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Hanaleimom

Hanaleimom

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Dec 27, 2007
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Hi pearl friends,
You have given me the inspiration to start making some jewelries for myself. I have started wire wrapping only. Stringing will come later. I started out with some FW; and the loops were quite oval after crimping the ends. After practicing with cheap wires, I bought 2 small lots of Tahitian pearls and made some Tahitian pendants. 2 FW pendants and 1 Tahitian pendant are not pictured here because I gave them to my Mom for her birthday, which is today. The 3rd Tahitian pendant from the left with 2 pearls is not 100% my creation. The bottom circled one is from Pearl Paradise, I just incorporated my oval pearl on top of it. Here they are:
 

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Cathy,

Those are all delightful! Great designs, very creative, beautiful pearls, too! Your wire wrapping looks very nice! Bet your Mom was thrilled with her new pearls!!
 
I think you started with the hard bit! Wire wrapping would be more difficult than knotting/stringing, so you wouldn't have a problem at all! Excellent work, lovely pieces.
 
Dear Hanaleimom:
Your work is lovely. You mentioned practicing with 'cheap' wire. I also started with wire wrapping before learning to string and wanted to pass on a thought. I hear people speak frequently (here on the Guide) of taking their pearls into the bathroom while they shower to breathe and hydrate.
If you have any pearls with gold plate or gold fill that you occassionally leave to hydrate you might want to watch for tarnish. (Aside from the issue of gold and silver 'feeling' different to work with than base metals, once the base metals start to tarnish they can get tarnish in your pearls.
This takes some time so you may never have any problem with it but you might want to be aware of it. I live in Oregon (where it is moist) and have had to re-wire earrings a couple of times due to tarnish and lost some small akoya last year to rust. They were white and when I took the metal out the pearls were still darkened so please, don't wait if the metal starts to turn.
If anyone has a different experience, please chime in.:confused:
Thanks,

barbie

P.S. I have never had this happen with 14k or higher gold wire but never practice with it. I practice practice practice with basemetal until I can do exactly what I want, make the new piece in gold and have done with it. It's cheaper than wasting the gold by making a mistake.

The gold can hang out in the bathroom all day without changing color.:)
 
Gold will never tarnish - that is one of the reasons why it has always been prized so highly.
Gold plate might get the very thin coating scratched off so that the base metal is revealed and can react, but rolled/filled gold should not as the coating should be both thick enough and bonded onto the base.
 
Barbie

Barbie

Hi Barbie,
Thank you for your advice. I did not know that. I have my pearls in the closet next to the shower so they do get the daily hydration. Some of the pins and jump rings were gold-filled and some were 14K. I will watch them. But based on what you said, once I become better I will replace them all. It's safer. :)
 
Dear Cathy:
I too have become obsessed with FW exotics. Can't wait to see your pics. I'm feeling very badly about myself these days because I can't seem to overcome my ditziness with the computer to post pics of my pearls. I do know that if I got a new program for my computer it would vastly aid that process, but that is a whole different can of worms. (Didn't purchase the program before Apple switched their operating system to a whole new program. Now it's almost impossible to find!)
Please let us see more of your work. It's great!
barbie

P.S. Wendy is right as usual. Real gold is always the best. Just expensive. Sterling is nice sometimes.
 
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Hi Barbie,
For my signature, I meant to say that I took a decent picture for my avatar. I sometimes twist the FW with the Tahitian strand to wear as a torsade to achieve a similar look as www.iridesse.com.

http://www.iridesse.com/Shopping/It...params=s+5-p+6-c+426841-r+-x+-n+6-ri+-ni+0-t+

Thank you, everyone, for your nice compliment. It gives me encouragement to work harder. I am still not quite happy with my loops yet. I can't take credit for originality of design. 2 of my pendants are really copycats: the FW pendant w/ 9 pearls (from Inge/Jerin), and the other one is from majesticgemskauai ( I use drop shape instead of round pearls).
 
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LOL, must be me. I'm a water diviner. If I have a paperback book and I set it down, even after carefully looking first, I'll set it on a water ring or some such. Maybe my earrings are just finding the water too.
I have to really watch my paperwork at work or I find the patients coffee spills and stuff.

barbie

On the other hand, Cathybear, you use rolled gold, so that's a higher quality than the gold plated stuff I used before I knew any better.:(
 
I use gold filled (not gold plated) findings and I find they acquire a light patina of tarnish and need to be wiped with a jewelry cloth occasionally-- and this happens faster if they are stored near sterling silver items. Also if they are stored out in the open with lots of exposure to the air (like on a hook or jewelry tree) rather than in an enclosed space like a jewelry box or armoire.

Just as silver flatware doesn't tarnish if used frequently, g.f. and sterling pieces that I wear a lot tarnish more slowly than items stored more than worn. I believe Cathy's frequently-worn items don't tarnish because they are frequently worn. :)

It's true that pure gold doesn't tarnish, but the metals alloyed with gold may tarnish. 14K gold is only 58.3% gold. I find that even my 14K gold is brightened up by a wiping-down with a Sunshine jewelry polishing cloth now and then-- and the evidence of tarnish is in the dark marks left on the cloth.

I am going to get some anti-tarnish papers, to put in my jewelry box, as well. The less cleaning and polishing I have to do, the better. ;)
 
barbie biggs said:
LOL, must be me. I'm a water diviner. If I have a paperback book and I set it down, even after carefully looking first, I'll set it on a water ring or some such. Maybe my earrings are just finding the water too.
I have to really watch my paperwork at work or I find the patients coffee spills and stuff.

barbie

On the other hand, Cathybear, you use rolled gold, so that's a higher quality than the gold plated stuff I used before I knew any better.:(
Click to expand...

When I started I tried gold plate. I turned brown in a matter of days (the stuff I was wearing) so I moved on to rolled gold.
 
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