Handcrafted Jewelry

My Favorite Handcrafted Jewelry Techniques 

Basic, Intermediate and Advanced Jewelry Making Techniques

• Straight Beading: select some beads and choose your beading wire and you are on our way to creating a necklace or a bracelet
• Wire Wrapping Techniques: the basics include things like making a loop and making a wrapped loop. The more complex wire wrapping can vary from creating a pendant from a cabochon to a bracelet.
• Chain Maille-using open jump rings and cold techniques (NO SOLDERING) you can create a variety of jewelry designs. The bird cage or byzantine is my favorite design.
• Crochet & Viking Knit-both of these labor intensive techniques are gorgeous when done and require you to use a finer gauge wire. It takes a bit of practice to get your "groove" and create consistent crochet or knit chain using the wire. I use these techniques in custom, couture and bridal jewelry as they are "show stoppers!"
• Glass-Lampwork and Dichroic beads. I am drawn to the torch and love the way glass rods can be transformed into blobs of molten glass that end up being little pieces of art known as lampwork beads. Fusing glass in the kiln and creating dichroic glass is like being back in kindergarten...glue, cut and dry (so to speak in the kiln :) )
• Metal Smithing-talk about opening doors to design possibilities! Soldering, cutting, sawing, filing, etc...I am currently taking more metal smithing classes from a Craft Guild in Dallas. It is so exciting to transform a wire or sheet of metal into a work of wearable art!
• Art Clay is on my " to learn " list!