Year of Jewelry Week 7: Irish Eyes Are Smiling

On February 11, 2012

Okay, so you know how when you get new materials with which to work and the entire world ceases to exist? Well, I forgot what day it was for an entire 10 hours today! I think, for just a moment or two, I even forgot I had children. Or rather, I forgot that my children were not, in fact, Swanstrom pliers and Swarovski crystals. I admit I even gave them names. All of you, meet Bob and Bob…. Bob and Bob, meet everyone else.

It was raining jewelry up in here! Enter the Year of Jewelry week 7 project, “Irish Eyes Are Smiling”. Why is this Irish? Uh… because it’s green? And, uh, leprechauns like that?

But most importantly, it was a project for me that extended beyond my usual methodology. I had fun playing with fire today, practicing with my new Blazer torch. Okay, well, I had fun with it until the wire stopped balling and my hair caught fire, which was exactly five minutes. Hooray! I made it a whole five minutes without causing irreversible smoke damage to my home (and really you can hardly see the bald spot)! And, within that five minutes, I managed to ball up enough small pieces of scrap wire to create these darling little daredevils. I’ve always admired this style of wrapping, but disliked the idea of pokey bits sticking every which way, and without a torch, my wire-end options were limited. Once I managed the torch, these went together quick as a blink, then oxidized for detail and depth. They are pretty adorable, if I do say so myself.

Nice and long and… dangly, I guess. Point is, I managed to do something new! Strange concept, right? And not only did I do a dance for balling wire (I think I might have even sung a wire-balling ditty along the lines of “I balled you up, and I cannot lie, you other brothers can’t deny, when they wire walks in with its itty bitty end, I put a blue flame in its face and get sprung!”… yeah, I’m that sad), but, and I apologize for the digression, I also managed to work with my new phosphor bronze wire. And oxidizing this wire was just plain fun!

I have all these gorgeous Swarovski bits lying about (Bermuda Blue pictured above), and a year worth of wire, and I have to say… the options are limitless. I was using this fabulous bronze enamel copper wire, but I’m sold on the natural stuff now. Not only do I have complete control over color, but it just feels better. I don’t mean to sound overtly metaphysical, but there is something appealing about materials which occur fundamentally elementally.

So, though I may not be entirely sold on the usefulness of my torch, the wire, if nothing else, will provide oodles of entertainment this year. Natural phosphor bronze, raw copper and a bucket of Liver of Sulfur spells toxic fun if you ask me! Really, though, the torch still scares me. Burnt hair is not a favorable look.

Good night and happy weaving!