Cabachon wrapping class

Yesterday, I taught a cabachon wire wrapping class down at the bead shop in Palm Harbor.  I do enjoy teaching quite a lot.  This is what I made for the class.  I have it listed for sale in my Etsy shop here.  It is made with sterling silver wire, and comes on a sterling chain.

Cabachon wrapping is pretty neat stuff.  It is geared towards non-drilled stones, but sometimes I use stones have holes in them.  It's like building a cage around the stone with wire, so that it can be securely worn as jewelry.  It is easiest to start with a rounder stone, as I found out yesterday.  One of my students picked out a beautiful Feldspar rectangle, which turned out to be quite difficult for her to wrap.  Those darn corners are tricky.

Square wire is used to build the frame, which is then held together with half-round wire.  The square wires are lined up next to each other, and the flat side of the half-round wire binds them together.  The front and back square wires are pulled and bent to form around the stone and hold it in place.  When the wires meet up at the top of the piece, they are gathered together, then formed into various decorations.  The hardest part is figuring out what to do with all of those wire ends.  I used 4 wires to form the bail, 1 wire to wrap around the gather, and 3 wires to give it an asymmetrical design.  I also twisted a few of the wires, which make the pendant glimmer a little more in the light.

The weekend is here.  I hope that it's a good one.  I need to be productive.

Todays Creation

I love this ring.  It's made of AA grade Aquamarine faceted rondelles wire-wrapped onto two handmade rings, which were created with fine silver and a torch.  The rings were hammered to give the piece texture and facets which reflect light.  Very nice.

I had a special order for this one, but it is found in my shop.  :O)

How to sprout beans

Sprouts are a very nutritionally dense food, and they can be grown on the cheap.  They are full of vitamins, essential nutrients, protein, anti-oxidants, and are a great source of fiber.  I have sprouted beans twice now, and I am going for a third try.  There are a few ways to do it, so I have realized.  

First, I sprouted mung beans, a very popular sprout found in grocery stores.  I found some nice ladies on youtube who have a great video demonstrating how to do this.  It's pretty simple, and you have to tend to them daily.  First, the dry beans are soaked overnight.  In the morning, you rinse them, and place them in cheese cloth, tie it closed like a sack, and place them in a  container which does not let light in.  They said that you have to fool the beans into sprouting by putting them in a moist environment, in the dark, as if they were in the ground.  Come to find out, that is not necessary.  They just need to be out of direct sunlight.  Each day, you take them out, put them in a strainer, and rinse them.  Place them back in the cheesecloth, back in the dark pot.  I didn't have any cheesecloth, so I actually used a kitchen towel, and the sprouts began to sprout through the towel.  After the first day of this, I lined the towel with paper towel, and did not have a problem again.  I did it for three days, and then we ate them as a sprout salad.  I found a great recipe for a nice japanese style dressing.  I will list that at the bottom of my post.  I didn't take any pictures of my first sprouting.  

My second sprouting consisted of small red beans.  I made way too many of them.  It is a much bigger bean than the mung bean.  I soaked them overnight, and place them in my infamous kitchen towel.  By day three, I needed a larger towel, and a bigger pot.  I took some pictures of these guys.  They are kind of unruly.  

  And day three...

I rinsed and re-wrapped them up each day for 2 - 3 more days.  I lost track.  Finally, they were ready.  Removing the hulls was a bit of a challenge, as I came to find out that I was not doing this the easy way.  Here are the final sprouts.  They have big ol' beans on them.  

Once I got sight of my crazy sprouted red beans, I decided to check out sproutpeople.com for some advice on perhaps getting a real sprouter.  This method I had used was quite a bit of work.  They really have a plethora of information over there.  Although I can't afford to purchase a real sprouter at this time, they surely gave me some great lessons.  

Last night I took a couple of quart sized Chinese soup containers and crafted my own homemade sprouter.  I am sure that by slicing slits and drilling holes in plastic, I am probably causing some chemically garbage to leach into my fresh made sprouts.  We'll see how the next ones taste.  Lentils, here I come.   

The Sprout Salad Dressing Recipe:  Mix it all together.  Yum.

1 lb bean sprouts

2 tsp sesame seeds

2 tsp sesame oil (or whatever you have available)

4 tsp sugar

1/2 cup sider vinegar

1/2 tsp soy sauce

I also made a dressing of Hoisin sauce mixed with a few drops of Sriracha Hot Chili sauce.  

We took our leftovers from both salads, mixed them together for yet another delightful taste.  

Peyote Beads!

I just learned how to do the peyote stitch, mostly because I saw this beautiful bracelet the other day, and the beads were made of little tiny seed beads, all stitched together.  I decided to attempt making one and here is the result.  I will be making more of these to put together in an uber fun jewelry project.  Yippee!!
--------------------------
UPDATE:  January 22, 2010
Caroline stole my two peyote beads!!  Each one took me about 20 minutes to make.  I am sad.  I am sure they will turn up eventually, but for now, they are scared and gone.  Darn the luck.  I just can't leave anything on the coffee table.

Side note:  Caroline often takes my wire cutters to trims off ears and arms of her little figurines.  She will complain if one ear falls off, they must both be gone.  Everything must be even.  She will be 5 years old in two weeks, and she already has a great feel for beading tools, I give her that.  Little stinker.  :O)

Here's a little something that I made yesterday

Small Faceted Amethyst beads on 26 gauge wire.
I have a tutorial on how to make this ring here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/buyhappiness#p/a/u/1/r6WSrqeyjQ4
Or you could commission me to make you one.  :O)  I have many stones to choose from.

I hate to start this off with a bummer, but....

I had to put my poor pooch to rest this week.  He attacked (tried to kill) my older dog, and we decided that we could not take the risk that either he would attack my senior again, or that he could attack our 5 year old child.

What have we realized:
This has been a long time coming.  Buster was an 8 year old male who was never the leader of the pack.  He was not an obedient dog, but I was never much of a dog trainer, and I think that I gave up trying to control him a long time ago.  It was never really a problem.  As Bebe, who is a 12 year old female, began to reach seniority, he began to challenge her for her position as the alpha dog.  I did not see the signs, unfortunately.  Their fighting has just been getting more and more dangerous over the past year.  I did not realize that he was trying to take over, and this past Wednesday, he brutally attacked her.  Little did I know that my screaming, and trying to break the fight up with a broom could have led to my serious personal injury.  Luckily, for some odd reason, he released her, I grabbed his collar, and dragged him to the back patio.  I really thought that this was the day that he was going to bring her to her death.  It was so horrifying.

Bebe needed 5 stitches in her front leg, which had bled profusely, one in her neck, one under her chin.  There were many wounds that could not be stitched, and a lot of bruising.  My old girl is very lucky to have survived the attack.  Buster only had one nick.  Just goes to show that old girl can no longer defend herself.  Poor thing.

So, after the fight, when I got back from the animal hospital, I googled 'break up dog fight', and found this great site.  I highly recommend that if you have a dog, you read this information.  It's good to know, and the article also shows what happens when humans/owners try to break up a fight incorrectly.  Many folks have had severe injuries that required many surgeries and rehabilitation.  I consider myself to be lucky to have not been one of those folks.
Here's a link to the article:
http://leerburg.com/dogfight.htm

Stay safe.

Buster - Rest in peace.  We miss you terribly.