Enchanted Pearl

Something showy, glamorous, extravagant... Something to wear for parties and special events... These descriptions are some of common features of winter jewelry. My choice for the festive cold season is on the contrary. It's a not-too-flashy necklace piece that's perfect for night fun time AND daytime office work.

I remember myself when working in a law firm years ago. I stepped into the office in business suit and with high heels. The accompaniment jewelry I wore was usually a pair of basic earrings. If I wanted to play a little bit of dressing up, I wore a simple choker-length necklace, too. That was all. My jewelry shouldn't be overwhelming my outfit as the purpose of dressing up was to maintain sophisticated look and at the same time assure self-confidence. That's the idea behind the Enchanted Pearl necklace. It's designed to perfectly pair with business suits when worn with the clasp on the back of the neck. But I made it more flexible. When it's worn with the clasp at the front showing the all glitters of Swarovski crystals, it's ready to liven up another look with party dress. Clever idea, don't you think?

Complete details on how to make the Enchanted Pearl necklace is available in Bead – Winter Sparkle Special 2011, Issue 34.

Copper Duo

My autumn-themed earrings project is published in Bead magazine, issue 33, October/November 2011.

Copper Duo earrings are basically composed of two types of materials: copper findings and Swarovski crystals. But there's a slight twist in color tones of the findings. Bright copper-colored rings are used to accentuate the other antique-looking copper elements. Show them together with the shines of Swarovski crystals, you'll get a fabulous pair of dangles for your ears!

Paisley Glam

Finally... after waiting for almost a year, I have my Paisley Glam necklace published in Creative Jewelry 2011, a special issue of Beadwork magazine.

As shown in many of my designs, I love using crystals and pearls to create elegant designs. This piece is no exception. I opted Swarovski crystals and crystal pearls to feature a huge paisley printed Swarovski pendant and sprinkled them with Bali silver. When I made it last year, winter feel was approaching and the excitement for christmas and new year's eve was beginning to fill the air; so my mood was flowing with the buzz of these two events. Something elegant, glamorous, alluring. A show stopper.

Even when the December festivities are over, the necklace still adds certain quality to the appearance of its wearer in other formal or semi formal occassions (just don't forget to match it with appropriate dressing codes).

Creative Jewelry Special Edition

My Purplelicious Garden necklace is selected for Creative Jewelry 10th anniversary edition that compiles 165 inspiring projects and interesting articles from past issues of the mag. This special edition is out now.

Lost and Broken

That’s right. I’ve lost one piece of my earrings – possibly it was dropped when I was running errands. Then I’ve found one glass disc of my necklace broken when I was about to store it. The necklace is one of my projects published in a US special issue magazine Creative Jewelry 2010.

One of the must-have features I seek from lampwork beads is colors. Rare (no longer produced) color types, odd color combinations, colors that make beads precious. When no one seems to be interested in that kind of colors, I might be the one who would feel the opposite. I think it’s great if I can make jewelry with special beads because this would make the wearer feel special, too; feel different (in a positive way) from the crowd. Even if I don’t turn them into jewelry, it would be still good as I have one-of-a-kind beads that not many people may have.

The earring’s floral round bead has luscious, creamy, caramel-like orange base. I don’t know the name of this color and I don’t know if it resulted from a mixture of two glass colors or came from a single color glass rod. To me, the color base is not ordinary and is rarely found on the market. Or maybe I miss to spot it when it’s available? Anyway, when I purchased the beads, I decided they weren’t for share. I turned them into earrings for myself.

The colors of the lampwork discs are interestingly unusual. The combination doesn’t follow general guide on color mixes and is not my favorite palettes either, and yet I bought the whole set of the discs simply because I was sort of challenged to make their colors noticeable. I knew I could get the most pleasing arrangement of colors for eyes to see by putting each disc on the right place, and I proved it right. The discs made their way to Creative Jewelry 2010 as a Funky Wonky Necklace.

With one bead gone and one broken, I still don’t know what I’m going to do with the rest of existing beads.

Fall Party

Again… I have another project published in Stringing magazine, issue Fall 2010.


These earrings appear on one of the mag’s earrings gallery pages and I think the design is pretty straightfoward to reflect the characteristics of fall. The colors bear earthy warm tones in copper/brown, orange and yellow (not really shown in the photo) with a little drop of pink. The leaves are the ultimate sign of what normally happens in this season: leaves turn orange/red/yellow/brown and start to fall from trees.


Initially, the earrings were intended to be worn together with this necklace. Only because I didn’t have flower charms or beads that might go well with the flower-motif lampwork beads, I used leaf charms as my last resort. This minor discrepancy was I thought acceptable because leaves and flowers shared the same theme: plants. So when both earrings and necklace were worn, they would still look in harmony.

By the way, if you take a closer look at the necklace, it actually has a rich color combo. Gold, bronze, orange, yellow, copper, red, brown and pink. Perfect for a party in fall!

Funky Wonky & Purplelicious Garden

I should’ve updated my blog earlier but the summer heat has kept me away from my computer. The temperature has reached above 30 degrees and I feel like living in a big oven night and day. So hot and humid! If only I had an aircon installed in my place, oh… that would be very very nice.

So here’s the latest news. I have two necklace projects published in Creative Jewelry 2010 magazine: Funky Wonky and Purplelicious Garden.


The Funky Wonky necklace features Mallory Hoffman’s multi-colored lampwork discs which are not perfectly circled. But this imperfection is something I’d like to show off in my design. Since the discs have layers of colors and dots around their edge which make them look distinctive and interesting, I wanted these elements to get noticed when the necklace is worn. So I strung each disc on a bright silver chain and connected each chain with a jump ring. It’s a pretty simple project to make.


The other necklace is Purplelicious Garden. It's a show-stopping piece that displays a big lampwork focal bead by Crystal Brashear surrounded with Swarovski crystals and peacock-colored freshwater keishi pearls. The focal bead is particularly beautiful. I fell in love with its delicate flower motifs and color scheme even though purple isn’t my favorite color.


If the photo above isn't convincing enough to prove my word, take a look at these earrings. I've made them with smaller beads of similar floral design. Aren't they lovely?

Publication: Aurora Necklace

Good news! I have one necklace project featured in the current issue of Bead magazine complete with step-by-step instructions.


This Aurora Necklace is composed of four material types: lampwork glass beads, Swarovski crystals and crystal pearls, sterling silver. The bumpy dotty beads are made by a UK artist Jeanette Fletcher. The idea behind this necklace was to highlight the wonderful motifs and colors of the lampwork beads. I found them very interesting and decided to mix and match them with crystals for sparkles and crystal pearls elegance. To accent the design, I used Bali sterling silver spacers, beads and toggle. The result is as appeared in Bead magazine, issue 23, June/July 2010. Check it out!

Hello 2010!

Happy New Year 2010 everyone!

How fast time has flown since my last post in 2009. December last year was really a busy time for me. I moved to a new place and hurried up to get things organized hoping that I could feel a home-sweet-home atmosphere within a week or two. Boy, I was wrong! There were always issues that I had to handle with great patience and that left me with no chance to update my blog until today.

Besides having a new place to live in, December 2009 also marked publication of my first earrings project in a British magazine Bead issue 19, December 2009/January 2010. The earrings showcase wonderful artisan lampwork glass beads made by Lorna Prime and paired with Swarovski crystals and sterling silver findings. When I made them, I ensured that all elements would get noticed and the design is simple enough even for a beginner to follow. Better get a copy to prove it!

Publication: Earth Dance

I’ve been busy for the last two months doing all kids-and-family-related stuff and, of course, making some new jewelry designs. Unfortunately, I can’t show them to you right now as they aren’t yet photographed. Nevertheless, I have another good thing to share: my work in Stringing magazine!

This "Earth Dance" bracelet appears on page 61 of the Fall 2009 issue of Stringing.


It is composed of Jennifer Jennings’ flirty ruffle glass discs that captured my heart from the very first moment. The wavy shape brings a sense of motion and in particular, the dark ivory-colored discs have chocolate swirl on them. I thought these were interesting elements and should be featured in my work. So I lined them up in slight different sizes and interspersed them with sparkling Swarovski bicones. If normally I use sterling silver in my work, this time I accented the bracelet with copper findings which appear to blend nicely with the fall color palette of the ruffle discs.

Publication: Stringing, Summer 2009

It’s official now!

This Let’s Play Rugby set is published in the summer 2009 issue of Stringing which hits newsstands today. It’s the third time for me to have my projects published in print and the first in an American magazine. The other two projects appeared in a British magazine Bead.

The set features the fabulous glass work of German artist Ute Neumann. To me the lampwork beads mimic the shape of rugby balls and the colors are bright and bold making them perfect for summer. I genuinenly love them!

Beads Perles Interview

About a month ago I was approached by Beads Perles for interview and here's the result.

Beads Perles is a Spanish language blog that features artists who devote themselves to creating jewelry and I'm pleased for the opportunity to be featured in it.

Fresh Start

Finally...

One of my 2009 resolutions is to re-activate this blog that has actually been here awhile thanks to my dear friend Niken who gave me the idea of blogging sometime ago. She has created her own blog at http://www.rumahniken.blogspot.com/ prior to making a similar one for me. She also has two other blogs dedicated to polymer clay and interior designs and both sites are directly linked from the rumahniken blog. Feel free to visit her blogs but I should let you know first that they're written in Bahasa Indonesia (Indonesian language).

Having completed re-designing this blog, I'm pretty happy to be finally able to write something. So here it is.

This short necklace is named Dara's Heart and currently displayed in Beading Daily's Reader Gallery for Heart-Felt Designs theme. The story behind the making of this necklace is what I'd like to share with you. It was last year when my daughter Dara asked me for beads to work with. I immediately gave her one of my favorite lampwork glass beads: a big fluffy heart-shaped focal made by a German artist Andrea Venschott. It has bluish color with hints of white, yellow and green. The color combination is lovely but at that time I decided to stop working with this gorgeous focal bead because I couldn't find matching colors of Swarovski crystals to justify its beauty. Soon after my daughter hold the bead, she quickly chose the complimentary colors of the crystals in various bead sizes and shapes. The result was beyond my expectation! The glitters of light pink and yellow paired with the opaque looks of green mint and chalk white blended nicely with the colors of the focal. Moreover, the variety of sizes and shapes of the crystals gave a dynamic look to the design. I simply couldn't believe myself that my 7-year-old girl created this color mix as she'd never showed her interest in making jewelry pieces. Since then I've occasionally asked her opinion when working on new jewelry designs. Who knows she will come up with a better idea than mine.