Jade Cicadas!

I can't believe that I forgot to blog about these awesome carved jade* cicadas that I purchased at the Rings & Things show in Scottsdale last month. They are pretty much the coolest thing ever. I had to buy them even though they were really expensive and I really only wanted one for me. Then after I paid I plopped them right down on a table and took a photo to post on Facebook.

I'm going to make some pretty epic necklaces with these. The first one will be for me, of course!

*I don't know if they're actually jade. There are so many stones that get called jade but actually aren't. These are an antiqued/aged (I forget what word the tag says) "jade" that has a cool mottled brown, makes them look like some sort of old Chinese artifact that I stole from a museum or something.

Make a statement

So. Usually I make small jewelry. But not this time. This is a big, crazy statement necklace! The statement is "RARH! I HAVE CLAWS!" Or maybe fangs. Anyway. I think it's pretty awesome :) It's called Shield of the Sunset Warrior and if you click the link, you can see it on Etsy. Maybe you'll even decide to buy it.

The cool crackled-looking orange beads are part of my purchase from the Rings & Things show late last month. I also got some in green and in black. I think they're absolutely perfect for tribal jewelry, they have such an old, earthy feel to them.

More new jewelry coming on Monday, I've got it all photographed but I need to take the time to get them edited and then list them on Etsy. At least they rolled out the new, more streamlined listing page so it goes much more quickly now.

Such a tease!

Do you like these Hamsa earrings? Well, you can't have them! I did create them with the intention of listing them in my shop, Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs, but I tweeted about them while I was making them and one of my dance classmates saw and called dibs! I call that proof that social networking really is good for business.

Anyway, over the weekend I worked on my new crystal bracelet variant (with metal seed beads!), and I completed two of them, but I don't really feel like setting up my photography stuff just to take pictures of two bracelets. I have the beads picked out for a third bracelet to make while I'm watching DVDs tonight. I could have made it last night after finished the second bracelet, but honestly the thread that I have to use with the metal seed beads is hard on my hands, so I don't like to work with it for too long at a sitting.

So tomorrow afternoon I will have three bracelets to photograph and whatever I buy at the Rings & Things show in Mesa tomorrow. Yep, I'm going to drive almost 2 hours to buy beads again, even though I keep saying I have too many of them. Guess I should go use up some more tonight.

Operation: Buried in Beads

Operation: Buried in Beads began when I decided it was time to clean and organize my bead collection. I quickly became overwhelmed by the amount of bead clutter that I had accumulated and joked on Facebook that it might be easier to use up all my beads than put them away. We all had a good laugh, but the truth is that I did have an awful lot of beautiful beads just sitting around, and it really seemed a shame. They needed to be made into jewelry.

So I've been quietly working on this goal, occasionally posting about it on Facebook. My latest Artbeads.com project (which I can't post yet because I need to mail it to someone and I don't want to spoil the surprise) kicked it off by not only using all of the things that I had just received from Artbeads, but also some nice stone beads, and then I put everything away right afterwards. This was followed by the two skull projects, and now today's two necklaces (which I'll talk more about in tomorrow's Etsy post).

The above necklace is one of two that I made today, and it serves as the perfect illustration for the importance of this personal challenge. The lampworked beads are from the first purchase that I ever made from MZ Glass, so they've been in my stash for years. They're accompanied by some glass from last year's NY trip and lava from the Rings & Things show in May. Old and new came together in a beautiful way, and I put a little dent in my pile of beads.

Thinkin' about skulls

The skull beads featured in my Disembodied Zombie Head Earrings came from a strand of skulls in various colors that I picked up at the Rings & Things bead show earlier this year.

Five more skulls, in red and dark gray with silver details, are going to be part of the current project I'm working on. Unusual colors, to be sure, but they go perfectly with a Tiger Iron cabochon that I've had for years, and I threw in a hematite cab, too, for good measure. The embroidery is coming along well, and I hope to make a lot more progress on it tonight. I've really missed bead embroidery, and this little project is just the start. I have some big and even huge embroidery ideas that I need to get started on soon.

I know it's a little late in the season to be breaking out the skulls, since Halloween is almost here, but I'm one of those girls who likes skulls year-round... so expect some more skully designs from me even as we move away from Autumn and into winter.

Exciting new stone beads!

As planned, today I trekked up to Mesa for the Rings & Things bead show. I still find it weird that they have these shows mid-week, but I guess it allows them to do several shows a week and spread the beady love around, so I can't complain.

These shows are great because they have table after table of quality stone beads, properly labeled as to what they are and how they're treated. If a stone is dyed and heated quartz masquerading as something more valuable, Rings & Things will make sure you know it. They're also good about dealing with stone suppliers who treat their stone cutters fairly, so I don't have to feel guilty about my purchases.

I don't think I bought quite as much as last year, probably because I still haven't touched quite a few of last year's strands, and I didn't have Chris twisting my arm to get me to buy things I was hesitant about, but I did get some nice stuff.

From top to bottom:

Black lava coins; dyed red lava; dyed cream lava; brown lava rectangles; dyed green lava coins; black labradorite; kiwi quartz; pyrite coins; faceted mossy agate; color-gradiated chrysoprase rondelles; green two-hole, flat-back pearls; rough cut black tourmaline; assorted glass skulls; black pyrite ovals; heated quartz matrix; big round black lava.

Clearly I did not really move far from my green/brown/black/metallic comfort zone on this trip, but hey... they're all pretty!

Medusa Rocks!

Face of the Gorgon is my second Medusa-themed necklace... Third if you count the one that I made for myself with this same focal. I just love Medusa!

I had some fun combining stones for this necklace. The nephrite jade echoes the shape of the pendant, whereas the lizardite has a snake-skin like appearance. I actually had the chance to purchase some beads that were made with real snake skin, but they felt really gross. I couldn't stand touching them. I don't know if the texture was really that bad, or if my natural aversion to snakes was kicking in.

The nephrite, lizardite, and eagle eye from yesterday's necklace all came from the Rings and Things show in May. They have another show coming up on November 1st, but I don't think I'll be attending it, since I'm hoping to go up to the Phoenix area on Friday the 30th for a Halloween party. Three trips to Phoenix in 4 days would just be too much.

Ear Goodies

There's a special benefit at Plaza de Anaya this weekend, and since I can't make it there, I decided I would make some jewelry to donate to the raffle. So today I took a little break from working on Cthulhu and made the above items.

One pair of earrings with jade from the Rings and Things show, bronze freshwater pearls, and some pyramid pendants that I bought in NY last week.

One pair of earrings with Mingo and Asho cane glass and Swarovski crystals.

One ear wrap thingie with a goddess pendant, moonstone pendant, and moonstone and Swarovski pearl beads.

To learn more about the benefit, donate, and/or attend if you're in the Phoenix/Tempe area, click the above link!

What Copyrite Isn't.

No, no, this isn't a post about whether or not you can copyright your jewelry designs. It's a post about the mysterious copyrite beads that I bought at the Rings and Things show last month, and am currently using to embellish my coin bra.

Wikipedia and Google gave me no answers, so I decided to ask Dave, the Rings and Things Twitter (and blog and website text and more) guy. He didn't know, so he asked around. No one knew. They could only narrow down what copyrite isn't.

It isn't copralite, aka, petrified dino dung. Dinosaurs were awesome, but they didn't poop out sparkly rocks.

It isn't cuprite, aka ruby copper, because that's far too brittle, and the wrong color.

It could possibly be chalcopyrite, but I'm not sure that's as black as these stones. It does seem like this stone might have pyrite of some sort in it, though, due to the gold flashes.
It doesn't really show in the photos, but the stone has a bit of chatoyancy and flashes of gold sparkle below the surface. It's a very unusual stone, perfectly suited for the fantasy designs I like to create. It seems like the sort of thing a dark wizard or an unseelie faerie would wear.

As Dave asked around at Rings & Things, he did discover that this bead came from some old stock, and was sold to them as Copyrite, but since they had no idea what that was, they put the question mark on the tag. Like most stone beads sold in the US, they were cut and shaped in China, and sometimes the language barrier results in stones labeled with unusual and/or incorrect names.

The next step in the ongoing investigation of this bead mystery is to mail a "copyrite" bead back to Rings and Things for the owner Russ (quite the stone connousieur, I'm told) to have a look at and offer his expert opinion. I'll be sure to blog about what he says!

Speaking of stones, today's Daily Special is Medusa Turning to Stone, which actually doesn't have any stone beads in it, but is awesome nonetheless.