Ninth Destash - sterling beadcaps

I have dozens upon dozens of items to unload from my jewelry supply cabinets.  Most of these are findings that I purchased at the bead shows in Tucson several years ago or BeadFest in Philadelphia at wholesale prices.  I will be breaking these up into blog posts with around 10 items to make it easier to keep track of who wants what in comments.  First come, first served.  If there is an item (or items) you want, please leave a comment (and your email) with the item #/name and I will send you a Paypal invoice at the end of the day.  Shipping will be a flat $3, no matter how much/little you purchase.  See the other destashes here.

I have never knowingly purchased filled or plated silver or copper as I wanted to use only THE best components in my jewelry.  The silver is either sterling or Bali, with some Hill Tribes thrown in.  Unfortunately, I wasn't the best at documenting what was what at the time with the different kinds of silver.

SB1 - sterling silver & stamped with 925 on the backs of the larger, hammered off-centered caps that measure 12mm wide, smaller rope bead caps measure 8mm wide ~ $10

SB2 - 18mm wide and 26mm tall - $15.00

SB3 - 75 caps, most around 10mm ~ $20 - SOLD/Rebecca

SB4 - top is 6mm wide, bottom is 17mm wide.  19mm long and 8mm thick ~ $14.00

SB5 - 10 caps approx 15mm across, I believe this is Hill Tribes by the whiter tone on the backside ~ $20

SB6 - 4 circular cones and 4 rhombus cones that are 10x30mm, 36 smaller caps from 8mm wide to 20mm wide ~ $80

SB6 - view from above

SB7 - 2 large caps 35mm wide and approx 10mm tall, 2 smaller caps 18mm wide and approx 5mm tall ~ $50

SB7 from above

SB7 on my hand. these babies are so gorgeous!

SB8 - 10 caps stamped with 925 on the back, measure 15mm wide ~ $25

SB9 - 10 caps measuring 14mm wide ~ $20

SB10 - 9 caps almost 10mm across ~ $15.00

SB11 - 2 cones 11mm wide and 11mm tall ~ $10

SB12 - 6 large petals measuring 16mm wide and 6 smaller coiled caps measure 13mm ~ $25

SB13 - 2 cones 4mm wide at top, 12mm across the bottom and 20mm tall ~ $20

SB13 - 18mm wide and 26mm tall ~ $15.00

Silver in the Fire

I had fun playing with silver this weekend. I haven't done this for months and had forgotten how therapeutic it is to burnish the sheets of silver onto the ivory and then stick the bead into the flame to watch the silver melt away.

This is the smaller focal bead.

After melting in the silver (it's a foil sheet, but don't let the word 'foil' fool you. it is 99.999% pure silver) over the ivory, I melted a bit of transparent pale aqua over parts of it before fully encasing in clear.

Here is the larger/taller focal.

I also put dots of clear on the ivory before melting in the silver, so patches of ivory would show through....

I really like these beads and the sun helps show them off wonderfully :) It was my last day of sun for awhile.

Hurricane Ida is set to hit Alabama and Georgia overnight, making for a rainy Tuesday and rainy/cloudy Wednesday. Glad I got in a little photoshoot :)

Back from vacation & making new beads

I've only been back from vacation for a few days and had to replace a propane tank before firing up my torch again. That has created a separate set of challenges which I won't go into here, so I'll just stick to showing you pics of my latest beads :)

Below are some black base beads with white dots covered in cranberry fuschia swirls. Has been awhile since I've done the white dots on black, but this is the first time I have used frit on clear to swirl over the white dots instead of plain-Jane transparent rods. I like the end result very much!


Some old Spiral Dance frit used in these beads with the same technique as above. I like the glittery, sparklies that came out :)

Some of Val Cox's Gypsy Skirt frit helped make these beads. Instead of clear, I used a pale transparent pink. But I think the pinkness of these beads came more from the frit than the glass.

And lastly a set of cranberry swirls with white cores that Cristi asked me to wrap in silver dots by using fine silver wire (the silver is 99.99999% pure). Lemme know how you think I did, ok?