Blog Posts

The Grandmother Necklace

10/31/2016

Many years ago I made this necklace for my mother, with little beaded "people" representing her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She's been cleaning recently, and because she doesn't wear jewelry much anymore (she's 93), sent this back to me. Seeing the necklace reminded me of how much fun I had making it.

The Grandmother's necklace I made for my mother

This is a seed bead project using needle and thread, seed beads, bugle beads and various glass beads to represent each child. The girls get "wings" and the boys get "antenna" (which are kind of hard to see, but if you look for them you'll see them). The fun part is selecting body and head beads to represent each child.

I decided to organize them by age within family group. This grouping, from right to left, represents Elizabeth, Dave, and Kristen.

Right to left: Elizabeth, Dave, Kristen

Next, again right to left, are Alissa and Zachary, and Emily (in pink) begins another family group.

Right to left: Alissa, Zachary, Emily

Again right to left is Nathaniel (Emily's brother), and then the great-grandchildren: Kaya, Arlo, and Destiny.

Right to left: Nathaniel, Kaya, Arlo, Destiny

Finally we have Viola (in blue), and Caleb. I think I got lucky here, because I'm pretty sure Viola was "on the way" when I did this, and Caleb wasn't even close to joining the world -- he just evened out the earrings.

Looks like fun, doesn't it? It is. I never got any takers when I tried scheduling a class, but I could probably dig out the instructions if people show an interest.

Viola (blue) and Caleb

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Honoring Dia de los Muertos

10/24/2016

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We had fun this past weekend helping people design their own Day of the Dead pendants during the Arts District's fall festival, Art on Harrison. If you didn't make it in, here are tips for creating your own.

Antonia earrings

The basic materials you'll need include:

2" or longer headpin (and an eyepin for a boy)
Various glass beads for the body, about 1" to 1 1/2" total in height
Angel wings
Skull beads
Bead caps or other small beads if desired for a hat or halo
For a boy with pants legs you'll also need two beads about 1/2" to 1", and two seed beads or drop beads for the feet
Earwires if you're making earrings
Remember to get two of everything if you're making earrings.

Suzy Q design

Keep in mind the following:

If you're making earrings, use smaller skull beads and avoid especially heavy beads.
Remember to leave at least 1/2" at the end of each headpin or eyepin for making the end loops.
When making larger pieces, cut longer lengths of craft wire for the body section, or use multiple eyepins to create two or more sections for the body.
Look for beads that remind you of a special family member -- perhaps a lot of sparkle and color, or round or thin. Attach charms or link more beads to the top loop to create a decorative headpice.

Uncle Stu design

Basic Assembly: when you have the beads arranged as you want, place them on the headpin (for a girl) or eyepin (for a boy) and make a loop at the top as you would for earrings. See below for a quick refresher on making loops (or go to my Free Tips & How To's page for a tip sheet you can print).

Suzy Q all assembled

Make a right angle bend above the top bead

Use round nose pliers to shape the loop

Make the loop and cut any excess wire

Use chain nose pliers if necessary to straighten the loop and make sure it's closed

Pants Legs for a Boy: For the boy, the body beads are place on the eyepin, and the headpin us used for the legs. Place one "foot" and one pants leg bead on the headpin. Bend the headpin so you have an upside down "V". Bring the headpin through the loop of the eyepin.

Bring the headpin through the loop of the eyepin

Place the remaining pants leg and foot bead on the headpin, and use pliers to make a loop around the foot bead. Use wire cutters to trim excess wire as necessary.

Finish getting dressed: add the other pants leg and foot bead, trim wire as needed and loop around foot bead

Give your person a name (OK, not really required, but it adds personality, and you are finished! Wasn't that fun?

Keep scrolling for a look at some of our other creations.

Uncle Stu ready to go. Looks like he's going to a ball game -- a Cubs fan do you think?

Violet Crawley: The Dowager

Auntie Mame

Blue Girl

Betsy

Birdie

Ginny

Miss Scarlet

Sally

Elegance

Green Girl

Party Girl

The Seamstress

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Flexible Combo: Square Knots & Soft Flex

10/17/2016

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It turns out that Soft Flex beading wire isn't just for stringing. OK, I kind of knew that, but I don't play around with it a lot and don't always pay attention to its alternate uses.

But Sara Oehler, who contributes to the SoftFlexGirl blog, had a post recently that looked kind of fun so I thought I'd give it a whirl. Go HERE to see her entire blog.

SoftFlexGirl's square knot bracelet with beading wire

This is a basic square knot bracelet, using Soft Flex instead of another type of knotting cord. Here's her photo of the project set up with a macrame board.

Since I like to leap right into things without waiting for the details, I failed to notice that she used .014 diameter beading wire. Apparently 6 strands of .014 wire will fit through a 2x2 crimp. Who knew?

SoftFlexGirl's set up

I happened to use .019 diameter wire, because that's what I have in fun colors. I assure you, 6 strands of .019 wire do not fit through a 2x2 crimp! However, 4 strands of .019 wire will fit through a large basemetal crimp bead, and that's how I attached the first part of the clasp. (Instead of cutting two pieces of wire for the knotting cords, I kept it one long piece. That avoids having 3 individual wires that all need to go back through the crimp bead.)

Kim's project set up

Then it's just your basic square knots -- finish a square knot, push the next bead up, do another square knot, until you have the length you want. (Go to my Free Tips & How Tos page if you need a refresher on making square knots.)

Project in progress

See? Easy peasy!

Square knot close-up

OK, now I'm ready to finish, and guess what? I have 3 strands of .019 wire that all need to double back through a crimp bead, and -- you guessed it -- they do not fit through even the large basemetal crimp. My solution -- use three crimp beads.

Ahhhh! Six strands! What to do?

Since three crimp beads look kind of odd, it gave me a reason to test the new 7mm crimp covers I have. Ta da! All finished.

A good cover up solves so many problems!

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Definition Day: Stunning Sapphire

9/26/2016

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I’ve returned to the Gemological Institute of America for information about September’s birthstone: sapphire. (And it’s the gem for the 5th and 45th anniversary, for those of you who track such things.) Here are a few things I learned about this beautiful gem.

Sapphire from Kashmir

Sapphire is one of the Big 3 of jewelry colored gemstones—the other two are ruby and emerald.
Color is the most important aspect of blue sapphire’s value, with the most highly valued blue sapphires being velvety blue to violetish blue, in medium to medium dark tones.

A variety of sapphire cuts

If blue isn’t one of your favorite colors, good news: sapphires come in just about every color except red, but that’s because a red sapphire is a ruby.

Pink sapphire

Color zoning—areas of different colors in a stone—is a common sapphire characteristic. Blue sapphire often has angular zones of blue and lighter blue. To accommodate color zoning in some sapphires, cutters orient the concentrated color in a location that offers the best visible color in the cut stone.

Deep blue oval cut sapphire

Besides blue sapphire and ruby, the corundum family also includes so-called “fancy sapphires.” They come in violet, green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, and intermediate hues. Some stones exhibit the phenomenon known as color change, most often going from blue in daylight or fluorescent lighting to purple under incandescent light. Sapphires can even be gray, black, or brown.

A variety of sapphires

Several types of inclusions are found in sapphires. Star rubies and star sapphires belong to the phenomenal corundum category. The star effect is called asterism. It’s caused by reflections from tiny, needle-like inclusions that are oriented in several specific directions. Stars are usually made up of 2, 3, or 6 intersecting bands, resulting in 4, 6, or 12 rays.

Star sapphire

Traditionally, sapphire symbolizes nobility, truth, sincerity, and faithfulness. It has decorated the robes of royalty and clergy members for centuries. Its extraordinary color is the standard against which other blue gems—from topaz to tanzanite—are measured.

If you’re a September child, remember that you are noble, truthful, sincere and faithful. Pretty cool, huh?

Rough sapphire

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Beat It or Bead It?

9/12/2016

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Have you ever had that moment when you tell somone your hobby is beading and they mistake the "d" for a "t" and look at you funny as they edge away? Yea, me too. So I decided to see how the world might be a better place if we replaced "beating" with "beading" in different situations. Pinterest helped me find these useful quotes and images.

Beading on a boat, making vintage style jewelry ("into the past," get it?) -- sounds fun!

Or maybe just bead some boats. Sounds fun too!

How silly. Beaders know perfectly well how to make a door with beads

Beaded door, YES!

Oh yea, beads improve EVERY season.

Or bead your own seasonal preferences

Avoid sugar, get beads and make your own candy

If you're going to be watching TV anyway, might as well have something to do

Because we all know that that's what you WANTED to happen!

Yes, I really DID want an asymmetrical design!

Lesson learned!

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When the Universe Sends a Message

8/29/2016

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Lucky me. I'm thinking, hmm, what should I write about today? And darned if I don't see a post from the Dakota Stones blog that practically screams at me "here I am -- all written!" (Maybe it didn't scream -- the subject is too polite for that.) But when the universe sends a very loud message, who am I to object?

Here's a bit of intro -- click on the photos or any of the highlighted LINKS to read the entire blog.

Chakra Man

Going OM
Posted by Erin on 8/28/2016

As philosophies and practices tied to Buddhism grow in western culture, we're seeing influences everywhere . . . .
We want to make design as easy as possible for our customers, so we've added a "chakra" section to our site. Each section includes some of the stones commonly associated with each of the seven chakras, as well as one for the oh-so-unifying quartz. We've tried to be thorough, and since there are as many opinions on the "right" stones for chakra work as there are people in Manhattan, we might be receiving some educational emails. (Feel free to send those to erin@dakotastones.com.)

. . . Instead of a dissertation, I volunteered to show you how the energy of chakra-enhancing stones helps me in my daily work at Dakota Stones. GO TO BLOG

Erin at Dakota Stones practices meditation

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Tool Tips: Round Hollow Pliers

8/22/2016

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Why add round hollow pliers to your tool kit? Let's say you want to make a lot of bead links, and you'd like the loops to be consistent in shape and size, but you've never been that good at measuring and looping and that kind of thing. Round hollow pliers to the rescue!

Round hollow pliers: indented jaw on the bottom, round jaw on top

We use round hollow pliers primarily to make loops in memory wire. Memory wire, being a hardened steel wire, is pretty stiff. If you use it a lot it can take quite a toll on your wrist to make all those end loops.

The hollow jaw of the pliers starts making the loop when you squeeze the pliers closed so you don't have to twist your wrist as much to finish the loop.

Making a loop in memory wire

First, to make consistently sized loops, use a permanent marker to make a line on the pliers so you always place the wire at the same place (you can do this with your round nose pliers too).

Use permanent marker on the pliers

Now you want to make your right angle in the wire -- how do you judge where? Here is the lazy person's measuring technique: extend the tip of the wire a little past the bottom jaw, then bend the longer side down against the pliers to make your right angle.

The lazy person's measuring technique: make a right angle with the tip of the wire extending a bit beyond the lower jaw

Now bring the tip of the wire back so it just barely touches the lower jaw.

Prepare to make the loop: move the tip of the wire so it barely touches the lower jaw

Squeeze the pliers to push the wire into the bottom jaw, and rotate the pliers to continue to make the loop.

Squeeze to begin the loop . . .

. . . and rotate the pliers to complete the loop

See? Nice round loops!

Round loops, side 1

For side 2, add your bead and place the wire on the pliers, adding a little extra space between the bead and the bottom jaw. Cut excess wire that extends beyond the bottom jaw.

Lazy person's measuring, side 2: leave extra wire between the bead and lower jaw, and trim excess

Make your right angle bend at the top of the bead, place the wire on the bottom jaw as you did for the first loop, and squeeze.

Repeat steps to make the loop

And look -- now you have your bead links with nice round, consistently sized loops! You may need to experiment when using different gauges of wire -- heavier wire takes more length to make the same size loop. But for those of us who are wire-challenged, this is a good way to add more consistency without having to think too hard. Happy looping!

Bead links, ready to become jewelry!

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Definition Day: Purely Peridot

8/15/2016

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If you’re an August child, peridot is your birthstone. And if you’ve been married for 15 years it’s your anniversary gemstone. Here is some more info about this beautiful gem, gleaned from the Gemological Institute of America.

While the 64.57-carat cut peridot is magnificent, it is overshadowed by the amazing 7.9-cm tall crystal. Both are from Sappat, Kohistan, Pakistan.

The word peridot comes from the Arabic “faridat,” which means “gem.” Most peridot formed deep inside the earth and was delivered to the surface by volcanoes. Some peridot is truly ancient (as in 4.5 billion years old). It's found in pallasite meteorites, remnants of our solar system's birth.

Peridot is cut in a wide variety of styles, including ovals, emerald cuts, and cushions.

Peridot’s color ranges from pure green to yellowish green to greenish yellow. The finest hue is green without any hint of yellow or brown. The gem’s colors tend to be at their finest in stones weighing 10 carats and above. Lower-quality peridot is brownish. Pure green stones are rare, and most peridots are more yellowish green. The higher-quality stones have an intense color. Most of the stones with the finest color come from Myanmar and Pakistan.

Most fine peridot is eye clean. Tiny black spots might be visible with magnification.

Did you know? Peridot is extraterrestrial. Crystals are found in meteorites, and some rare extraterrestrial crystals are even big enough to facet as cut gemstones. In 2005, peridot was found in comet dust brought back from the Stardust robotic space probe.

Peridot also occurs in pallasite meteorites. Any gems fashioned from these space rocks are truly extraterrestrial.

And get this: while most gems are colored by impurities such as iron, peridot's color is intrinsically yellow-green. Peridot also has extremely high double refraction: when you look closely through the gem, you can see two of each pavilion facet.

Although the best peridot is a pure grass green, most peridot is yellowish-green.

Peridot has always been associated with light. In fact, the Egyptians called it the “gem of the sun.” Some believed that it protected its owner from “terrors of the night,” especially when it was set in gold. Others strung the gems on donkey hair and tied them around their left arms to ward off evil spirits.

Peridot in the rough: Found in lava, meteorites, and deep in the earth’s mantle, yellow-green peridot is the extreme gem.

Gem miners find peridot as irregular nodules (rounded rocks with peridot crystals inside) in some lava flows in the United States, China, and Vietnam and, very rarely, as large crystals lining veins or pockets in certain types of solidified molten rock. Sources for the latter include Finland, Pakistan, Myanmar, and the island of Zabargad.

Nodules of peridot are found in volcanic rocks all over the American Southwest. These are from San Carlos, Arizona.

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Banish the Airport Doldrums!

8/1/2016

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You've arrived at the airport a couple of hours before your flight because you've been reading about the long TSA lines. Now that you've breezed through security, you have all this time to do -- what?

Don't let this happen to you!

The answer is . . . KUMIHIMO! Yes, with a little advance planning you will no longer dread airport downtime, delayed flights or re-routes due to weather.

Kumihimo is great for travel because everything is prepared in advance. Your project easily fits into your carry-on bag, doesn't require any tools and doesn't require extensive arm movements (pretty important if you're in the middle seat).

I was so glad I had two projects prepared for my recent trip to visit family in Colorado. Not only did I not dread the airport / flight time, I was actually looking forward to it!

Kumihimo -- that's all you need!

I'd been wanting to do kumihimo using both lentils and magatamas, and this was my chance. I started with the lentils project. I wanted to make a necklace, with the lentils in the center, so each cord was strung with size 8/0 seed beads, 6mm lentils, and size 8/0 seed beads. I didn't count the number of size 8/0 beads on either side of the lentils (OK, I'm lazy), I just measured them, and it came out all right. I was actually able to finish the entire piece between the pre-boarding airport time, flight time, and the drive from the airport to my sister's house.

Kumihimo necklace using size 8/0 seed beads & 6mm lentils

Because it's so convenient, I found myself starting on my second kumihimo project while visiting with family. For this one I used magatamas, those diagonally drilled drop beads. I wanted the magatamas to face toward the center on each side of the rope, so I had to be careful to string the same number on each cord, first in one direction, then the other, but it came out OK.

Kumihimo with magatamas

Now I was getting worried that I wouldn't have enough to do for the trip home. Since I had leftover cord from project #1, and I had also brought along a seed bead project, I strung six of the leftover cords with the size 8/0 seed beads I'd brought, and two of the cords with size 11/0 beads.

Did I mention being prepared for delays and re-routes due to weather? Yep, the flight home was quite a bit longer and I was SO glad I had that 3rd project to keep me busy! It took a while to decide how to finish this, but I decided it was time to mix things up a bit and added another braided rope, chain and glass beads for an asymmetrical design.

Multi-strand necklace: kumihimo with beads, kumihimo rope, Czech glass beads and two-tone chain

Ready to learn kumihimo? You're in luck -- we have a class coming up Sunday, August 2, 2:30-5 pm. Give us a call or sign up through our website.

Oh, here's another tip: kumihimo is also great when you have jury duty.

Kate's kumihimo bracelet

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Definition Day: Ruby Red

7/18/2016

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I’ve gone back to the Gemological Institute of America for today’s topic – rubies. The GIA site notes that our most intense emotions are associated with the color red: love and anger, passion and fury. It’s associated with objects of power and desire—like fast cars and red roses. Early cultures treasured rubies for their similarity to the redness of the blood that flowed through their veins, and believed that rubies held the power of life.

Ruby red

Ruby and sapphire are both varieties of the mineral corundum. In its purest form, corundum is colorless. Trace elements that become part of the mineral’s crystal structure cause variations in its color. Chromium is the trace element that causes ruby’s red, which ranges from an orangey red to a purplish red.

Sapphire & ruby

The most intense rubies are formed in marble deposits, especially in areas such as Myanmar, the Himalayas and northern Vietnam. Marble has low iron content, so the rubies that originate in marble (called “marble-hosted” by gemologists) lack iron and many have an intense red color.

Ruby in marble deposit

In other locations, rubies can be found in basalt rocks. Rubies from these sources can have higher iron content, making the rubies darker and less intense in color. The name ruby comes from the Latin word ruber, which means “red.” The glowing red of ruby suggested an inextinguishable flame burning in the stone, even shining through clothing and able to boil water.

Ruby deposits

Did you know that the first laser was created in 1960 using the red fluorescence light emitted by ruby? For those of you born in July, ruby is your birthstone as well as the gem for the 15th and 40th anniversaries.

Long mineral inclusions that intersect can create the star effect when stones are cut as cabochons

What determines quality? Color is the most significant factor affecting a ruby’s value: Fine gems are a pure, vibrant red to slightly purplish red.

Beautiful red. The color must be neither too dark nor too light to be considered finest quality.

Next is clarity: if a ruby's inclusions affect its transparency or brilliance they reduce the gem’s value significantly.

Look for clarity in the stone. People in the trade expect rubies to have at least some inclusions because inclusion-free rubies are practically nonexistent.

Cut is important. Rubies are commonly fashioned as mixed cuts, which have brilliant-cut crowns and step-cut pavilions.

Faceted ruby. Rubies are commonly cut into oval and cushion shapes

And finally, there's the carat weight of the gem. Fine-quality rubies over one carat are very rare, but commercial-quality rubies are commonly available in a wide range of sizes.