The Tinker Toy Grows Up into Beautiful Necklace

I have been wanting to show you all the finished version of the toy I was working on the other week.  Remember this?

It's finished!  It turned into a one of a kind necklace.  We really enjoyed making it, so look for a small collection coming soon.

The necklace strand is made of fiber from our knitting purchases.  As much as I wanted to knit with it, the jeweler in me knew it would be so cool for a necklace!

Zizi knows that to be a true girly-girl requires beauty-sleep!

Another fine Sunday

Here in the mid Atlantic, we've been having wonderful weather, 60s, sunny and crisp!  This weather inspires us to move around because once it's over 85 degrees we'll be locked in the studio with the A/C blasting away!

We went back to Alexandria in search of these off-kilter golden cubes we bought last month.  There was thankfully once strand left.  We were then "forced" to buy more baubles and such.  When in Alexandria, it means a stop for coffee @ Misha's.  Why do we like it there so much?  They brew the coffee themselves, like our Zeke's in Bmore.  And the vibe there is very laid back.  That works until the caffeine kicks in!

We ventured to a new place (for us) for pizza,  Redrocks Firebrick Pizzeria in Columbia Heights.  It's a good sign when you go in to get pizza and soccer (football) is on the tv in the tiny bar space.  The pizzeria is in a corner rowhouse with outdoor seating and upstairs dining too.  We sat in the main area, aka the living room.  Again, its another laid back place which we love.  The pizza was just outstanding, thin crust, slightly charred.  They make it with 00 flour.  We started with a shaved fennel salad.  The olive oil was green and tasty.  We tried an organic Pinot Grigio, which balanced well with our choices.

Here's hoping the weather stays like this for awhile.  It's been nice to get outdoors after the crazy winter.  And it keeps our mind off our garden, which we can't begin until early May.

 Zizi reminds us that we didn't bring her anything home.

Misha's Coffee: 102 South Patrick Street, Alexandria, VA 22314
RedRocks Firebrick Pizzeria: 1036 Park Rd. NW, Washington, DC 20010‎ redrocksdc.com

Kicking it up with Copper

We've been spending more time making jewelry and traveling for beads, findings & metals.  I got a little behind reporting our whereabouts.  So now is the time for a catchup.

One of our latest obsessions has been with copper.  It's such a warm color & looks so good when paired with sterling silver and black.  We've been indulging in leaves dipped in copper.  The balance of an organic leaf juxtaposes well with the lines from the chain and Swarovski crystal.

We've kept this pair simple with a smaller Swarovski crystal and Bali bead.

We still have to make earrings for this wonderful necklace.  We just got the copper mesh "beads" in Alexandria.  It's held together around your neck with a double wrap of moire ribbon for a softer, more feminine feel.

Luna loves her some copper!

 

We had a fun day making some jewelry with some of our latest purchases.  Now if there was just enough time in the day to really get lost creating.  We haven't named this necklace yet, feel free to offer some suggestions.

These 2 1/2" earrings are called "Copper Queen."  They feature leaves dipped in copper.  You see we stretched real hard to come up with a name!

Don't even ask Giacomo about his day

Better Late Than Never

On Sunday we ventured off to Philadelphia (Valley Forge) to head to Interweave's Bead Wire Show.  We got a somewhat late start for some reason---guess we made up for that lost hour when we changed the clocks for daylight savings time!

It seemed that we bought sterling silver more than anything else.  Chain, wire, circles, beads & charms.  While it was a small show, it packed quite a punch.  Sometimes the punch came in the wallet too!  What we are most excited to work with the Italian mesh wire.  I'm sure some of it will end up on the pendants we are creating (see post below).  Eventually our minds were saturated and part of the day was left to do our other favorite past-time---EAT!

In a few short hours, we did make it to a few spots.  Our initial stop was to La Colombe for some wonderful cappuccinos and an espresso.  What we also got treated to was a man sitting next to us who chatted away in Italian to a stuffed graduate owl.  I say graduate because he wore the infamous black cap!  While we did not dare take a picture of said owl, here are the beautiful caffeinated creations:

After we were hopped up on coffee, we wandered around Rittenhouse Square.  It was beautiful outside.  The air was a little crisp, the sun was so warm--our favorite weather.  After walking for a while, we got hungry.  It could have been the anticipation of some fine Italian food, Philly does have some great restaurants for Italian food.  Many of the restaurants are BYOB, so we came up with a chilled bottle of Falanghina, Picco del Sole (very refreshing & around $12).  We were going to eat in Old City, either at Radicchio or La Locanda del Ghiottone.  Radicchio was really hot inside, we would have needed 2 bottles of chilled white, so we went to the latter.  Not only is the food delicious, but they are so friendly, accommodating and highly entertaining.

No Philly visit is ever complete without a visit to Capogiro for gelato.  I should have gotten my first choice of orange with cardomon, but instead ended up with half & half of malted balls with Sicilian pistachio.  Decadence!

Zizi preferred to stay home & watch Cats 101 with Giacomo.

Philadelphia Details:

La Columbe Torrefaction:  (215) 563-0860, 130 S 19th St , Philadelphia, PA 19103

La Locanda del Ghiottone:  (215) 829-1465,130 N 3rd St, Philadelphia, PA 19106

Capogiro:  (215) 351-0900,119 S 13th St , Philadelphia, PA 19107

Spring Forth New Ideas

So we've been waiting to get lost and go in yet another direction.  Boy, did we hit the mother load!!!  We're going to start creating pendants & pins with these unique, one of a kind pieces we are making.  The collages will be framed with polymer clay & coated with copper, silver or gold leaf.  It takes time to make these, but we are loving the final product. 

 This image is blurry, but I took it on my iPhone.  Could not wait to set up the regular camera & such.  Will post a proper image of the final product.  The next step is to create the corresponding strand, should be a mixture of beads (including some freshly made polymer beads) & chain.

Giacomo is wondering why we haven't used his image yet.

Tutti Frutti

Here's our other necklace. It's an exploration of wire forging, wrapping with & without beads. It also turned into an explosion of color. What was our inspiration? Couldn't really tell you but we have developed a fondness for Peep's flavored Rita's Italian Ice. Maybe it's all the food dye & sugar!

Giacomo loves the weekends.

Funky Mma

This necklace is part of our polymer clay collection. It's held together by shiny fiber ;) It's very glitzy tribal.

Ahoy, maties!

Busy Bees!!!

Our afternoon turned pretty productive. Despite the heat outside, we really dug our heels in and had a good 'ol time. We finished up pieces that we've been toying with for a week or two. We were waiting for the flash of creativity to show us how to finish these 6 pieces. It came in one swoop! Guess when I broke a glass today, that was really the creative swoop I was waiting on.Usually there's music in the background, but today it wasn't necessary.

Here's one of our necklaces, Medici. Hope you like it.

Luna just wants us to finish so we can play!

Polymer Birthday Cake

Finally glazing beads we made a while back. Felt like I should be singing Happy Birthday when it was all loaded on the "fancy" styrofoam holder!




Stella thinks birthdays are overated unless kitty treats, tuna, salmon and turkey are involved!

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A Quickie

We got to work the last 2 days. Here's a quick show of some of what we did.

Zizi took it easy meanwhile....