Copper wire wrapped glass cabochon bracelet with crystals

First things first: Naomi's Designs is now on Tumblr. Now, I cannot figure out how Tumblr is all that different from Instagram, but I figure it can't hurt to expand my social media platform on sites where I can display photos and links to my jewelry and website. So Tumblr, it is! If you're on there, feel free to follow me.

Meantime, I'm continuing to teach, fill orders and create! I recently landed jobs at three more senior centers, which I'm excited about. I don't want to name them until I actually start work there, which will be toward the end of April. But this is going to be a very busy spring with me teaching pretty much full-time.

When I do have some spare time and am not firing students' pieces, I'm working on my own art and jewelry. Ridgewood Market is in a few weeks and I've been coming up with new inventory. Since the same people tend to frequent that venue, I really need to mix things up and have new items in stock.

Lately, I've been having fun making glass pieces with my glass frit and molds. I'm getting much better at it and have broken fewer molds along the way. Hurray! I was getting a bit tired of making only pendants, though, so I turned the round cabochon shape into a bracelet:

I really love that speckled red, black, pink and white glass. I did not create that; the color, called Strawberry Fields, came that way. All I did was pour it into the mold and fire it. With many frit pieces, I set up the design, but this particular kind needed no color embellishments.

Once the cabochon fired and set, I treated it like a stone, adding the copper wire wrap and crystals. I then created a copper wire spiral design that frames the red glass. Oddly, it was the chain that posed the biggest challenge for me. I've made adjustable chains for thousands of bracelets, but I hadn't taken into account how slippery the glass would be. So I needed to get the proportions just right so you can hook it under your wrist without the glass slipping. I usually make the hook end shorter and link end longer, but I reversed that -- and the clasp was much easier to support and close. I should probably try this design again with a bangle band.

As of now, I think I have some really great inventory for Ridgewood. I've done very well at the last three fairs I've been in and I want to make a lot of sales at this one, too. I'm also adding all of these new pieces to my website. I have 120 items up on this date and keep adding more, so check in often. I can add up to 1500!

I just received a teardrop-shaped mold, which is going to be fun to play with. Keep an eye out for some teardrop jewelry.

Silver wire wrapped bracelet with spirals, crystals and handmade dichroic glass beads in purple and blue

One of the most challenging things that's come up in making glass pieces is learning to control the exact colors of the dichroic glass. "Dichroic" means two (or more)-colored, so each firing in the kiln yields a surprise for me. The Candy Apple red glass I purchased turns orange, while the light blue glass looks more magenta.

Then there's the tie-dyed glass I have where any portion of the sheet can turn any color. It's always an adventure!

When I'm experimenting and just creating pieces as I go along, I don't worry too much about the final glass shades. The dichros are so pretty, it doesn't really matter -- and I enjoy being surprised. However, a customer recently asked me to make her a glass jewelry set with very specific colors in the pendant, earrings and bracelet. She actually drew a graphic for me showing where she wanted each color to be in the design.

This meant I had to get my butt in gear and actually figure out how to get exact hues in the glass. My answer? Test strips.

We use test strips in enameling, where we'll fire a color on top of plain copper, copper with a white base, copper with a clear base, etc. The thing with fine glass powder, though, is that it's usually at least somewhat close to the shade it'll yield. You can be pretty certain that purple powder will turn into purple enamel. It might not be the exact shade you want, but it'll at least be in the correct family. You won't end up with pink or yellow glass... unless you're applying the powder to silver or gold foil, which is a whole other story...

Anyway, I decided to fire small pieces of glass so I could determine each shade. In the end, I created dozens of these tiny cabochons. I didn't want to waste them, especially since they took time to make. My solution is to turn these into links for bracelets and necklaces.

The first bracelet I created was this purple and blue piece:

The links are pretty small, so I added a silver spiral and a couple of matching crystals. I love my blues and purples... my friend and music partner, Judy, would say it's because I'm an Aquarian, LOL.

I have dozens more of these links, in all different sizes. I'm using some to make a necklace, which I'll post soon. And I "found" my colors! The woman's jewelry set is coming along nicely and should be completed this week. I'll have photos soon, though you can sneak a peak on my Instagram page.

In other news, my first wire wrapping class is tomorrow morning. I'm a little nervous. I've been so looking forward to this and hope it goes well. Wish me luck!

You can check out the rest of my handmade wire wrapped and dichroic glass jewelry at Naomi's Designs, MayaGirl Creations and Glass By Naomi.