gallery

This piece is made with Art Clay Silver and is hand formed, fired and finished. The fish look to me like Mr. Limpet and Ladyfish, except he lost his glasses! Ha! Ha! (I am showing my age with that comment). I loved that movie growing up. I wanted the fish to look like they were swimming in a kelp bed with bubbles coming up, that is why the bail is shaped like a piece of kelp and the casting grain are the bubbles.

This is a brand new technique of weaving a bezel that I have been developing. It is very versatile. You can make pendants, ear rings or other center pieces with this technique. I am currently making a tutorial to share this with you. Also, it can be made reversible with the identical weave on the back if you choose. I have a few tricks to make the weave easier to accomplish and will be including those in the tutorial. Hope you like it.

This pendant is made with a gorgeous Spectolite cab from Finland. The color of the stone changes with the different angles of light. I just love it. I set the stone in fine silver, using silver metal clay. I signed it on the back and stamped it .999 to declare the purity of the material used.

This cross has a beautiful square lab ruby in the middle which glows like fire. It was hand made with art clay silver. I torched this one instead of kiln firing to see if I could keep the temperature consistent and not mess the stone up (I needed practice). It came through all right, I'm pretty happy with it.

I have always wanted to try a tassel pendant but never took the time to figure it out. Well, I finally took a afternoon to whip this one out. The stones are green turquoise and red garnet. Everything else is sterling silver, oxidized to bring out the texture. It is on a long chain with garnets wired in every two inches which you can't see in the picture. I think it turned out OK but since it is the first one, I know I can do better after a few more times.

This necklace has a center piece made with art clay silver. The pattern you see is an impression of an antique button. I have used other things like door knobs and leaves for impressions; virtually anything that has an interesting shape. It is really fun to see what great things there are lying around that you'd never dream would translate so well into jewelry. The woven bezel around the medallion is a new development that I am currently refining. The leather is tied into my version of a double...

This unusual pendant is made with a bright greenish blue Spectrolite cab from Finland. When the light reflects from inside the stone, a brilliant flash of green/blue is seen. The bezel is made with Art Clay Silver and is formed, fired and finished by hand. I am working on bezel setting, practicing over and over and over again so that I can actually produce something worth looking at. These Spectrolite stones are tricky because you have to orient them so the light hits them at the right angle...

This necklace is made of three of my favorite gem stones; Ruby, Iolite and Peridot. They dangle in groups from a flower spacer. In between the groups are fresh water pearls to add a little dash of fresh color. The chain is hand made in sterling silver. This necklace is adjustable with the full length being 20 inches long.

This pendant is made with a red garnet cz, bezel set in fine silver using metal clay. The setting is hand formed, fired and finished. The stone itself is 8 mm by 8 mm. I am still in the learning process here and I think I will be for a long time. Every piece seems to have something go wrong and I have to learn how to fix it. But with metal clay, you can fix all kinds of problems before and after you fire the piece. This pendant measures 1 and 1/2 inches from the top of the bail to the bottom...

With this necklace I wanted to create a woven bezel around a center piece of pmc (precious metal clay). After I made the medallion, I didn't want to just string it on to the beads. I wanted something special, to show it off a little or at least make it more pronounced. The woven bezel technique is something I am working on right now, to give me more options with what to do with a top drilled stone. It is great to know it can be done with just about any centerpiece, even pmc.

I have often wanted to take a class in Viking Knit and finally found time to squeeze it in. This piece, being my first one, is not perfect but I am happy with the results. My respect for all Viking Knitters out there has sky rocketed. The patience it takes to pull that long wire through to form each tiny loop is not found in the average human being. I can sit and coil for hours but to keep pulling and untangling that thin, little wire pushed even this crusty, old wire worker to her whit's end....

This necklace was made with a faceted green garnet center piece, accented with red garnet and peridot. It is completely hand woven together with sterling silver wire. It was fun to explore new binding methods and come up with something I haven't done before.

This pendant is made of Rain Forest Jasper (hence the name, lol). It took me a while to design the wrap because this stone has color all over the place. I tried to give the color some direction with the flow of the wire and, of course, being a swirl addict, I had to put some in. I think it turned out pretty good. I never know. I just give it my best shot. It measures 2 3/4 inches from the top of the bail to the bottom and is 1 inch wide. The chain is sols separately.

This Pendant is made with a tear drop shaped Turquoise bead. It is actually drilled from top to bottom but you cannot see the hole. It has been hand wrapped in 14 K gold filled wire. This stone didn't have much going on so I did some fancy wiring to liven things up a little. Weaving at the bottom is always more of a challenge for me. I think it gives the stone a good proportional balance between the bail to the woven wire. It measures 1 3/4 inches tall and 7/8 inches wide.

This pair of ear rings is the result of playing with different ways to weave wire together and is actually a prototype of a new series of woven ear rings I am working on now. I love the shape of a tear drop for an ear ring so as I shaped the wire, I tried to elongate the oval at the bottom to form this shape. The stone I chose is breciated red jasper with black onyx as an accent bead at the top. They are not perfect but just wait until I do a hundred or so more, than they'll be closer. I'll...

This pendant is made with a beautiful agate drusy cabochon. I chose to wrap it in 14K gold filled wire to emphasize the crystal center. This is the first time I have ever woven the bottom and the top in the same piece. Usually I just weave the top as the wires come together but this time I got ambitious and tried it out at the bottom too. You have to carefully choose the right stone because the weaving can quickly compete with any pattern in the stone. This cab is quiet in its coloring and I...

This unique necklace was the one I chose to write about in the February '08 issue of Bead&Button Magazine (see link at In the Press, at the bottom of the page). I was completely floored when they told me they chose my jewelry for the cover. I was happy just to be included somewhere in the magazine but to be chosen as the cover was such an honor. The necklace is made from extraordinary, hand-made polymer clay beads by my friend, Barbara McGuire, a very talented artist and author. I chose...

This pendant was made for the red jasper ear rings in a similar technique. The jasper has a hand woven bezel in sterling silver with leather woven in a Double Coin knot at the center. The pendant measures2 1/2 inches from the top of the bail to the bottom and is 1 inch wide.

This bracelet was made using the three Segment Coiled Bracelet tutorial. It has been slightly modified as I took a little creative license to show the versatility of the technique. I admit this one is a little over the top but it was a lot of fun to see what I could do, within the boundaries of the three segments. There are so many more possibilities out there, waiting to be reigned in and mastered. If you have ever wanted to try coiling, you should check this tutorial out. It will expand your...

While learning any new medium, there is a learning curve in which I find myself deeply entrenched. Although the outcome of the battle was a good one, much blood, sweat and tears went into the making of this pendant. This, being my first bezel set stone, had multiple things go wrong. And yet, here it is. I hope to encourage all of you who are learning to keep going, keep trudging through the muck and mire of colossal failure because the next time you try, it will somehow come together and you...

This beautiful pendant is made of an extraordinary Agate Druzy cabochon. The sparkle is clear and bright and the color is rich and deep. It really is magnificent and makes you feel the same when you put it on. I tried to wrap it in a way that does not disturb the natural beauty. It measures 2 5/8 inches tall and is 7/8 inch wide. This pendant resides in a private collection.