Making Wild Horse Beads: The "Hole" Story

This weekend I had a mess of various polymer colors scattered over my worktable (in addition to some leftover leather scraps from another project)—I've been working on a few new color schemes for my Flying Arrow Horses.

These little horses are currently my most favorite bead to make. Okay, yeah I have to admit that my favorite bead to make changes quite a lot… but there's really nothing wrong with that—I love making what I love making most and enjoy going with that flow.

For all my Wild Horse beads the most tricky part of their making is piercing the hole, or at least it was and for the longest time I put off making them because I didn't like doing the holes. If you've ever tried to pierce a nice, long straight hole through a long, thin piece of squishy polymer and actually get it to end up where you want it at the other side, and without damaging the detail you have so carefully created, you know what I mean! It wasn't until one of my lovely customers asked me about making horses that I started to consider it more seriously and finally I made my first batch of Wild Horses and in the process figured out how to make piercing easier and nearly fool proof. I highly doubt if I'm the first one to do holes this way, but whatever… I just love that it works for me!

So today… you have my Wild Horse "Hole" Story…

They all start out in a mold that I made from my original sculpture. Yes, I use molds for many of my beads—they make it SO much easier to make dozens of the same shape without the annoyance and extra time of trying to match them up. I only cast for the most simple details, and then add the rest by hand. Right before I remove the horse from the mold, I use a large needle to create the hole channel—the key to my easy hole!

I do all the detailing with the little horse resting on the needle, this fills in the hole and keeps it from collapsing while I work.

Once the details are all applied and I'm happy with them, I test each horse to ensure they can stand. I love that these beads would also be perfectly happy living in a shadow box!

They then must pass inspection from my sweet little cat Grapenut, aka Mr Fluffy. He often sits in my lap while I work, chin resting on my table, watching the beads take shape. He takes is job very seriously and was bugged by the fact that I wanted to take his photo!

After a short trip to the oven for the first curing, I fill in the hole channels with raw polymer.

I add a thick layer of polymer to the back, trim…  

… and finally pierce! The piercing runs smoothly through the raw polymer filled channel giving you a nice clean and straight hole!

And lastly, I carefully trim away the back to give it a more finished carved texture. 

One horse completed and ready for final curing… time for another cup of coffee and more horse making!

And here's the finished result… after a few washes of paint and polishing…

These are my russet brown horses… the palomino horses that I was working on in this post weren't quite ready for a photo shoot, but will be following after into my shop in the next few days!

The End.

Rebekah Payne

Tree Wings Stuido

Shop: treewingsstudio.etsy.com

Blog: treewingsstudio.com

Reposting an Old Favorite… Star Burst Earrings How-To

Hey everyone! Happy Independence Day to all of our USA readers and a happy Saturday to everyone else! It's a crazy busy weekend for me… haha! more so because of bead making than anything else (Are you surprised?!), but I'm happy for any excuse to spend more time with family so I'm planning on enjoying it with them too.

For today's post I'm reposting an old favorite from July last year with an added little treat of red, white and blue goodies at the end… I hope you'll enjoy this re-run of my Independence Day inspired earrings tutorial!

July 5, 2014… I've had a very busy week at work—both my "real job" and my studio job have seemed endless! And so waking up Thursday morning suddenly realizing it was my turn to post on AJE this weekend and feeling my brain start spinning as I realized I didn't have a post idea, was an unsettling way to start the day to say the least! My first thought was to show you my new beads… but wait those new beads aren't finished! My second idea was a tutorial—but of what?! I started making a mental list of all the cool beads in my studio and possible ideas. And then I thought of stars and fireworks—could I make jewelry inspired by the Independence Day celebration? I don't mean red, white, and blue. That's nice and all, but not my thing—in my mind those colors are for the flag and not wearing—that's me though and I never dress for any holiday. I wanted something that could be worn any day, no matter the occasion… My mind wandered onto some tiny howlite stars… hmm… olive-golden beaded beads from awesome AJE team member, Kristen Stevens… purple peacock faceted beads maybe?… Sounds interesting, right?

Anyhoo… all this going through my brain before coffee was a bit of a mess so I put the idea out of my mind and got on with normal stuff. Hot horses wanted their food and fly spray (right now!) and I needed to say "hi" to kitty before he thought I had forgotten all about him, and oh yeah, drink coffee… and then check emails.

All that out of the way, a second cup of coffee in hand—and star earrings here I come!

And a tutorial for you! Take a look…

Supplies you'll need:

- 22 gauge bronze wire

- 2 beaded beads

- 2 10mm faceted czech glass beads

- 8 4mm howlite stars

- earwires (again, I left this very minor detail out of my photo!)

Tools you'll need:

- tape measure

- wire cutters

- round-nose pliers

- flat-nose pliers

- bent-nose pliers

- permanent marker

- 800 grit sandpaper

1. Cut 2 lengths of wire each 3 inches long and 2 lengths of wire each 2 1/2 inches long. Smooth the ends with sandpaper—or if you happen to have one of those fancy schmancy tools actually made for removing burrs, by all means use it and make it easier on yourself—I had only sandpaper on hand and it works great in a pinch!

2. Use round-nose pliers to form a tiny coil at the end of one wire, put two stars on the wire, and form a second coil. Repeat with the 3 remaining wires. I like to work both earrings simultaneously to keep them the same.

3. Next mark each wire slightly off center with a permanent marker—make sure both long wires and both short wires are marked so when bent they will be the same length.  Grasp the marked point with the round-nose pliers…

4. …and bend the wire around, crossing the ends over…

5. …remove the pliers from the loop, grasp just below the loop and gently bend the stars down…

6. … so they look like this. Repeat with each wire to make your star charms.

7. Cut a 7 inch length of wire and take one of the longer star drops and one of the shorter ones and wrap tightly together. Repeat with the remaining star charms. Time to put the earrings together!

8. Cut an 8 inch length of wire and start to form a wrapped loop—don't wrap or trim yet!—slip a star charm onto the loop. Then add one of the beaded beads and glass bead.

9. Form a wrapped loop at the top of the glass bead… and finally wrap the loop at the base of the beaded bead. I did it this way because I didn't want a whole jumble of wire at the base—by having the wire already pulled tight after forming the wrapped loop at the top first, it was much easier to keep the wrap at the base flat and neat. Repeat for second earring and add your earwires… and go enjoy your new earrings!

And now some lovelies from the AJE team inspired by red, white and blue!

Bright and cheery ladybug earrings by Linda Landig

Sweet little red flower headpins by SueBeads… they look a bit like fireworks, don' t you think?

Gorgeous soaring bird beads…

…and drifting feather beads by blueberribeads

A radiant silver and chalcedony heart pendant by Bits By Niky

Stunning autumn red bracelet focal by THEA Elements

A little leaping lunar hare in silvery gossamer white by yours truly, Tree Wings Studio.

Athena's Owl pendant by jdaviesreazor

The most adorable little red, white and blue sail boat you ever saw! Also by Lesley Watt of THEAElements

And last, but certainly not least—a beautifully rustic Aqua Spiral Fossil connector by Starry Road

I hope you enjoyed my re-run post for today!

Wishing you all a most wonderful weekend… holiday or not… I hope it's fabulous in every way possible!

Rebekah Payne

Tree Wings Studio

Blog: treewingsstudio.com

Shop: treewingsstudio.etsy.com

Beaded Wire Macrame Toggle Bars Revisited

I have all sort of beads and components in my stash that could be used as clasps if they had a bar to go with then and a while back I adapted the wire macrame techniques I used for these earrings to create some alternatives to the usual plain wire option.

This technique utilises simple macrame knots interspersed with small beads that can be adapted to match the component and give your clasps some individuality.

Here I use a half knot (spiral) with little etched beads to create this bar and added a jump ring to the centre by which it can be attached to a piece of jewellery. 

This works fine but I really wanted to see if I could include the connection loop within the bar itself so this time I formed a loop in the centre of the core wire and instead of knotting from end to end as with the earrings I attached the wire through the loop and knotted from the centre out, wrapping the wire end over each other to finish.

This method takes a little bit longer but does create a slightly cleaner looking bar although personally I'd be happy to use either version.

For this one I used a square macrame knot again but this time gently curved the bar when I finished knotting to add a little something extra... 

I think it makes a lovely focal closure for this beautiful ceramic element from Karen Totten.

For this ceramic link component by Marla James I used a spiral knot and teamed it with some lovely rustic faceted Czech glass beads to create an unusual clasp.

t

And finally, some simple seed beads add a little interest to a plain sheet bronze clasp - an idea that would translate easily to washers or large jump rings.

So it's really quite easy to add a little extra interest to your jewellery designs with a few beads and a length of wire and if you don't have any suitable components in your stash don't worry - there are plenty out there to suit all tastes.

Outwest Art Glass

Classic Bead

Tree Wings Studio

Suburban Girl Beads

Mary Harding Jewelry

Starry Road Studio