I saw it when I came home from work yesterday. So tiny and so cute. I smiled and was happy about having this little bit of pretty in my yard.

I love it. I hope someone else does too. I’ve been seeing images of cages in jewelry and the idea got stuck in my mind. You know how that happens and then you start seeing cages everywhere when a short time prior, no cages. I made this one from 16 gauge copper that I balled on the ends. I put it through a vintage metal bobbin – hate that plastic bobbins have become the norm – and then created a necklace with a resin top filled with old words  and a bit of rhinestone.

I guess it was about four years ago when the tradition started. My boyfriend and I wanted to go out to dinner for Valentine’s Day and every restaurant we went to had lines out the door and a jam packed parking lot. We drove around and around and it was the same everywhere. I could sense the frustration coming over him. We passed a casual sandwich place that was pretty empty and I said, let’s eat there. The look of relief that came over his face is the best Valentine’s Day gift I have ever gotten to this day. We went and had a quiet simple meal and enjoyed each other’s company and the stress was forgotten.

So now, our tradition is to keep it low key, stress free and enjoy some time and a simple meal together. Tonight was just as wonderful as that first night. Love you babe.

I have been bit by the resin bug hard and love making bezels like this one. I’ve decided to add them to the shop as pendants without chains. My thought is that people may already have chains and if they don’t – I’ve got them and they can pick out the length and style they want. Or people can create their own custom necklace to go with them. We’ll see how it works out.

Meanwhile I am getting a bunch of new bezels ready for the next resin pour. Spell check wants the words “love making” in the first sentence to be “lovemaking”. What can I say about that…

Unfettered is the word that came to mind when I looked at this necklace. I am in a much more creative space right now and it feels good to be working, making connections and just feeling caught up in flow. This necklace started from something I saw on Pinterest.

I had to try it and a bunch of people have pinned it and I hope they try it too. Finally something to make out of those garish bright large buttons that manufacturers think women want on their suits. Hammered and darkened, they look awesome. The other part of the pendant is a piece of patinaed copper I found. I sealed the patina and drilled holes and I think the two pieces look good together.

Why they wanted leaf chain to accompany them is beyond me. But I know by now not to question these things. I just do them and usually like the results. I added garnet Czech glass beads where the leaf chain transitions into the regular chain.

I want to get back to metalwork but after all of the stuff I made last week, I’m now caught in the throes of photos and listing. Such is life. More button smashing to follow…

Since forever ago I have wanted to use earring findings that had rhinestone chain around the edge and an image in the center. Because how could you not want to do this? I realize they are not all gritty and ethnic and dark like my regular stuff but I like them. OK.

I was able to make what I wanted by using resin. I reduced the bird images on my Mac and cut them out with a regular hole punch. By regular I mean a hole punch that would make a hole that would fit in a three-ring binder. I glued them down and cut a piece of rhinestone chain to fit. Then I poured resin to hold it all together. Sweet. I can’t wait to add beads and turn these bad boys into a pair of hopefully gorgeous earrings.

Started on this bracelet Friday night. The bezel was the first thing to act up. Getting it around the flower – major undertaking. Then once I got it fitted, it only wanted to spring back open. No amount of coaxing or pleading would make it behave. So I ended up making the little twisty thing that you see at the top of the photo, only thinking about getting the durn bezel down, not thinking about having to deal with that bulk later on.

Once the bezel was down I then realized that the way I handled it night not have been the best idea. OK, I was caught up in the moment of solving the problem of making the bezel closed. What can I say? What I did was good for closing the bezel but it left bulk that I needed to deal with. Thank heavens for the flex shaft. I used one of the sanding tools and grinded the bulk and sharp edges down until they were smooth.

Seriously, I think this could turn into a killer bracelet. It’s not that I don’t know how to finish off a six strand bracelet. It’s that I need to figure out how to do that and have the weight evenly distributed so that the pretty part doesn’t always fall below the wrist. Hate it when that happens.

I came home Friday night determined to make bezels and here they are. They are all bright and shiny from being soldered and cleaned. All are headed for a liver of sulphur bath, stinky and pungent but effective. Then on to my third resin pour. The bezel wire is sharp so I sustained a tiny injury, no blood, just some skin scraped off. Can’t wait to see them filled.

I bought these little cages from Ornamentea. I love Ornamentea. I bought them because I was enchanted by them and then once I had them I didn’t know what to do with them. Happens. I didn’t want whatever I put inside to fall out and I really didn’t want the little latch to come undone and my customer have a broken piece of jewelry. So they sat. And sat.

And one day, don’t know what I was doing, but this scroll heart and the little cage ended up close enough together to each other for me to have the – what if – moment. Once that happened, I was determined to find a way to make it work.

I’ll give you the short version cause I know you have stuff to do too. In reality, this took a few tries, wrong turns, etc. Here we go. I put the three red bead inside the cage and they moved and rattled around. Not good. So I made a bottom floor out of a piece of brass and drilled a hole in the center. I glued the brass floor to the bottom of the cage.

Then I took the three beads, put them on a head pin and wrapped a piece of masking tape around them so they would stay straight and put them in the cage. I took a long head pin (one I made) and slid it through the little opening at the top of the cage – I needed a tiny heishi because the opening was big enough that the head pin would slip through.

I slid the head pin through the heishi, through the three masking tape wrapped beads, through the bottom floor, and made a loop to hold the heart. I pulled the masking tape off the three red beads. The result – secure beads inside the cage and no way that sucker is opening up without cutting the head pin. Am I a jewelry geek? Maybe so. I love this stuff…

Don’t want to mess with it? Find it here.

I just found out this necklace was posted on the blog simplyneutral. How sweet of them. I am grateful.