Oh my! I have a dire need to share some great tutorials that I am VERY fortunate to know of. There will be a series of them, on-going, and I am lucky enough to actually know the very talented, generous people putting the tutorials together. Szarka at Magpie Gemstones is paving the way for new wirecrafters. There have always been tutorials on the Magpie Gemstones website, but now Szarka, along with Karen Meador, Ph.D. of Dreamcatcher Designs TX and others, is offering a series of more in-depth, detailed tutorials to really help newbies learn the ropes..err..wires? The latest installment includes Make Your Own Jump Rings, How to Wrap a Loop, and a nifty youtube video of Szarka herself showing us all How To Make Wire Clasps! If you’re a seasoned wire-worker, why not read these tutorials with an open mind, and break away from the standard, traditional configurations, and come up with new designs or patterns? Or maybe you can pick up a trick or two you hadn’t thought of before. Here is what I worked on:

Not only does Szarka provide beautiful, great quality beads and gemstones at prices unheard of, tutorials and guidance covering a broad range of topics pertaining to the jewelry-making and selling world, she has a website dedicated to her own gorgeous jewelry creations!

Next on the roster, Kumihimo, revisited. Since I live by the “See one, Do one, Teach one” adage, I invited L to learn the great joys of tangling wires up into knots while flinging beads all over the room Kumihimo. I finally found Fireline at Cabellas and then decided to get a different, more affordable brand. After much trepidation, hesitation, and hours of stringing tiny seed beads onto Fireline, L was ready to start! I messed up her pattern for her at some point, but I think it’ll still turn out great, and she decided she liked it as it was (I think she was afraid she’d have to string more beads):

In retrospect, I should probably have had her only string a couple inches worth of beads to start….. 😉
While L did that, I was busy working away on the moonstone necklace for A, my soon to be sister in law:


Here are a couple of pictures of my work space:

Second work area to my left, with more essentials.

Oh! And before I forget, here is a could-be-better picture of the desktop collage I made, embedding everything in epoxy resin:

I have since tidied up my work space even more, but don’t yet have more pictures to prove it 😉
“What about the aforementioned time machine?” you may be asking. Well, who wouldn’t want a time machine? We could go back, and update blogs when things actually happened, rather than a week later. We could see the future and know what things will sell and what won’t in our Etsy shops, so we don’t waste precious time on things that people simply aren’t interested in. We could give a few extra hugs where needed, to help our days run smoother. But until then gentle viewers, we must remember to cherish every second we have, and remember to stop and smell the roses. =^..^=