December Component of the Month Winners

The two winners for the December component of the month design challenge are WindDancerStudios and Fulgorine Cate. Congrats ladies! Jen Cameron will be emailing you for your snail mail address so Diana can get these sent out to you ASAP!

KISS Designing and a tutorial

How many times have you fallen in love with a bead and thought of all the elaborate things you could do with it and ended up putting it back in your stash because nothing you think of is right?  This happens all to often to me.  Then it hit me!

Keep It Simple Stupid!

Some beads need to just be the focal like this Treeman by Jenny.  I can not tell you how many times I have taken this out of the box only to place it sweetly back in because I can not make it work.

I have been so wrapped up in redoing our sons room, holidays and working on a design that is requiring a lot of research and step away time and I needed to complete SOMETHING.

On the Treeman necklace I used o-beads and beautiful AB lined olivine.  I used them all in the completion of the necklace.  What to do if I want to give you all a little tutorial?

No worried how bout showing you with tri-beads.  Yes I said tri-beads!

If you want to give this a go here is the step by step.

You will need:
 O-beads or Tri-Beads
 15gr size 11/0 seed beads

Pick up 5 11/0 beads, 1 tri-bead, 5 11/0 beads and 1 tri-bead

Go through the first 5 seed beads added

Pick up 1 tri-bead, 5 seed beads and 1 tri-bead

Go back through the beginning 5 seed beads, the tri-bead just added and the next 5 seed beads added in the beginning of this step.

Pick up 1 tri-bead and go through the the 5 seed beads in step one.

Pick up 1 tri-bead and go through the 5 seed beads at the start of this step.  

Pull beadwork snug and go through all the top tri-beads.

Using these tri-beads as the base for the next steps.

Pick up 5 seed beads, 1 tri-bead and 5 seed beads and go through the tri-bead from the beginning of this step in the opposite direction and the next tri-bead in the base.

Pick up 1 tri-bead and 5 seed beads and go back through the tri-bead you started from and the next tri-bead in the base.

Pick up 1 tri-bead and 5 seed beads go through the tri-bead you started from and the next tri-bead.

In this step you will go through the 5 seed beads on the other side of the tri-bead you just passed through.

Pick up 1 tri-bead and pass through the 5 seed beads to complete the side.  Go through the tri-bead in the base, back up through the 5 seed beads and through all the top tri-beads. 

Repeat these steps to create the length of chain you desire

Let me know what you think and if you do give it a go make sure to send me a link to it!

Product Review: Rolling Mill Resource

I recently had the great privilege of spending a week in the home studio of metalsmith Melissa Muir. It was a working trip - I am helping her with some photos for her upcoming book about the hydraulic press - but we found plenty of time to play. Among other things, Melissa introduced me to texture papers from Rolling Mill Resource.... and I fell hard in love with the rolling mill all over again. I placed my own order after I got home and finally had the chance to sit down and play with it about 10 days ago.

I am so thrilled with this product that I could not wait to share it with you! Aside from superb customer service (which seems to be in short supply these days), Tracey from Rolling Mill Resource stocks an eclectic assortment of patterns and designs in a variety of sizes. The cost is reasonable, too - small sheets start at $2.50 and options go all the way up to large sheets for $12.60. My first order (shown above) included some small shape templates and - to my surprise - a very generous package of sample designs for testing in my rolling mill.  My second order included even more samples to play with before I committed my paid designs to the metal.

The designs are deeply laser cut into heavyweight paper - the brown patterns in the photos above are the recessed areas, which are crisp and clean even where there is a lot of fine detail. Tracey's free downloadable instructions are super easy to follow and give a great overview of the mechanics of roll printing that's very helpful in learning the process. I invited a couple of my more advanced metals students to have a play date in the studio with me yesterday so we could experiment with the patterns, and even for those who had never worked with a rolling mill before, the results were uniformly excellent. I don't think we got a bad roll print all day!

This is one of my favorites - and it's on a particularly thick piece of copper. The print is perfect.

I also love the subtle matte texture the uncut sections of paper leave on the metal.

Once we printed up a bunch of metal, we used some of the Rolling Mill Resource templates to make some components.

We had such a good time! And although we didn't wind up doing anything ground-breaking with the components we made, it was fun to experiment with shapes and patterns, and everyone left with lots of metal to play with at home.

My friend Dawn's earrings, using a harlequin pattern from Rolling Mill Resource

My earrings using Mikel's Flower pattern from Rolling Mill Resource

If texturing metal and roll printing interests you, Melissa has an excellent video on the difference between the embossing achieved in a hydraulic press and roll printing in a rolling mill. She also has a video on the process of roll printing which will give you a good look at how it works. And when you're ready to try some paper patterns, you won't be sorry if you start with the excellent selection at Rolling Mill Resource. You can even get them to convert your own photos to custom textures, something I plan to try very soon, and although I haven't tried any this way, the patterns are also suitable for use with metal clay.

It's such a pleasure to come across an artist who not only provides top-of-the-line customer service but also an excellent and original product. I have amassed a fairly substantial collection of their patterns in a short amount of time, and I am really looking forward to experimenting more with them. I have some ideas... now where did I put that extra time I was saving?

Until next time -

Edited to add: This is not a sponsored post, and I received no compensation from Rolling Mill Resource for featuring their products. I paid for the patterns I received, and my opinion is based solely on my personal experience with them. Melissa Muir is a personal friend, and all her videos are free to everyone on YouTube.

December Component of the Month and Giveaway!

It's my turn to host the Component of the Month!  Yay!  I've been excited all year about this because I revamped my rustic stoneware snowflake pendants and I love them more than ever!

If you would like to play, here are the rules…

• I will give away one Rustic Stoneware Snowflake Pendant to each of 2 winners selected randomly from those who leave comments below this post. Your comment must include your EMAIL address so we can contact you should you win.
• Please — only leave a comment if you can commit to creating a finished piece and blogging about it on the reveal date.
• The names of the 2 winners will be announced on December 3, 2014.
• This giveaway is open to US and international countries, but please be aware that international addresses will have longer postage times… sometimes up to 3 weeks.
• The blog reveal will take place on January 3, 2015.

Good luck!

Diana P.

Suburban Girl Studio LLC