Super Sunday

Got a call from Barbara at CRAFT and she told me I had my first sales!  Yeah!!!  A reticulated cuff bracelet and a pair of earrings.  I am so excited and it added to my creative drive this weekend. 

I thought I'd start this entry off by showing you the finished reticulated rectangle bracelet from a couple days ago.  I set two 4mm amethysts and really like how it turned out.  The overall photo doesn't show the bracelet off, but you get an idea.  This detail focuses in on one of the rectangles and you get to see the texture and added balls and bars. 

I hopped right into designing a couple of new reticulated cuff bracelets too.  They have been very popular and I really like to make them.  The first has an overlap in the center with sterling balls and three curly bars.  I heated the edges until they softened and the line became very organic.     

The second cuff was an excercise in "design as you go."  I had a few pieces of silver to work with, so I reticulated them and then joined them to form the cuff.  So you have a little sense of scale, the center piece is 2 inches square.  I added a bunch of silver balls along the seems and thought the result was very effective--they brought the attention to the center.  I continued adding random balls to the front and decided that a stone (or stones) would be a great touch.  So, I started playing around placing various cabochons on the square and came up with these assorted green stones in different shapes and sizes.  The large square is an 8mm green tourmaline.  There are also two 3mm green tourmalines and two peridots, one 4mm, one 3mm. 

That's all for today--more flower designs in process for tomorrow.