Salmon Skin Leather and Other Assorted Projects

I don't know if you remember me posting this photo of the salmon skin leather I picked up in Chile on my South America trip. It looked rather delicious in a design kind of way not the eating kind of way although I am known to fry up smoked salmon skin in lieu of bacon at times.

Actually I was still recovering from the attack of the picoroco barnacles (something scary I et whilst in Chile) when I spied this at an artisan shop.

Anyhow I finally got around to trying some out today, just simply cutting out the shapes and punching a hole in the leather.  Someone asked me what they smell like and they really just smell like leather to me.

I just found these components laying about the house for some reason. They had sari silk tied to them that just wasn't doing it for me so they were prime candidates for some experimentation.

You probably have seen this bracelet before but I finally finished it. 

I have a thing about making bracelets... I don't really like to. 

It's the sizing that does me in when I add the clasp and no matter how I think I have estimated the size it never quite is what I think it's going to be when I finish it. This one however has many possible links to clasp to. That's a Kristi Bowman focal piece and one Scorched Earth ceramic link along with my two beads.

Yes, this one is for someone with a bigger wrist than mine...which isn't that unreasonable since mine are on the tiny side. This was formerly a necklace but those don't seem to be selling much these days and my style has changed a bit since the necklace was made. Hopefully it's new incarnation will attract someone.

I got this idea from Fanciful Devices on graduating rings...no not a graduation ring!

There's a couple of Petra's ceramic connectors, a jade ring, some fused bottle pieces and a typewriter part as well as a relic artifact metal ring.

OK, I'd better post another pic so's you can see the parts better.

Well, sorta better

And since I had stuff I needed to get done to prepare for a trunk show tomorrow I decided to do dishes and make earrings. Funny how procrasterbation works.

sporty dangly matchsticks

It feels good to be making things again back here in Alaska although spring disappeared and winter came back. We might even go ice fishing this weekend. Crazy weather!

torch fired enamel - the only reason the twisted rings are wired is that I can't figure how to keep the jump rings closed. I think the wire works as a design element as a result ...so cool on that

Some new delishes in the shop... and I got a new load of glass just waiting for me until the Garaj Mahal studio warms up enough to work in again.

Mini criffles. The glass looks so different before I crustify it at the torch.

This is the same criffles held up to the light. Pay no attention to that dirty thumbnail!

And these I didn't want to put in the shop

until I took this photograph

These are new mini criffles in my shop too.

These got snatched up pretty quickly, what do you think?

I called them kaleidoscope unicorn horns.

And wrapping it up  here...

My friend just graduated with a construction certificate thru the University of Alaska.

This is the beadwork his mother did on the vest he wore for the ceremony.

I'm pretty proud of him for he's had a hard row to hoe for a long time.

Don't you love my Nancy Reagan gaze?

And now "How Max Paid the Rent"

Sorry it's not a cool gif

New Theengs!

I guess I didn't get around to telling you about my trip to a stamp show in New Mexico the weekend after we got back from South America. I tellya, Mr. Coryosity keeps me a hoppin' but I would have never run across this stash of Chairman Mao badges. Oh Mao god! Was I ever excited to see these vintage goodies from the mid sixties. I brokered a nice wholesale deal if I took them all!

I mean how could someone like me resist!

I did promise to let you in on some of the non vintage items I picked up in South America.

Between setting back into being at home this last month, trying to re-stock my NuminosityBeads shop and basically getting ready to head north to our Alaskan home, my blog has been neglected. 

We were in Puerto Montt, Chile when a stomach bug caught up with me. I'm pretty sure it was the picoroco barnacles in my soup. I just didn't feel right after that and had to really take it easy for a few days in what was perhaps the most funky residencia of our whole trip. The people were really sweet though and after I tried to describe in Spanish "hot water bottle" along with some pantomiming I finally got my point across. You would think "agua caliente botella" would get the point across but it wasn't until my husband thought of adding the word for rubber that our hostess finally understood and trotted off after a phone call to the neighbor and reappeared with a very vintage old rubber hot water bottle for me to curl up with while my husband went on an archaeology adventure to one of the oldest known sites in the Americas.

After most of a day without eating I ventured out in the afternoon after my fever had subsided and looked for a restaurant with some simple food. Along the way I found a sweet little artisan area.

One vendor had this salmon skin leather for sale. He was using the surplus waste from the salmon farming operations they have in Chile. Now I'm not a fan of farmed salmon but I really liked what he was doing with the skins. I had seen some for sales years ago by an outfit in Alaska with wild salmon but I think they went out of business. I'm thinking there may be some great possibilities for it in my work. 

I also picked up a little knit pair of half mittens which I didn't realize were actually going to come in handy for our further southern travels in Patagonia.

I was really holding back on my purchasing in the beginning knowing that we were going to be only traveling with one carry-on size bag each but when I saw these at a market in Bariloche, hand painted and made of paper mache I just had to give the sweet young gal my money.

She also made these magnets which I thought might be good components with a hole drilled in them. 

At 2 for a buck, why not?

I thought these might be pretty cool to cannibalize and use in some pieces too.

This is the bag my honey bought for me from the beautiful Guarani Indian man named Julio in the last post.

Buenos Aires had a great Sunday market on our last day there.

I like the way they captured the bubbles in the fused glass.

Also can be used as components...or gifts.

yummmay!

Now I can't bear to take this apart...plus those knots are super tight.

The artist hand cuts the leather and rolls it herself.

Look how they've got the crackle and the crusty together. Nice, eh?

Well you probably know that I didn't get these in South America.

Petra's beadcaps and some oober headpins. I still had a goodly stash waiting  for some action so that's just what I did.

These were made with some brass spiral earrings that I picked up at a garage sale. New earwires of course! Petra's drops again.

Let's mix a little WondrousStrange in here. Problem is once I start adding my glass to things they can get a bit heavy. Just about too heavy for me. Need to do some lobe strengthening I guess.

I added a little gilder's paste to these ScorchedEarth components

Made these with some beads I had from way back and mixed them with some new cobalt headpins

Oh and you want to see something from the fine artist in the family?

This is what my brother Daniel Rogers paints while he lives in Bali.

And he paints scenes from Maine in Bali too. I'm pretty sure this is going to end up on my wall.

Reverse Procrastination

I was going to do a blog post about my WIP's that I had left behind before I went on my trip.

Somehow I was feeling guilty that rather than blog about the unfinished pieces I would go ahead and finish them. Weird psychology I know but that's what we do to ourselves, especially us self employed artist types. Skewed priorities sometimes!

Speaking of guilt/gilt, I picked up some gilders paste at the gem show and had a little gilt fest.

The organic looking pod thingy in this necklace was dyed turquoise blue but had some nice raised vein texture so I rubbed a onto that to bring bring it up a notch ( or tone it down depending on your point of view) That's a really lightweight iridescent shell bead encased which is perfect because I'm afraid those beautiful beads may be a bit fragile.

Just about everything in this piece has a bit of silver guilders paste on it.

The ceramic takes it on so well.

That's a bullet casing in the center adorned with one of my headpins/

This is a bit of a departure for me style-wise. Sorry I have no mannequin down here with me.

I had to make do with an antique rusted bicycle seat.

A little hard to get a good shot with this marvelous long focal pendant piece by Petra.

Making square shots of necklaces for Etsy is a continual challenge

Ukrainian artifact piece and some of my torch fired enamel.

No, I didn't make the lampwork bead. It's always a little funny using other's lampwork in my work. No problem with ceramic and otherwise but people automatically assume I made it and that can be confusing.

Outdoor shot of the ScorchedEarthonEtsy piece. I forget what she calls them...mystic sandstorm?

Let me tell you these oober headpins are fun to design with (lots in the shop today)

and you know what? ... those are gilded limpets that floundered in my shop because you all thought they looked dull and lifeless ( I'm assuming you did because I thought so too and they never sold)

They take the gilt quite well.

(Talk about a gilt trip!)

You've seen some similar to these before. Made with Petra's elephant hide ceramic beads.

There's a pair in the shop today. Different colors, tho.

Crublimpet earrings

Afghani silver components, coral and lava beads

These were made with those double headpins that I promised to make more of but never did.

Now I feel guilty again.

Some Afghani components and my torch fired enamel matchsticks

Let's have a better look at those headpins.

There are a few new things in my shop this week.

not listed yet

woooo!

mmmmm.....springy

and now for some textures and color from South America

Possibly the worst public art sculpture I have seen.

This was in Puerto Montt. So kitschy that it's cool, actually

how about them feet!

You would buy something from this guy wouldn't you. His name is Julio and he's a Guarani Indian from Paraguay.  Which reminds me I was going to do a post about the new stuff I bought, crafts and the like. Oh well, maybe next time.