Fiery Heart Designs

My sta­ple always-sell pieces are bracelets using mem­ory wire, a stiff wire that retains its cir­cu­lar shape,and beads. For some rea­son women really love them and are will­ing to pay $35 to $50 for one. They are com­fort­able and easy to wear. The tech­nique for mak­ing the bracelets is very easy and usu­ally takes about two hours. Simply cut the wire, make a loop with pli­ers at one end, slide the beads onto the wire, fin­ish with another loop. The real work is in cre­at­ing a one of a kind unique piece each time.

I usu­ally decide on a base color palette and select a pri­mary bead. These tend to be six or eight mil­lime­ter and either round or ron­delle, a slightly flat­tened bead, usu­ally a gem­stone such as agate or jasper. I typ­i­cally use a mix­ture of met­als includ­ing ster­ling sil­ver, pewter, cop­per, and gold. I select accent beads that are larger, longer or oth­er­wise dif­fer­ent. These beads can be tubes, ovals, rounds, or other shapes. I usu­ally include glass beads of one kind or another and like to have at least one lam­p­work bead. I also use wood, seed, shell, and other types of beads. I typ­i­cally fin­ish the ends of the bracelets with a charm or a drop bead.

I try to think through the design before I exe­cute but I have been known to change the entire design and slide every bead off the wire. I never make more than one of a par­tic­u­lar design. My bracelets are asym­met­ri­cal since I do not repeat a spe­cific pat­tern only a gen­eral theme of color and shape. I also con­sider where the accents fall on the bracelet so they are dis­trib­uted for bal­ance of design and com­fort in wear­ing along with ensur­ing the bracelet will drape on the arm nicely. The bracelets are usu­ally from four to eight cir­cles. An impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion in mak­ing these bracelets is the weight of the bracelet on the arm.

When cre­at­ing a bracelet with a spe­cific per­son in mind I will include items that have mean­ing to the per­son. I made one for my daugh­ter that included a small maple leaf in acrylic that she had given me as a mem­ory of a fam­ily trip to Canada. I made one for myself that included a large spe­cial bead that my mother-by-marriage gave me.

This morn­ing I deliv­ered the seven-strand bracelet in these pho­tos to White Mist of Cotter, the arti­san shop where my jew­elry is sold. It was the first piece I have done this year. I took a week to think about this design and selected the pri­mary beads when I vis­ited my sis­ter and dragged her along to a bead store in her area. I selected an agate that has been stained turquoise. The stain­ing of agate is a cen­turies old prac­tice of enhanc­ing the pat­terns of the stone. Idar-Oberstein, Germany is famous for the agates from the region and for the local skill in stain­ing these stones.

The sec­ond color is based on the four mil­lime­ter yel­low jade ron­delles. I included a lam­p­work bead that I pur­chased in Oregon three years ago and some recy­cled glass beads from Ghana. I also included a Thai Hill Tribe sil­ver bead and seven cop­per tube beads, four long plain and three short designer. I fin­ished this bracelet with drops made from the agate.

I always see flaws in the exe­cu­tion after I deliver the piece. In this photo I see that the lam­p­work bead should have been a few beads fur­ther along so that it would have been oppo­site the long cop­per tube and would not have cre­ated such a wide sep­a­ra­tion between the two strands of the bracelet. Perhaps I am the only one who would notice this. Julia, the owner of White Mist, sent an email telling me the bracelet, priced at $45.50, sold before the day ended. A woman from South Carolina walked into the store wear­ing the exact same col­ors that are in the bracelet.

I always say that there seems to be just the right per­son for my pieces. Sometimes they come together quickly and other times they take a while to find each other. I take great plea­sure when the jew­elry and the right woman come together so Julia always finds out where my jew­elry is going to live.

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