Chain & Metal Style

Chain and metal style is getting more popular. I’ve seen many fabulous designs using layers of chain and mix of metals from copper, brass, bronze, pewter and gunmetal. These non-precious metal types are favoured for their economical price and thus making them ideal subtitutes to gold and silver. Their colors ranging from brown to yellow to grey tones also add special charm to jewelry pieces.

I started to mix metal components last year when making a pair of earrings to match the Earth Dance bracelet. I needed to see how the design would look like if I attached copper pin dangles to vermeil ear wires. I avoided non-sterling silver type for the ear wires to prevent myself from getting allergic.

My first tryout wasn’t up to my expectation but I was pleased to learn that mixing brown and gold colors would lead to an acceptable result. So I moved on to another earring project featuring caramel-like colored lampwork beads. I had tried vermeil headpins to hang the beads but felt their colors didn’t really blend. Brown copper pins looked better to hang them and I let the gold touch shine from the vermeil lever-back earring wires.

Since then I’ve done more chain and metal experiments in my work. If you check out my Flickr gallery, there are a few bracelet designs that explore variety of copper findings (Ivory Swirls, Potpourri, Romantic Bloom). Other designs use more of sterling silver in different finishes: bright, light oxidized and dark oxidized. I admit sterling silver is still my preference and the different finishes of sterling silver give me wider possibility to create quality wearable pieces.

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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!

Pure Bliss

What a joy to be able to hold and marvel at fine beautiful freshwater pearls!

I was very pleased when my pearl order from one of Asian countries arrived. The pearls were roundish (potato shape) in creamy white color and all had smooth surface (no pits, no bumpy spots, no scratch), uniform size and thick nacre. Simply perfect! And this Pure Bliss set was the result from pairing these beauties with Swarovski crystals. The pearly glow and the crystal sparkles seemed to blend nicely and created an overall look of simplicity and elegance with drops of glitters.

Click here to see the set in full.