Tag Archives: copper wire

Show and Tell ~ My First Wire Wrapped Class

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Ok…after seeing the pictures up-close, I see some adjustments needed and a few mistakes I made…but all in all, I like it. 🙂

Classes at Mill Street Beads & Rocks, here in Reno, are only $25 AND all the tools and supplies are included. Unfortunetly, they are retiring and closing up shop soon. Anyhoo…there were four stone beads to choose from, I picked a pretty olive green one since we were using copper wire.

Fun! Fun! Fun! I bought a few packets of copper square and half-round 21 gauge to play with it some more.

I’ll be using some liver of sulphur on this pendant to antique the copper…it’s way too bright for me. 🙂

I need to scoochie the wraps closer together and get rid of the black mark.

The front.

The back of the piece.

Here is a piece of petrified wood I’m going to try next! I just don’t know which side to make the front. What do you think? I bought this for $3 up in Chilcoot, CA on our way to Portola after class…it was Train Days (will post pics on Monday).

Which side should be the front?!

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Beading and Wire-Wrapping Sea Glass

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Took yesterday off of work for my birthday…spent a leisure day of beading, wire wrapping, lunch and a movie.

First off…if you haven’t already seen it, you gotta go see the 3-D version of Journey to the Center of the Earth! OMGosh! That was fun.

Sunday night I started a necklace to hang one of my pieces of sea glass that I collected on the beach in Monterey earlier this month. Took apart two necklaces I found for 99 cents at our local Goodwill store and used the beads to make my own design. I think they may be clay beads…I liked them. Had some green moss stone beads and other beads floating around…dumped them into a dish and just used whatever caught my fancy. Well…didn’t like how the first one laid. I used two wooden disk beads too close to the wire-wrapped glass and it just didn’t lay the way I wanted it to.

Here’s what the first necklace looked like ~

Here’s what the remake looks like…the one that I have on today. Had to re-wrap the green glass piece…didn’t get it the same, sorta liked it better the first time. Oh well. The first time I wrapped it so it went straight onto the necklace without a jump ring…the second time I used a jump ring to attach the glass to the necklace.

And here is what I used…beading wire, beads, 20 gauge copper wire, hemp 20 lb test, and a nifty cast iron grippy doo-dad that I picked up for 50 cents at a yard sale.

Copper Hammering and Photography Class

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It’s Thursday…and I have my photography class tonight through Truckee Meadows Community College. Capture Desert's Spring Colors ~ taught by Mark Vollmer. Can’t wait. The field trip is on Saturday…wonder where we’re going to go take pictures!?

I’ve been having lots of fun hammering and wire wrapping copper during the evening this week. Decided to practice on copper as it’s much cheaper than sterling silver…will wait to work with that wire.

All of my soldering tools are outside in the backyard shed/tool shop, and I haven’t had any desire to go out there at night so I’ve been sticking to wire wrapping the pendents. After hammering, beading and wrapping I put them in a tupperware with LOS (Liver of Sulphur) for oxidizing.

Here is what I’ve done so far ~

Wind, Snow, Beach Glass and Monsterslayer ~ all in one day

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The Truckee Meadows was wind blown yesterday and last night…checked the weeping cherry and the lilac bush, both were still standing uprightl! Had my fingers crossed as we had 40 mph winds with gusts up to 84 mph! Sheesh. And to top off the bloody bad weather ~ this morning when I looked out the window here at work ~ what do I see?! SNOW! It was snowing! It’s cool and cloudy out there now with a breeze…went from 81 degrees on Sunday to 43 degrees today. And we’re having a cluster of wee earthquakes (in the 3’s)…seems like the epicenter is near Verdi. Just felt one about 2:33 pm…was more this morning too.

The mail was sweet to me though! Popped into the post office at lunch today and found my order from Monsterslayer and Sea of Glass sitting there waiting for me ~ YEAH!

From MONSTERSLAYER I received a box of silver and copper wire and wire wrap pliers…I wanted to try out the silver square wire and I needed a couple of different gauges of copper. They are pretty dang fast with their orders! Placed an order in the mid-morning and that puppy was already being picked and out the door that afternoon. Very impressed with them.

SEA OF GLASS is a shop on Etsy run by Laura. I bought some green and brown sea glass that was collected in Rincon, Puerto Rico. Really nice medium size peices ~ I’ve gotten some beach glass from other folks…trying to find the right size. Sometimes you can’t really gauge it off of the pictures. Am very happy with this transaction.

I think tonight I’ll organize all of my tools, wire, glass, beads and other supplies…we’re going to have crappy weather the rest of the week through the weekend so it looks like I’ll be doing inside stuffus instead of yard work. G&G Nursery won’t have Old English Roses in for another few weeks…that gives me time to do other things. Like learning to braid/knot hemp….and drill holes in glass! 🙂

More Copper Do-Dads

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Yep…still playing with copper wire and my hammer. 


Instead of soldering the heart I just wire wrapped it.

I’d like to oxidize the piece so the next step is to head to the library ~ my friend Sue of Unique Re-tiques, told me to look up The Colouring, Bronzing and Patination of Metals by Richard Hughes & Michael Rowe. So after work, I’m heading to the Sparks Library.