Vastly overdue shop update

Well, I'm committed to a shop update that I've been avoiding for a good long while.  A deadly mixture of procrastination, uncertainty, angst, and inertia from too many ideas with no immediate hope of resolution made me think that most of my work should be put on a shelf to 'age' like fine whiskey.  The hope being, of course, that it would look better the next time I saw it!

But you just have go forward and listing and selling ( and describing) the work is part of that.  One step in front of the other....but rest assured that anything really terrible will stay on the shelf where it belongs!


Tuesday at 6 PM I'll be listing owls ( and other portraits) and new Strata beads...

Wednesday at 6:00 PM, I'll be listing assorted beads (all hollows) and the new free moving clasps I wrote about in my last post....and some new pendants....

On Thursday at 6 PM, I'll be listing pods, buttons and bracelets...

Lots of listing work ahead and I'll post some more pictures on Monday with some other yummy stuff that will be going up...including this new hollow fan strata bead with Mokume Gane surfaces on front and back..I love this bead! 

 Love these tiles.....

Have a great weekend!  15 more centimeters of snow forecast for tonight into tomorrow.  Hmm, first day of spring....

Free moving closures

This is one of those ideas that has taken me literally for ever to resolve.  It’s been in and out of drawers and pushed to the back of my table far too many times.  No more, I need this idea to finish some necklaces I have planned – especially since I personally prefer a shorter necklace length.  Can’t go over the head all the time…
I’m also planning to sell some of them (and others) in the shop so you’ll see in the photos that I have left the wire unfinished and sticking out of the mechanism (with some length) so that anyone who buys it to use in their work can make design choices about how it joins on.  This may be changed, we’ll see how it goes.


                   
                  




You might be wondering why these are at all novel and it’s this simple feature:  the wire stays stationary (attached to your necklace ) while you screw and unscrew the clasp.  No more tension on the screw buried in the decorative part of the closure that will cause it to undo...and the  closure itself looks more like a bead than anything else.



                                           
Undone…
                                                

There is a simple construction/mechanism that I designed ( I hesitate to use the word mechanism because it is very simple) that lets the wire move freely within the bead, but remain securely attached!  Very handy.  Great for bracelets as well and a bit of a change from a toggle!  


                                            




There are also some other types of clasps I’ve been working on – these for example.  Two arms are joined by a screw and a polymer covered nut joins and secures the two sides.

                               
                                                        




                                                     


I have plans for much smaller and more ‘fine-boned’ closures of this type, but I need to source out really good quality tiny machine screw and nuts.  Perhaps my optometrist could help me here?  Or perhaps you other maker types out there?
Then, there’s this:  enough said….



                                               



I’ve certainly had an interesting couple of months to start the year.  Best described as alternately exciting and frustrating.  I have 5 or 6 ideas that are all fascinating to me, but were going nowhere for the longest while.  This was one of them!  It feels good to have made some progress, because my  store has surely suffered for my inability to move forward: this state of mind often moves into other areas that have no reason to be stalled!


Back tomorrow with news of a shop update: it’ll be a big one….also some other big news!