Kalaya Steede

Hope you are all having a great weekend thus far!  Yesterday was packed full of fun. My friend Amber came over.  She taught me how to make a refreshing Caprese salad and then we talked on our favorite subject...ART and rubber stamps.  I think we both love rubber stamps.   Anyhoo, she gave me one of her dolls!  How did she know that I wanted that one?  You can see more of Amber's dolls here .  This is so exciting...I'm going to make a shadow box for her to go in.   Merci Buttercup Amber! Here are the finished Flared Hoop Earrings. Before After They were made with 16 gauge sterling silver.  I decided to flare some of the sections for a different look and tumbled for 9 hours to make them shiny.  Most of my friends own a pair of these hoop earrings and since these are going to another friend of mine I thought I would make them a little different.    I like the flare because it catches the light just right and makes y...

and still get a bad result. That's how I felt all weekend long.  It's that time in your creative journey and you stop and say, "Well, this sucks and I'll never make anything great".  I hear this happens to a lot of artists.  But here's what happened to me last weekend. I'm trying to come up with a unique design.  So I'm sketching all sorts of things but I get Artist's Block. Then I realize I have to make a pair of silver hoop earrings.  Yay!  It get's me away from designing.  Making hoop earrings is pretty straight forward.   Cut four pieces of silver. Make a circle with each piece. Form circle. No gaps! Solder Pickle Reform circle Make sure ends are visible. 16 gauge sterling silver hoops.  Soon to be sexy earrings for that sexy someone. Sounds simple enough, huh?  Except for two of the hoops popped  open while reforming. AND I could still see the two ends.  Ugh!   I got frustrated.   And thus ...

Creating... Oh what a fun evening!  My friend Ty wanted to make a necklace to go with a particular slinky sexy dress.  She thought about buying one but I say why?  Especially if one can make it.  After all, she has me, right?  So off to the Bead Shop on Magazine.  We buy some bronze chain, coral, turquoise, Swarovski crystal, and a flower by Vintage.   1.  Making the components.  I had no idea what I was doing!  I just wrapped wire around this bead turquoise to secure it to the flower.  Some sort of bird's nest action going on.  2.  We measured the length of each chain and made many adjustments. 3.  Placing the components in the proper place.  What are the proper places?  We don't know.  We just played with it. 4.  Final Piece!  Yay!  Ty danced around the room and pretended to pick things up.  You know...going through the motions.  We had to test the integrity...

I have BIG plans for this weekend.   It's going to be three days of studio time!  Well...at least that's the plan.  Someone might convince me to go shopping or something.  In the meantime let me share the newest things that I have made. A friend of mine wanted to venture out and get herself some dangle earrings but they couldn't be over 1 inch long.  While I was making the set my muse came in the room!  She told me to put some notches in the hoops.  So I obeyed and left the two other pairs alone.  You never know when she is going to pop her head in the studio.   Notched hoop earrings.  SOLD Shinny Dangles.  BTW...that's not me. The silver hoops are 3/4 of an inch in diameter and were made using 16 gauge round wire.  I made three pairs.  Notches were created in one pair and patinated with liver of sulfur.  The other two pair were left alone and tumbled for that shinny look.   I feel like the other ...