100th Post and Giveaway!

Whew -- it took me 26 months to get to my 100th post. I'm definitely doing more posts per month now, but I'm still a little erratic. I'll do 4 in one week then skip 3 weeks. Ah well, that's just how it goes. But I'm very excited that I've reached this milestone. I love that I have this venue to showcase my jewelry creations, my experiments with painting, assemblage, artist trading cards, and other art pursuits. To celebrate, and thank all my blog readers, I will be giving away one of my necklaces to a lucky reader. I'll be drawing a name from all the comments to this post, but I have a request. My last couple posts I've been talking about the bead class I took from Beverly Gilbert. I love taking classes and would love to hear about more. So in your comment, tell me about an art class you took that you really liked. Who was the instructor? Where was the class?

As a special bonus, I'll be sending a 10% off coupon that can be used in my Etsy Shop to the first 26 readers who post a comment. Keep your comments coming, and keep them interesting. I love hearing from people all over the world, and I love visiting your blogs in return. Make sure you have a link to your own blog in your comment so I can stop by.

I decided to do a mini-tutorial to show how I made this giveaway necklace. I started out with one of Beverly's bead soups, and a piece of 18 guage sterling silver wire to make a pendant.

I used my round-nosed pliers to make a loop at one end. I always make the loop that will attach the pendant to the necklace first.


I continued using the round-nosed pliers to bend the wire into an attractive shape.

I used my steel block and chasing hammer to hammer the wire pendant flat. I used the large end of the chasing hammer. I didn't hammer the ring at the end of the pendant because that tends to open up the ring.

I turned around the chasing hammer and hammered with the smaller end to make little dimples in the flat wire. I like this look because the dimples catch the light and make it even shinier.


And finally, I strung the beads and attached a lobster clasp.

Here's the final necklace that will be given away to one reader. Get your comments going!



Thanks so much for stopping by! I'll keep this giveaway open until October 30.