Diggin Turquoise and Orange

Some time today at work I got in my head using some of my Melon beads I purchased from Kelley's Beads not long ago in another necklace, again with Turquoise but I hope quite a bit different.

As I worked on the first one I remember I had some awesome little Hand Carved Amber Jade beads from Uncommon Beads and suddenly I had another necklace floating around in my head.
Here they be, I hope you like them as much as I do!!

Starting with Turquoise and Kelley's Beads and Amber Jade. Here is the finished necklace that I re-strung numerous times to get it just right! Sunrise Necklace listed on Etsy.


Turquoise and Kelley's beads alone.




The next 2 shots are of the necklace in it's first life, with Turquoise, Kelley's Beads AND the cute little Faceted Amber Jade beads. I am totally and completely smitten with this one!! Kelley's bead and the Amber Jade are the perfect match and compliment the soft creamy Turquoise beautifully!!











And earrings to go with them!



Kristi
DreamSome.Etsy.com

This that and the other

I received 3 packages yesterday, a great way to begin the weekend.

A Pakcage from Amazon, one from Rio Grande and one from Indian Creek Art Glass

I got a sweet little hand held cordless Dremel, we used it in Hadar's class! I love my big flex shaft but there are so many jobs where this will be easier.

I got loads of finishing attachments, I learned tons about doing a better job of finishing my pieces in Hadar's class.

Steel brush wheels

Abrasive mini fiber wheels

Diamond Bur set

Slotted Mandrel

Baldwins Patina

Tube maker attachment for my extruder

My first purchase from Indian Creek Art Glass

GORGEOUS Rustic Copper Green Lampwork beads

I seem to be leaning heavily towards blues these days.

Kristi

http://DreamSome.Etsy.com

Here's some color for you!!

I've been working on this necklace for a couple of weeks, I had the beads all strung I was just waiting for the right pendant to come along. I made the pendant in Hadar's class last week.

These are the Melon and Mustard Raku Lampwork beads that started it all, from Kelley's Beads.

As soon as I saw them I had to have them, I've been wanting to break out of my usual Neutral. Kelley was kind enough to make me my very own set since somebody bought them out from under me!! I immediately wanted to put them with Turquoise.

Listed on Etay Bronze with Copper Inlay Glass Lampwork beads

Kristi

DreamSome.Etsy

Hadar Jacobson's class - day 3 the Finale!

Here's lots of pictures from Day 3 of Hadar's class. I was very lucky to have 4 pieces that turned out really well, I love them all!!



FIRE IN THE HOLE!! This is the very end of the firing when the carbon is still burning.




All of us gathered around trying to absorb as much as we can!!




A pair of what Hadar calls Mokume Gane, unfired. Hope to get them and several other pieces fired asap.




All my pieces just about right out of the kiln. Little bit of them buffed out to see if they sintered properly.




Nearing the end of the cleaning and polishing.




All finished, Baldwin's Patina added really brings out the different colors of the copper and bronze!




I'll probably call this Zebra Stripe?




This one is from one of my favorite buttons, I've used it alot and even have one in silver I've started enameling on. A very pretty and versatile button.





Copper with Bronze Inlay, from one of my favorite texture sheets I've used in many other ways before.




A bronze piece with just a few bits of copper inlay. I'll probably continue to work on finishing these, they look great but can be polished and shined a little more I think.

A great class, many thanks to Hadar and to Randi at the Ranch for making it happen and to all my fellow students, I had a blast!!!!!!!!!!

Kristi
DreamSome.Etsy.com

Hadar Jacobson's class - days 1-2

Just a quick blog post to share some pictures of the what I've been working on in the first couple of days of Hadar Jacobson's 3 day class at The Ranch.


We're having lots of fun, more to come tomorrow. This is Copper with Bronze inlay and Bronze with Copper inlay before being fired, in my typical rustic and primitive style for the most part.











And Steel Clay before being fired.










We'll get to play with our fired pieces tomorrow and also White Bronze and Pearl Gray Steel.

Kristi
DreamSome.Etsy

My garden tour

Yesterday I noticed a cool spiderweb on my gorgeous hot pink Bougainvilla, I've been meaning to take a picture of it anyway so I thought this was a perfect opportunity.





This next picture is what's left of an enormous white Clamatis once the flower is done, they evolve in to this fluffy little whirlwind as the summer ends. I hope to electroform one of them one day.





This is a Japanese Anemone, it was a mystery for me until I took a cutting to my local nursery and they told me what it is. A great woodland plant!



Hydrangea of course, a lovely purple with little white tufts in the center and what almost look like little blue berries. Such a pretty flower!

Bright yellow Balloon Flower (I think), I have them in purple and white as well.

One of my favorites, beautiful petite little pink flowers of Coral Bells, this one has varigated leaves which I always choose if I hate the option. The hummingbirds love them too!!

A huge Fushia flower on a huge plant in a hanging basket, this is the biggest plant I've ever had and I LOVE IT!!

Couldn't be out in the yard without the girls, here's Ginger posing in front of the whiskey barrell. Shasta was too busy running around to stop for picture taking.

Another shot of Ginger posing, this shows a good portion of the front yard. We live on a little over an acres, it's wonderful!!!!!!!!

I hope you enjoyed my little garden tour.


Kristi Bowman

DreamSome.Etsy

Earth Drums Necklace

I've discovered a new Lampwork artist, her gorgeous beads work perfectly with my style!!

I've been creating a new "Coins" necklace and as it turns out this new set of beads I got from Fira Marina are a great match! I've played with this for several days, re-stringing with different combinations and I think this is the final product. Check out my Copper and Bronze blog post to see how these coins were made.

I'll be listing this necklace in the next few days.

I've also recently purchased some stunning beads from Kelley's Beads it is a work in progress as well, not far along enough to share pictures. So bright and colorful in oranges and yellows, I'm combining them with Turquoise and I think the results are going to be really fun!! Here they are!

Kristi

DreamSome.Etsy

Copper and Bronze

I've got a load of Copper and Bronze in the kiln, just about ready to come out. I used the Polymer Clay Caning technique to combine them to make the "coins" I've used in a new necklace design I've been making. This process is still experimental for me, this time I only combined the rods 4 times. The first time I did it several more times which gave a very fine grain effect.

Here they are in the green state, I purposely left the edges very rough and rustic. A couple of these almost have the look of a flower, maybe in the future I will try to create that look.



Here they are after being fired along with a few of the other pieces I made, straight out of the kiln with virtually no clean up. You can just get a hint of some of the beautiful colors that come straight out of the kiln, wish I could save them...



Here they are after minimal clean up, just some fairly light brushing under water, now I get to decide what to do to finish. If I tumble them alot of the color and rustic look will go away.

I really love them, they don't look like flowers any more but they are quite different than the first ones I made.



Here they are after half an hour or so in the tumbler. You can really see the texture created by the slight difference in shrinkage between the Copper and Bronze.







Here's a picture of the first batch of coins I made, I worked the cane alot more on these.






And made in to a Necklace.




Kristi Bowman


DreamSome.Etsy.com

Scooooooooooooooooooore!!

My local bead store is closing. Today I went for the second time to take advantage of their closing sale.


Last time I got lots of beautiful beads and clasps and all kinds of wonderful goodies.

Today I scored on about 15 back issue magazine, mostly Art Jewelry which is one of my favorites and a few wiring and stringing magazines. I'm going to have so much fun going through all of them and soaking up the information inside!!

I also picked up a couple of their storage/bead tables for my studio. I'm lucky enough to be expanding in to another room in our home in the near future so these will be perfect for my new space.






Ginger inspecting the new magazines.




Shasta lending Ginger a hand inspecting!



Kristi
DreamSome.Etsy