Michon Jewelry Blog

Chandelier Crystal Necklace

Posted by Leah on Sep 24, 2008

I was looking through my stash the other night for inspiration, and I found some chandelier crystals that I had completely forgotten about. They are big and sparkly - the perfect centerpiece for a necklace. I decided to go with a very simple color scheme - silver for metal, and gray freshwater pearls with the clear crystal:

Since I became a mom, I’ve been much more aware of the needs of women with young children. I made this necklace long enough to slip on, and it has no clasp. Everything is finished in a way that if a baby or toddler pulls on it, it won’t come loose.

I know it isn’t quite holiday party season yet, but I think this necklace would look fabulous for a holiday party - it can dress up jeans and a simple top, and it would also look great with a black cocktail dress and heels. As a designer, it’s never too early to start thinking about the holidays…for the woman who prefers gold, my classic elegance lariat would also look lovely at a cocktail party.

Beading With Charms

Posted by Leah on Sep 23, 2008

Beading with Charms: Beautiful Jewelry, Simple Techniques (A Lark Jewelry Book) would be a good book for someone just starting to work with wire. The projects use mostly basic wire techniques such as making simple loops and wrapped loops to attach all kinds of beads and trinkets to earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and more. There are some beautiful designs using a variety of materials, including found objects, pearls, and glass beads.

For an intermediate to advanced wireworker, this book would be useful primarily as a source of inspiration. Don’t expect to learn any advanced techniques, but maybe one of the designers uses materials in a new way that could spark your creativity.

The best thing about this book, in my opinion, is that there are a *lot* of projects - more than most jewelry books - so there’s bound to be something that appeals to most jewelry designers. The weakness is that the projects are mostly beginner-level projects.

Can you use a propane torch to fuse silver?

Posted by Leah on Sep 22, 2008

The answer to this question is definitely yes - you can use a propane torch to fuse silver. In fact, the only torch I use is a propane torch I bought at the hardware store, and it works great for fusing and soldering silver. I’ve used it with sterling, argentium, and fine silver. I’ve also used it to anneal copper & solder copper using silver solder.

Duct Tape Dress Form

Posted by Leah on Sep 21, 2008

This is an actual dress form, custom made with duct tape to fit a friend of mine. We had a lot of fun making it! She found instructions online somewhere and enlisted me to help her out, since for obvious reasons it would be hard to make yourself one without help….

It involved an old T-shirt that she didn’t mind destroying, and LOTS of duct tape. I think it took us about an hour, and then she had to stuff it later on.

Mixed Media Experiments

Posted by Leah on Sep 20, 2008

Remember my post on resin collages? Well, I finally got around to doing something with one of my collages.

I cut out little rectangles exactly the right size to glue onto these little balsa wood tiles. Using mod-podge, I affixed them to one side of each of four tiles. (Note: the tiles ended up curling, so keep that in mind if you want to try a similar project - you may want to use something that won’t curl when glue is applied.)

Once they were dry, I got out my package of composite mica, and peeled off some pieces of it, which I mod-podges to the back of the tiles. On one tile, I glued some newspaper underneath to see how it would look with mica over it. (Gluing on the back helped a bit with evening out the curling from the previous step, but not completely.) I also glued some mica over one of the collages, to see how that would look. Didn’t work too well, since the image was curling away from the mica, so I ended up removing the parts that didn’t stick.

Then I thought I’d punch holes and finish them with eyelets so I could potentially make some kind of wire bail for my tiles to use them as pendants. I thought about maybe connecting them all together to make some kind of book, but I forgot about that when I was punching the holes, and ended up trying a few different placements of holes instead.

Next time, there are some things I’d do differently - like maybe start with wood that is thicker, something more like scrabble tiles. That would mean I’d have to drill the holes & use something besides scrapbooking eyelets to finish them, but luckily I have the skills to do that.

Elegant Snobbery

Posted by Leah on Sep 19, 2008

Since my husband is an artist, I rarely purchase art for our walls. But I couldn’t resist a couple of sock monkey illustrations (well, prints, not the originals) from Elegant Snobbery. Her style is very different from my husband’s and these are perfect for our baby’s room!

I got a few other goodies too, check it out:

Circa Arte

Posted by Leah on Sep 18, 2008

I’m feeling a little silly that I never listened to the Circa Arte podcast before - it’s the podcast of the mixed media art group ZNE, which I’ve been a member of for a while. Silly me - it’s a great show so I’ve been missing out!

Chelise Stroud Hery hosts Circa Arte, and in the most recent episode, she interviews Ruth Rae, a successful artist who knows a lot about selling and marketing art. Definitely worth a listen! I hadn’t heard of Ruth, but after hearing the interview, I really want to look at her work - she does jewelry as well as mixed-media fiber art, two things I’m very interested in. Chel did a great job on the interview. I’ll have to catch up on some of the back episodes of Circa Arte when I have some time.

My only complaint - during some segments the levels were off, so the background music overpowered the speaking - but luckily that was only for a few minutes in the beginning, and not during the interview. Hopefully that was just a problem with the recording levels for this show, and not something that happens often.

Mica Project Link

Posted by Leah on Sep 17, 2008

Thanks to Stacey from ZNE for sending me a link to a great project using mica (and a bunch of other things that sound like fun). Here’s the link.

I’ve been experimenting a bit with the composite mica that I bought…pictures coming soon…not sure I love what I did, but it’s a new material for me and I’m having fun playing with it.

Treasury Love

Posted by Leah on Sep 16, 2008

I’m excited to share this treasury, curated by VickiDiane. Vicki gets etsy artists to “expose” themselves in her treasuries, posting images of themselves. And here I am, with a bunch of my fellow JET (Jewelry on Etsy) team members (I’m the one in the green top):

My friend Valerie of Valerie’s Gallery created this lovely treasury in sage green, which features a pair of my earrings:

Felting Forum Blog

Posted by Leah on Sep 16, 2008

If you are interested in felt, check out the felting forum blog - they post entries from monthly felting challenges, so it’s a great place to see all kinds of different things people are doing with felting techniques.