silver wire and gemstone jewellery in development by Gayle Bird
These are soooo pretty! My parents brought me most of these (the yellow one was from last week!) and the gray in the bottom left corner was presented to me by a dear friend. I should have put these in the light box so you can get an idea of the real colours…
…but this is what’s on the bench to be wired up this week!
I hit the flea market & value village a couple of weeks ago. What a jackpot! Got a pile of watches for Laird to pull apart for me, some vintage and new earrings and chain, some metal bracelets I’ll use as the base for some steampunk pendants, and a little surprise….
… Belt Buckles! Not sure if it’s going to work but I plan to wire some clock parts and vintage bits to these and see if we can make some nifty jewellery!
The other day I finally completed the pile of waiting earrings on the workbench. For some reason they were completely blocking me! I normally work in batches of 100 at a time but these 2 dozen just wouldn’t finish themselves.
But I got ‘em all done and reached out for the earwires – to discover only a couple of stray ones at the bottom of a drawer.
Disaster!
I immediately ordered some online, but that takes weeks. I thought about leaving them until the hooks got here and simply working on a different part of the bench, but just couldn’t bear to leave these half-finished earrings on the bench for one more day, staring at me. So, I dug through drawers and boxes and baggies and managed to scrounge up just enough fishhook earwires to match up with what I needed. A sigh of relief – until I realized these were way too long for the tiny little earrings I’d made and they threw off the balance of the design.
Now what? Desperate to just make this pile go away, I grabbed my fattest bailmaking pliers and did a test to see if by making the hook fatter, they’d end up shorter… and it worked! Better yet, I like them way better than the basic fishhook earwires! I think they’re much more elegant and make them stand out.
It’s more work, but I’m so going to do this to all of my earwires from now on. It just goes to show that a pain in the arse can be turned into something kind of special.
I saw a lot of these digital watch components on Etsy and I HAD to have them. Being such a computer geek, I’ve always wanted to figure out some way to incorporate circuitry into my jewellery, but computer parts are always so clunky. But these seemed like they might do the trick… and when they arrived they were soooo much better than I had imagined! They’re *perfect* jewellery-sized pieces of circuitry, ready-made and all completely different! Bliss. I came home from work, opened the package and was so excited I quickly scarfed down some peanut butter sammiches standing over the sink, and went straight to the studio without even changing into comfy clothes.
These are the first five. There are about 20 more in various stages of completion. I feel brilliant.
My mommy got this one for her birfday present!
A preview of the early stages of some of these… many more in development.
One of a kind wire-wrapped jewellery handmade by Cape Breton artist Gayle Bird. Look for silver wire, labradorite, beach glass, gemstones, glass, beads, and a unique style.
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