21:51 - 2004-09-01
Week 3: Turns out it's her birthday today!
Week 3: Turns out it's her birthday today!
2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.
3. An instance of making such a discovery.I'm a day early for week 3... oh well...
THE CLIP-ONS ARE DONE! *whew!*
When I was first asked to make this pair of earrings, I was still single... In the meantime I've gotten married, gone to France, had a baby, and moved... My normal turnover time for a commission is about two weeks not two years!!
I must have had some sort of idea for the commission originally, but for the life of me I don't remember anymore what it was. I almost never work in goldfilled wire, so I don't keep any on hand. I had to buy goldfilled especially to do this project.
Part of the challenge of doing these earrings was that they had to be clip-ons. The other part of the challenge was making something that matched the original necklace.
Once I finally had the wire, I spent a couple of nights studying an early issue of TWAJ, which has a photo of some wire clip-ons by an anonymous artist. I could never manage to do two the same. I ended up having to anneal the wire before I could use it, because I had bought hard wire and needed soft.
Next I went to my neighbourhood bead shop and bought two pairs of clip-on findings. I hate paying retail for parts.
I was going to take pearls and chain off the original necklace to incorporate into the earrings, but then decided against it. It would have completely wrecked the way the necklace hangs. Then I finally came up with a design that looked like it would match the necklace, incorporating pearls I had on hand.
Of course, that design didn't allow me to use the findings I'd bought, so Thumper and I went back to the bead shop today to see if there were any others I could use. Unfortunately not... so I was back to square 1 having to make a clip-on finding. Eventually, I figured it out.
The thin wire is 28 gauge Artistic Wire. The wire I'd bought was 20 gauge, and - naturally - didn't fit the pearls, so the gold AW did the trick. I figure, this is costume jewellery, so I'm not going to worry about it.
I decided that come hell or high water, the earrings were going to be done today, and they were. Fifteen minutes in the tumbler, and they were ready to go.
DH & I bundled up Thumper, who was past his bedtime, and headed up to the gem & mineral club meeting. I had decided ages ago that I would not charge them for the earrings - frankly I'd be embarassed to accept any money when it took me so long to finish the job! We handed over the earrings and necklace to the client's husband, who was thrilled - turns out it's her birthday today, so there's the serendipity.
