The Beading Gem

The circle is an ancient symbol which represents unity and infinity. So it is not surprising Indiana based artisan, Patrice includes this line "A circle is a timeless symbol of love, unity and perfection" in her shop, Fiber2Love.  All her necklace designs use textile circles in different ways.

First of all, thank you for all the lovely comments about my jewelry designs in last week's giveaway.   They all featured the use of lovely stitched silk and leather cords from Endless Leather.  These are great products to compliment handmade pendants and other jewelry designs, for sure!

Soutache (pronounced - so͞o-tăsh′) is a narrow flat decorative braid. It's been used for trimming clothing and particularly military uniforms for centuries.  But it wasn't used in jewelry until an innovative designer, Dori Csengeri experimented with it in the 1980's. The rest, as they say, is history. The elegant style definitely shouts "statement"!

French beading is a relatively easy bead and wire technique. But it requires stringing on lots and lots of beads onto a wire spool. You can speed up all that bead stringing with a bead spinner. The wrapping of these beads is a breeze because you don't really have to count the number of beads you need.  Just watch this pretty french beaded butterfly hairpin tutorial and see what I mean  - Part 1 and Part 2.

At a loss what to do with your odd beads or maybe some beads you aren't very fond of?  Jazz up your garden or your window with these two decor tips from the folks over on Garden Therapy. The basic idea is similar but little bells have to be added at the bottom if you want it to be a garden chime.  The first tutorial for the garden chime is by Rachel Beyer.  You can either hang it from a tree branch or on a tall garden stake.

Are you new to patina work?  Then this how to is for you! You can easily patina and protect any wire wrapped copper pendants with just a couple of key products.  Antiquing copper is particularly gratifying because the results are gorgeous - the bits at the top contrast beautifully with the darkened metal in the low spots.

Any tips on how to reuse scraps is always a good thing!  This simple but lovely chess bargello earrings tutorial shows to use up your scrap polymer clay.  It is by 123Clay!  The tutorial is not in English but there are English subtitles. It's so clearly taught you won't really need the translation.

Gardens are a-blooming!  Now is the time to get floral inspirations from your backyards.  It is definitely the time to collect flowers and leaves -  so many plants bloom in the spring.  But if you find trying to press and dry flowers too tricky, consider making flower and leaf imprint resin tiles.  This video tutorial by Mark Montano is actually for making home decor tiles.  But it is easy (and cheaper) to scale down to sizes suitable for jewelry making!  I am definitely going to try this!!