I have so many pretty strands….. I began to think of doing something that could be layered with other strands of magnesite.  Now what I need to do is get into my silver bead stash and find some silver beads that I have enough of and that will complement the chunky beads.

So, anyway, I have to be careful now. I do need to make my place look more like a home rather than a box storage facility, so I shouldn’t set up a bona fide jewelry work area yet. Okay, maybe just one tray….

Now, though, I want to take some pictures of these boxes full of stuff, and then I’ll try to post them.

Meanwhile, some things  you can use. I’ve tried buying beads on Amazon. It wasn’t too scary. I still don’t feel as certain about buying on Amazon as I do about other on-line vendors. I’ve cut back on working with silver since Metalliferous closed, and I’m becoming a Parawire.com fan. (Happily, I’ve discovered that fusionbeads.com is selling round colored parawire, so, if I want to qualify for free shipping and there is something I want to buy at fusionbeads.com, I can round off the spending requirement with parawire. )

WHAT I MADE LAST WEEK

I do make things from time to time. Last week, I fooled around with some wire-weaving practice pieces (frustrating!) and a very shiny long necklace of aventurine and silver Czech crystals (I’ll post some pics of these “masterpieces soon).  

Then, I wired this little shamrock with brass and aventurine.  It’s not perfect by any means, but I just love it! (It doesn’t hurt that it does get a lot of compliments)

The leafy part is maybe about the size of a quarter. I think it might be the smallest thing I have ever made. 

(as you can see, I am no good at photography. Can I blame it on my phone camera? I don’t know why the picture I took with a white background in good light came out a dark, murky green).

I love this little shamrock so much that I want to  make a dogwood flower next. So far, I’ve just wasted some wire, but I feel certain I’ll figure it out soon-ish.

 

 

SEARCHING FOR TUTORIALS

Allfreejewelrymaking.com is a pretty massive site, with lots of tutorials of all different sorts. At last, I have learned that they do have some search facilitators to get through to what you might be looking for. Go to their search tutorial and learn how to find what you want.

CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN…you never know….

I’m always trying to figure out how to do whatever has popped into my mind, so I try to look at a lot of people’s work (hence, I get way too many emails, and have a lot of facebook and pinterest stuff to scroll through!).  

I do look at a lot of tutorials, but not necessarily because I want to make the item the tutorial is teaching about.  Sometimes, it’s just one little detail that I can’t figure out from the picture.  A case in point would be this free necklace tutorial from Facet Jewelry that showed up in my email today;

Not my style at all, but I was interested in the little loops that were strung somehow onto the necklace cord, so I read through the tutorial, and found the cutest, simplest little trick, that I will use somehow, some way, probably sometime soon.

I go through a lot of jewelry-making books that have step-by-step tutorials, too. My two latest favorites are Wirework Jewelry Workshop, by Sian Hamilton, and Wire Jewelry Master Class, by Abby Hook. I got both of these books mostly just to learn the techniques of several pieces they showed… I will probably not make anything that looks like anything in either book; I’ll just incorporate some ideas into a piece here and there. These are books I can go back to when I’m drawing blanks. 

I’m also revisiting old tutorials in my collection. Now that I’ve put them into labeled 3-ring binders, they are more organized, and easier to access. It’s like having more books to leaf through.

FACEBOOK JEWELRY-MAKING INTEREST GROUPS

It can be exciting to see what others are doing with their jewelry-making. I especially like to look at wire-wrapped and/or woven pieces, to see if there might be something I want to learn about.

Here is a list of Facebook groups which focus on making jewelry (as of 2/21/18). To find them, just key in the name in the Facebook Search. See you there!

JEWELRY IN GENERAL
Jewelry Making Love hosted by Linkouture
Lisa Yang’s Jewelry Group

WIRE-WRAPPED AND WOVEN-WIRE JEWELRY
Fantasy Wire Wrapped Jewelry
IMNIUM tutorials
Wire Wrap Sculpted Jewelry Artists
Wire Wrap Jewelry Artists
Wire Wrap Tips & Tutorials
WireWork & Metal Jewelry Artisans
Wire wrapped jewelry
Wire Art & Wire Wrap Jewelry
Let’s Wire Wrap Jewelry

TUTORIALS FOR WIRE-WRAPPED JEWELRY
(some for free/some for fee)
Free Wire Wrap Tutorials
Wire Wrapping Jewelry Tutorials

PLAYING TOO MUCH

I do believed I’ve been playing too much on Facebook and Pinterest, although I am starting to get some ideas of what to make next.

I have found some cool beading groups on Facebook where people show their latest wire work creations.  It’s fun to get to know the people and see what they are doing, even if I know I will probably never do anything like that. It does give me ideas of what I might do.

Pinterest…. oh, Pinterest!  I love to see what new things Pinterest will show me in the way of beading, wiring, or any of my other interests.

To my credit, though, I do not look at Pinterest or Facebook when I could be making something. Oh no! I have other ways to waste my precious time.

Actually, recently, I’ve been going through all my files in Google Drive, and putting them into some kind of order, so that I might be able to find what I am looking for a little more easily.  I’ve also updated a couple of the pages on this blog, with on-line places to buy, and places to find tutorials, as well as various other useful information.

 

SNOW! Sitting at home looking at beads!

It’s snowing to beat the band! Not big pretty fluffy snow, just relentless little bitty snowflakes. My New York City street is covered. Just as well! I want to make something today.

I got Abby Hook’s book Wire Jewelry Master Class in the mail yesterday. Stayed up looking through it, reading the really clear instructions, thinking about what I’m willing to do, what I might do right away, and what I’ll probably never do, even though I wish I could bring myself to do it. Then, of course, thinking about how I could get away with not doing what she says to do and still get a similar look. Then thinking about what she shows, and what I probably will actually do. Woo! Tired myself out just looking! Then woke up this morning and started again.

I’m very happy with this book, excited to have it. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if the book included the two tutorials (KrissKross ring and Kriss Kross bracelet) I had bought from Abby back when jewelrylessons.com was in business and before my computer crashed and died, taking with it my precious hoard of tutorials. I bought several of Abby’s tutorials, but these are the ones I’d really like to have back. The book does have another tutorial that I had bought, which now looks like something I might like to do. Oh well. Never mind! There is so much information in this book! Then, there are all the pretty pictures. This may be the best jewelry-making book I’ve ever bought.

I actually saw my prehnite/amethyst/silver bracelet in bright sunlight yesterday. I hadn’t realized that the colors were actually so brilliant!  Now, I want to make a similar necklace with the prehnite and amethyst left over from the bracelet. I haven’t had a new necklace in quite some time. This will be simple. I think I’ll make some figure eight connectors, as I’m out of jump rings, and I’ll make a stab at making my own S-hook clasp, to jazz it up a little.

MAKING YOUR OWN JEWELRY YOUR OWN

MAKING YOUR OWN JEWELRY
When you start out making jewelry, it is always good to have a teacher. I was very lucky to have one of the best: Eni Oken! (I went to a 3 hour class on wire jewelry, learned how to make a loop, made a pair of earrings, and was hooked! I went home, went on-line, and found Eni Oken’s tutorials – this was before she went big-time and started hosting JewelryLessons.com, a most marvelous site full of tutorials by all sorts of different jewelry artists) I made maybe 10 of Eni’s designs, and then I found that my ideas were migrating – well, actually, they were migrating from the start – Eni said “small beads”, and I missed that, and made my first piece with very big beads, but she talked me through it.

Lately, I have been making the bracelets I showed I my last post. I have  purchased and read through and experimented with a number of tutorials from different artists, but, with these bracelets, I haven’t followed any tutorial any further than “take a piece of wire”. I think I saw a tutorial about how to make an all in one piece with a hook clasp a while back, but, when I started making these, it was more like, well, I have seen this picture, and it should work out like this (I mean, I did not sit with a tutorial and follow it to do this). Fortunately, my idea has turned out fairly well.

So, what am I talking about? I’m talking about you, the designer. After you have followed a teacher for a while (in person or through on-line tutorials ), and after you have seen more teachers’ work, then, one day you get an idea in your head, and it is not exactly anyone’s tutorial, but, sort of, something you know you can make.

I love Eni Oken’s tutorials: I started with her Coiled Bangle, which is listed as Very Advanced (can you believe it? That’s like asking a baby to do Olympic acrobatics – but I managed, because she writes very clear, very thorough tutorials), and I still do love the ornate-ness of her work, but I have found that I can break things easily, and, so, I am very happy right now with these bangles I am making because they are pretty strong, and I think I won’t be able to break them anytime soon.

The pieces I am making now are simple in design, so the complexity has to come from the stones I use.

After you work with the tutorials of different designers, or even one, you may well find you are making something that is all your own.

Even if you just continue making the same tutorial over and over, you will probably find that you make little modifications that make the work your own.