Abstract heart mosaic necklaces made from fused dichroic glass

I'm still learning how to cut glass into exact shapes because I find it difficult to score glass on a curve. It's much easier to cut it on angles. Therefore, I sometimes "cheat" and use pre-cut shapes for my base glass.

I love hearts, so I recently made these glass heart mosaic pendants:

These guys are about 1 3/4 inches by 1 1/2 inches. I'd purchased smaller hearts earlier in the year and all but one have sold. I wanted to try working with a larger canvas.

I may have saved some time by using pre-cut glass, but getting the mosaic shapes to fit is still pretty labor intensive. I had to make sure each piece fit and a lot of snipping and filing was involved. I wanted the pieces to fire evenly and not break, so I put them in my kiln for 15-20 second increments. This takes time, but I like using this method because I can remove the glass at the exact right moment. I generally start with 30 seconds, just to heat the kiln, and then fire at 15-20 second intervals. I put on my gloves and protective eye wear, and lift the kiln after each interval so I can see where the glass is on the firing schedule. With an industrial-sized kiln, you'd set the timer on a schedule so the glass slowly cooks over the course of several hours. Since I don't have that option, this is my modified version of that process -- and it works!

I LOVE these pendants, though. They're so colorful and pretty. I gave the one with the red section to my friend Nancy for Christmas. And I wore the one with the orange and green swirls. I'm actually thinking of keeping it. Imagine that? Me keeping a piece of my own jewelry!

Nancy was excited to receive her heart because she'd purchased one of the smaller mosaics from me. She likes to layer necklaces so her plan is to wear the bigger heart on a long chain and then pair it with the smaller heart, which she'll wear on a shorter chain. I'll have to get her to model the jewelry for you.

Because I love these hearts so much, I ended up buying huge pre-cut pieces that are several inches across. I hadn't realized just HOW large they are, but they're coaster-sized. Way too big to wear as pendants! I've worked on one so far, just to see what it would look like, and think these could make nice holiday ornaments -- or even year-round suncatchers. I mean, Christmas ornaments don't HAVE to be in the shapes of trees or gingerbread people, right? Sure, hearts are associated with Valentine's Day, but this is supposed to be a season where one celebrates love and family. Why not a big heart?

Check out the rest of my handmade jewelry at Naomi's Designs and MayaGirl Creations.

Double sided multicolor enamel heart pendants

One of the fun things about working with enamel is that most pieces are double-sided. You need to apply glass to both sides of the metal -- we call this a "counter" -- so the enamel is even. If one side is thicker than the other, the metal can bend and the enamel can break off. So if you have three coats on side, you need three on the other. The only exception is if you're doing a technique like champleve, and are working with a very thick piece of metal.

I usually just apply a plain color as my counter, especially if I'm making something where only one side is ever seen. Lately, though, I've been working on the other side -- the "B side," if you will -- and turning my jewelry into two-in-one pieces. Here are the reversible heart necklaces that I designed:

I tried to go with extremely different color combinations so the pendants can be worn with a diverse range of outfits. I had a lot of fun making these and coming up with unique combos. Out of the four hearts, though, I think I like the pink, red, white and black the best. One of my classmates said that the red line looks like an aorta. I don't know if I want this kind of heart to look like the human organ...

So far, I've made double-sided cats, hearts, stars and abstract figures. I think it would be interesting to paint a cartoon-type character where one side is the person's front and the other, the back. I'll have to play around and see what I come up with. The other good thing about enamel is that if I screw up, I can always paint right over my mistake!

Check out my jewellery at Naomi's Designs and MayaGirl Creations -- and find me on Instagram.

Tales from enameling class: Pink and black heart and polka dot enamel dangle earrings

The winter/spring session for my enameling class started last week. I'm thrilled to be back, though I was disappointed to learn that a few of the "regulars" have moved on to other things. The good news is, we have a couple of newcomers who are really nice. One is a travel agent and the other is a travel writer. Given my love of traveling, we have a lot to talk about.

It always takes me a while to get back into the rhythm of the class and this semester is no exception. I'm already a klutz, but this past week, I took my clumsiness to new levels. First, I tried to drill a tiny copper square... only my finger kept getting in the way so I let go and the piece flew off the table. Luckily, no one was hurt! However, I accidentally burned myself when my thumb grazed a flaming hot trivet, fresh out of the kiln. Ouch! Again, I was fortunate in that no major damage was done.

By far, my biggest mistake came when I attempted to make a pair of earrings. I had some leftover small rectangular pieces and painted them with stripes of green, yellow, pink and light blue. They looked really cute; the other women in the class called them "candy earrings" because of the bright pastel colors. I was almost finished with my project, but put one earring down on the wrong side of the trivet... and it ended up fusing to the metal. Stupid, stupid, me! I had to pry off the earring with pliers and in the process, snapped it in half. Honestly, I don't know what the hell I was thinking. I guess we all have bad days, right?

On the positive side, I now know a color combination which looks really good and I plan to make another piece using those pastel stripes. Plus, I DID manage to successfully complete a pair of pink and black heart and polka dot enamel earrings:

I'd forgotten I had a pair of copper squares and in my bag and was happy to find them. As I said to my teacher, it's like discovering buried treasure! Since Valentine's Day is on the horizon, I decided to go with a simple heart theme. I applied a layer of rose pink enamel over raspberry to get that bright pink hue and then painted a black heart on top. I then used a thin piece of wire to create that sgaffito design of swirls and scrolls. The heart's edges are a little jagged and I left it slightly underfired so it has a "stamped" appearance.

I initially planned to have a plain pink counter side, but decided it would be fun to add the polka dot design. I think it gives the earrings even more of a whimsical touch.

Now that I've made these enamel earrings, I feel like I'm back in the groove! Check out the rest of my handmade enamel and wire wrapped jewellery at Naomi's Designs and MayaGirl Creations.

More colorful wire wrapped heart earrings with crystals

January has been a busy month for me for jewelry making! This past weekend I went a little crazy and made a whole slew of wire wrapped heart earrings, using red, pink, fuchsia and silver wire. I'm selling these on both of my sites-- Naomi's Designs and MayaGirl Creations:

Each wire wrapped earring is the same basic design: I wrapped a round crystal and then shaped the wire into a little heart. However, I tried to mix up the colors a bit. Pink and purple or hot pink and red usually clash, but you often see them together for Valentine's Day -- and I think they work here. I wanted to experiment a bit and use atypical color combos, and I had a good time playing around.

These heart earrings aren't too difficult to make, but they're so cute! Plus, I like seeing them all together in a series. It's like a big, blinding flash of color. I have other color wire, so I'll play around with more combos of wire and crystal and see what I can come up with!

Funky Wire Wrapped Heart Earrings

Often an idea for a jewelry piece comes to me simply based on the materials I have on hand. These days in particular, I'm trying to be more frugal when it comes to purchasing jewelry making products. I still buy new things if necessary, but I'm trying to refrain from stockpiling beads and crystals.

I had some leftover colorful wire and I still have about a million billion Swarovski crystal hearts in every color imaginable, so I created some earrings that used both materials ... and came up with these wire wrapped heart earrings with dangling Swarovski hearts.

Here they are in pink:

And in purple

I plan to eventually make similar heart earrings in red, blue, black, green ... all of the colors of the rainbow. Since I'm now designing a line for kids, I have to think in terms of bright colors -- and in terms of collections. I remember that when I was a kid, I liked to have entire sets of things, so if someone made heart earrings in various colors, I would've wanted them all.

As a random side note, I'm finding that it's very hard to photograph purple jewelry. It tends to look black on screen, even if the light's good. One of my bracelets had purple and black links placed next to one another and I had to move them around because they just would not photograph well. I've solved the problem by photographing purple against a black backdrop, but it's a weird problem that I never expected to encounter. I have a reputation for being a horrible photographer (and even worse videographer) in my family; I even get made fun of for my awful photos. But I'm practicing and am learning how to make my Etsy pics look at least well, decent, if not great. It's funny how many skills you actually need to know to successfully run an Etsy store -- writing, business, knowing keywords, photography... it really is a lot of work, but so far, it's been worth it.

To purchase my jewelry, head to Naomi's Designs. And to purchase my children's jewelry, head to MayaGirl Creations.