Jewelry & Beading

April 23rd, 2008

Metal Clay Findings

What’s Up Wednesday!

Metal Clay Findings carries fine silver and gold parts to use happily with your metal clay creations! Many artists know the frustration of having a project underway and realizing that the only jump rings in the bin are sterling…and they won’t work well with fine silver metal clay! Well, many of your needs […]

By Cyndi -- 0 comments

April 3rd, 2008

Artist Profile: Melissa Lee

Something Wicked This Way Comes
Artist: Melissa J. Lee
Location: Illinois
Website & Blog: ,
Strands of Beads blog
Melissa J Lee etsy shop

Kissing Bandit
Button in the focal piece by Sarah Moran
Melissa, how do you describe your work?
I like to think of my jewelry as being a little bit quirky, often reflecting my odd sense of […]

By Cyndi -- 1 comment

January 30th, 2008

Book Review: Metal Clay and Mixed Media Jewelry

Metal Clay and Mixed Media Jewelry
by Sherri Haab
About a week ago, I mentioned Tammy Powley’s book, Making Designer Mixed Media and Memory Jewelry as a good basic introduction to adding non-traditional materials to your jewelry making. One of my own projects is in that book, so in the interest of not being overly biased, […]

By Cyndi -- 0 comments

January 3rd, 2008

Artist Profile: Irma Peredne

Name: Irma Peredne
Business name: Amber Box
Location: Cleveland, OH
Website & Blog:
Amber Box
Amber Girl

The story behind my business name:
I grew up in Lithuania and spent my summer vacations on the amber-rich Baltic coast town of Palanga. I would look through the sand for pieces of […]

By Cyndi -- 6 comments

December 31st, 2007

End of the year…a few last pieces

Make Art Monday
Here are a final few pieces that I made over the last two months. They are all either getting ready to be shipped out for various articles, or in the case of the Maple Leaf necklace, may appear in an upcoming book in 2008.
I hope your 2008 will be productive, fun, healthy, […]

By Cyndi -- 0 comments

December 11th, 2007

Making your own beads

Technique Tuesday!

Often times, the jewelry pieces that I admire most are the ones that use the artist’s own handmade beads. Nothing else will ever be exactly like that piece.
If you want to make true one-of-a-kinds, you should probably think about learning to make your own beads and findings. We’ll just cover the beads today. Here’s […]

By Cyndi -- 8 comments

November 29th, 2007

Call for entries: metal clay jewelry book

Tammy Powley has posted an update on her call for entries and submissions for the new low-fire silver metal clay book she’s writing. She is in immediate need of pictures of your art studio! Tammy writes:
While working on my next book project, a how-to on making jewelry with low-fire metal clay, I thought it would […]

By Cyndi -- 0 comments

November 15th, 2007

Book review: Enameling on Metal Clay

Enameling on Metal Clay
My friend Pam East has written a new book on combining two great media into stunning jewelry pieces! I have to be honest here and tell you that I don’t work much with either medium, so I’m not really in a position to tell you whether or not this is a good […]

By Cyndi -- 0 comments

September 23rd, 2007

Metal Clay Call for Entires

Call for Entries
Book Title: Picture Yourself Making Metal Clay Jewelry: Step-by-Step Instruction for Forming, Firing, and Constructing Finished Jewelry
Publisher: Thomson Course Technology
Series: This text will be part of the publisher’s “Picture Yourself” series.
Author: Tammy Powley
Contact Information: tammypowley@yahoo.com
Estimated Publication Date: May/June 2008
Call for Entries Deadline: December 5, 2007 
Book’s Focus: The focus of this book is super […]

By Tammy Powley -- 2 comments

September 18th, 2007

No Japanese But Art Clay Please

Even if you can’t read Japanese, and well, I can’t that’s for sure, you can learn a lot of using Art Clay (a metal clay that went fired turns into dense metal) from the web site call, what else but, Art Clay.
Before you start freaking out when you see all the wacky characters on the […]

By Tammy Powley -- 2 comments