Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Crystal faced Niobium post earrings

I received a custom order via my website (at http://www.prettysensitive.weebly.com) for a pair of niobium post earrings with clear round crystals recently. I've been meaning to make more crystal faced niobium post earrings for a bit now...and sometimes it takes that extra little kick in the pants!
So, last night I sat down and worked on the custom order and made six extra pairs. Working my pliers on the wire for these identified some places where building up calluses might be nice! Felt like I nearly formed blisters! It takes a lot of work to get the wire to do what I want it to! ;)

Anyway, I got 4mm clear and light blue Swarovski crystal niobium post earrings made, clear princess cut Swarovski crystal in 4mm made, and 6mm jet black Swarovksi crystals made. Also some montees in a light topaz.

They are difficult to get just right when I mount the crystals. They have a tendency to want to slip off-center before the epoxy sets - so I have to keep an eye on them!

I'm excited to get them posted. Check my store soon to see how they turned out! http://www.prettysensitive.etsy.com (Right now there are tons of great choices in surgical steel post earrings too!)

Star earrings featured in treasury

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Moved & Setting up

Well, we are moved and settling in box by box.  Our office is our dedicated arts & crafts space in the house.  It was a bedroom for the previous owners' daughter so one wall is bubblegum pink.  After painting our daughters' bedrooms I didn't have any more "oomph" in me to paint over the pink wall in the office.  So for now, it will remain until a later point in time.  It's nice and peppy though!

My husband made it down to Seattle to the University of Washington's Surplus Store and snagged a great deal on a 6 ft work table and a ginormous bulletin board for the wall.  Those pieces in there are so awesome!  (You can find some incredible stuff there!  http://www.washington.edu/facilities/finadmin/movingandsurplus/inventory/)  I plan to use a portion of the cork board as an "Inspiration Board" and the rest for business needs and/or storing baggies of findings or beads even!  For the inspiration board I plan to pin up projected colors for the upcoming seasons along with clippings from magazines / catalogs and sketches of ideas.  I'm very excited about this. 

Shortly after we moved in I was sent a request for custom pearls and flowers on post earrings.  I had been overdue to order more pearls, so I finally got to that.  I received last week the whole order and they are darling.  White and purple 6mm button pearls.  Perfect for a post earring.  They are so versatile...dress up or down.  The white ones have been posted for sale on my etsy shop (http://www.prettysensitive.etsy.com) and the purple ones will be up soon - once I am able to get a good photo showing their color.  (We haven't found our point & click camera yet in all the "stuff" and so I will have to use my digital video camera to get a picture, which is a bit more challenging.)

I also ordered resin dye - in white, transparent red, and transparent amber - and a silicone flower mold to try out making my own resin flower cabachons for post earrings.  I had bought a set of small enameled metal flower beads awhile back on a clearance rack and sadly, cannot find these again ANYwhere.  I have scoured and scoured the internet.  So, I'm going to try this resin route and see how it turns out.  I am actually quite excited!

So, the focus for now in "Pretty Sensitive Ears" land is setting up the workspace, putting together and listing the new pearl post earrings, and trying out the resin cabachon making!  Fun fun fun!