Colored Wire is Cool

Way back when my first tutorial came out in Step By Step Wire, I was contacted by a company that sells colored coated copper base wire. They said that if I mentioned them in my next tutorial, they would give me a discount. I check out their site and thought... "when am I ever gonna use copper colored wire?" So, I just deleted the email and went on with my beady wire life as it was.

Then I was reading "The Glass Slipper" blog of Sarah H (I mentioned her a few weeks ago), she had posted the links to some of her customers that were using her beads in their projects. The work at www.bendwire.com caught my attention. You might also recognize this artist, Melanie Schow, from the most recent issue of Beadwork Magazine. Her wire work is wonderful and whimsical. I loved checking out her site. All that colored wire made me think... "maybe I can do something cool with colored wire". So, I visited www.parawire.com and ordered up some wire. (Unfortunately, I don't remember if this is the company that contacted me way back when, oops.) I got lots of colors... red, fuschia, blues, greens... almost all of them... in my favorite universal guage... 20 guage.

I had made the rings you see in the bracelet, "Rosy", up top, earlier this week for another rendition of "Reeling". Instead of doing what I thought I would, I mixed them up with the copper wire!! I LOVE THE RESULTS. The colors in this bracelet just sing to me for some reason. They are a peachy/fuschia-ish/red/orange blend. I think this is a bracelet that would totally rock anytime of year.

As soon as I finished it, I started hunting my desk for enough rings to make another one. Alas, all I had were four lonely etched transparent blue small rings. I modified the design a bit, and then TA-DA, a milder, tamer version of the bracelet above. (With one lonely ring still left on my desk, lol.) I am definitely making several of these in different color combos for the art show coming up in July. I love these!! And what is so fun about them is that many of the rings are free floating, they can travel through the bracelet. So, you can play with them while you sit in traffic. :) The majority of the design is sterling silver, and I used a heavier 16 guage for the whole design so it wouldn't need to be tumbled. From what I can tell, I don't think the colored wire would hold up to tumbling.



We have been having a rough week around here with some family issues. Everyone in the immediate family is fine, but the extended family, not so great. I won't go into details... it is long, drawn out, depressing stuff... but there are a few of my Aunts that could use some good thoughts sent their ways. So, weither you pray, think warm thoughts, or put notes in a special people box... think of them for the next few days for me.

I almost forgot... I posted two Bead Box Bead sets... I made them a few days ago and just got around to posting them. Nothing worth sending out an email over but... go check them out. You can find them easy on my home page under "Featured Items".