Two New Ring Listings!

I'm finally back to listing! I've started with the newest "batch" of rings I've made up.

The first one is my Adjustable Gold & Blue Ripple Dichroic Art Glass Wire Wrapped Ring in sterling silver. I've used a larger cabochon in this one and so as to make it lay on the finger better I have slumped it so that curved to fit your finger. ;)

The second in my Adjustable White Opalescent Dichroic Art Glass Wire Wrapped Ring in 14 gold filled wire. I really wish I could of caught how intense the colors in it are. Their is a whole rainbow of iridescent colors in it, purples, pinks, coppery red-orange, gold, blues greens and more. It truly is prettier in person.

Also I realized I haven't announced that I am offering free shipping on everything in my studio-Willow Walker Designs for the holidays!

The past week and half has been a rough one for me with my new "real job" delivering papers in the wee hours of the morning, fighting a cold and trying (not always successfully) to get enough sleep to function. I do believe that once I get over this cold and have adjusted to a new sleep schedule things will be much easier. I do feel as if a lot of stress has been removed from my shoulders and I have more respect for myself now that I am a "productive" member of society. This will also allow me to have a steady income to get my teeth fixed, not to mention money for more glass and gemmies! :)

Catalog 1

I played around with the Smilebox program and I am definitely addicted to it. I plan on joining as soon as I can. I really love some of the designs. Today I started work on a catalog using Smilebox. I have a feeling it is going to cost me a small fortune though. One 8" x 8" page is $1.96 at Wal-Mart, I do like the size. I wish our printers could print these to the quality I desire. They just aren't that good though. Anyway here is Catalog 1! I figure I can add pages as I need to and they will all blend together as long as I use the same templates.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Winter Lovelies

I spent a while this afternoon playing with a program I loaded the other day. I had a lot of fun with this. I do believe I'll have to play with it more in the future. For now I hope you enjoy this slideshow!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Recap Of 2009 & Clearance Sale

I moved a bunch of pieces over to the Sales/Clearance section of my shop. These pieces have been around for at least a year. There are many great prices to be had. I have taken anywhere from $8.00 to $20.00 off these pieces. Just like this beauty shown. My original asking price was $35.00. Now it is down to $20.00!

As I take a few moments to reflect on the past year I realize I have come a long way. The past year has been one of healing. 2009 was about recovery and rebuilding my life after having it shattered by the horrible, devastating loss of my daughter in July of 2008. I feel like I am finally crawling out of the shadows of sorrow and loss back into the sunshine of the living world.

In 2009 I reclaimed my room and finally discovered a good arrangement for it that really works. I made a good start on reclaiming the yard and flower borders. I learned a lot about selling on line. And tried to take the selling of my pretties waaay to seriously. I joined Plurk and made a lot of wonderful, new friends. I did some higher end shows. Two of my usual shows I did the best I have I have ever done. I found it to be quite disheartening to realize that for all the work and energy I put into a show that my profit margin is so small! Twenty or thirty dollars for 8-10 hours of work....but it is still more than I would of had sitting at home and it gets me out to be seen. On the other hand I don't think I did all that bad considering the state of the economy. I learned a lot of new wire working techniques to add to my repertoire of wire wrapping techniques. I've combined the method I use to wire wrap a cab with the technique for wire woven bails to give my pendants a much nicer appearance. I also designed a simple, adjustable wire wrapped ring for my cabs. I've taken up blogging and have become much better about it in the past two or three months. I joined the Create Art Every Day Month challenge in November and did fairly well if I do say so myself. Christmas was the best one we've had in years.

Custom Ring & Aurora Borealis

Here's today's project, a custom wire wrapped ring that was commissioned. I'll be dropping it off tomorrow. I'm grateful to have managed several good color pictures of it!

I have never done any fusing where I've fused dichroic on top of dichroic or so I thought until I was taking a close look at this cab this morning. Turns out I layered blue-magenta-green clear ripple onto clear and then layered
black cherry clear ripple on top of that. Then because the colors didn't show I set it aside for a couple of years. So it has taken me a couple of years to fuse the slab onto white glass to show off the colors!

I finally came up with a name for this set today and listed them in my Artfire studio. I named them Aurora Borealis Earrings and Aurora Borealis Pendant.

Day 17 Of The AEDM Challenge

I seem to be in the mood for rings. I made another one today. The pictures just don't give this lovely cabochon justice. It has such deep, rich blue shades in it. This is one of the cabs from my hoard. I set it in sterling silver. This one is my favorite of these wire wrapped rings so far. My ex came up with the name for this one, "Galaxy". It is truly fitting.

Day 16 Of AEDM Challenge

I went through my cabs a few days ago, trying to decide which one to use for my next project. While I was at it I put all my small, single cabs in one spot. Most of these cabs I have been hoarding just for the purpose of making rings!

This triangle one with it's angles was a lot more challenging than working with the round ones. With practice I will get better. I'm so used to working with finer wire than what I am using in these rings.
I will figure out a name tomorrow for this one and then get it listed in my Artfire studio. If you have an idea for a name then please leave me a comment!

Day 3 of AEDM Challenge

Today's challenge piece for me was a nugget of tumbled, polished turquoise. I friend of a friend commissioned me to wire wrap it so she could wear it as a pendant. I did manage to get it wrapped in sterling silver. I'm not real happy with the bail. As I'm out of time and have wasted over three feet of wire in four attempts to wrap the thing I've decided I'm done. I have learned that I don't like wrapping irregular, lumpy, bumpy objects and will never take on a commission like this again. I don't feel I did justice to the stone.

As I'm not about to take a picture of my failure I decided to share my newly listed Black Cherry Ripple ring! An adjustable wire wrapped dichroic glass cabochon done in sterling silver. I also listed my necklace and pendant from day one and day two.

Adjustable Wire Wrapped Dichroic Glass Ring

It doesn't seem like I've done much of anything lately. Today I listed this adjustable wire wrapped ring in 14K gold filled wire. I listed it as a custom listing because I will make it in any of my stock colors. Now I just have to make a color chart to add onto the listing. I plan to make one in sterling silver to list too.

I also went to my favorite local beadstore for one of their two annual wholesale bead shows. There I found all these lovely little crystal bead rondelles. I have some neat plans for these. I hope the finished products will be liked.

I am really trying to come up with some cute things that I can sell cheaply. I have taken to eliminating the time it took to make something out of my pricing code as my stuff is well liked, greatly admired and almost impossible to sell even if I sell it at cost! I really wish I knew what I'm doing wrong, right or not doing... If it's me or what. And maybe I'm just starting to have a pity party. So just in case I will bid you Adieu and find something to take my mind off the problem.

Monday's New Listings

Well here are the items I listed yesterday! I'm afraid that four may be to much. We'll see! I put the pictures in order from the newest listing to the oldest!
So I will go through them starting with the 4Th listing and work my way back to the first listing of the day.

"Embers" was my 4th listing of the day. It was a brand new listing.

"Ancient Seas" was my 3rd listing of the day. It was a old listing that I gave a makeover. New pictures and re-edited the written descriptions, story/inspiration behind product.

"Forest" was the 2nd listing of the day. A color grouping of my $5.00 adjustable rings. As I have 20 colors I have decided to break them up into color groups to take up less room in my studio. I'm not completely happy with it yet. I need to have a better way to tell which color is which to simplify the ordering process as the listing is for only ONE ring. This listing is a new one too.

"Autumn Goddess" was my first listing of the day. It was an old listing that also received a makeover.

One thing for sure I can say is "WOW" my photography skills have really improved!

New Batch of Dichroi Cabs!

This is what I have been up to this week. Making up a new, big batch of dichroic fused glass cabochons. Included are my ideas for using frit and my experiments in "scribbling" on dichroic glass with a sharpie!

The frit cabs are the ones with the speckles of colors. I wasn't real happy with most of them at first, but fused the pale ones onto a white base and "Wow"! Now they have this lovely, opalescent sheen and the colors show better. I look forward to pairing some of these with precious and semi-precious gemstone beads. I actually have beads picked out for the red/orange/amber cabs.

The cabs with the images on them turned out absolutely amazing in my opinion! I just can't get over how stunningly elegant and classy they are. I definitely plan to do more "scribbling" on dichro!

In this batch I've finally included some cabs for the "Bling Rings", bolo ties and money clips I've been meaning to make for way to long. I'm excited to finally be able to offer some men's jewelry for sale. Just a little bit late for Father's Day though. Now I just have to remember/find where I stashed those ring blanks for the Bling Rings!