The Downside of "As Seen on TV"

Well we did it!  Black Dog Jewelry went Hollywood!

 

Our brass, heart shaped necklace was seen on Law and Order:SVU!

The episode titled, "Parole Violations", aired Wednesday, March 25, 2015 on NBC.

 

 

Worn by Carisi's sister, Bella (Marin Ireland) for the last scene of the show.  Check it out!

http://bit.ly/1EXPdKp

 

The wardrobe stylists for Law and Order:SVU selected the handcrafted Brass Heart Necklace for use after receiving it in a Stylist Gift Bag from The Artisan Group®. The Artisan Group is a California-based arts promotion and celebrity gifting organization, of which Black Dog Jewelry is a member.

Petite and adorable!  This adorable heart shaped necklace showcases a gleaming, hand formed heart made from brass wire.  A small Rosaline Swarovski crystal pearl is wrapped onto the end.  When turned around, the heart also forms a B.The heart pendant measures about 3/4" by 7/8" and hangs from a 16" brass oval link chain with a 3" extender.  Secures with a lobster clasp.

 Get Bella's look here!

 

 Black Dog Jewelry  Handcrafted artisan designs featuring wire wrapping, precious metal clay, polymer clay and wearable and sculptural sea glass.  Black Dog Jewelry is designed with pride, crafted individually and offered at reasonable prices.

SHOP!

 

 

And now for the downside:

 

 

We are very excited to have "arrived" in Hollywood but I think Rosa, the black dog of Black Dog Jewelry, has let it gone to her head!

 

 

  

  Meeting all of Rosa's new demands is exhausting.  Help!  She now won't leave the house unless she is properly attired and looks like this!

 

 

Wire Wrap Octopus Tutorial

By Black Dog Jewelry 

This lesson will show you step by step how to make a wire wrapped Octopus pendant using the spiked technique tutorial from Artey Creaciones  on JewelryLessons.com. 

The spiked technique consists of wrapping a wire using only a pair of pliers. This tutorial requires you already know the spike technique.

Materials:                                                                             

2.5 yards      22 gauge dead soft round wire                            

   6 inches    26 gauge dead soft round wire

 (wire can be copper, bronze, silver or craft wire)

   1                6mm Swarovski pearl

   1                8-12mm oblong crystal 

Tools:         Round nose pliers

                   Chain or flat nose fliers

                   Flush cutters
Making the octopus body:

---

Step 1 :  Start with the tip of the round nose pliers and the 22 gauge wire and wrap around one side of the round nose pliers 2 times.

Step 2:  Making the tentacles 

Start making your levels of “spikes” as taught in Carmen Barrera’s Spike Seahorse tutorial.

Your first spike will be 9 loops high.
Your second spike will be 11 loops high.
Your third spike will be 9 loops high.
Your fourth spike will be 10 loops high.
Your fifth spike will be 10 loops high.
Your sixth spike will be 9 loops high.
Your seventh spike will be 10 loops high.
Your eighth spike will be 9 loops high.

At this point your spikes may start to twist on you (especially if you are working from the spool). This is ok, we can straighten them out.

Step 3: 
When all the tentacles are complete, wrap the wire 
1 extra time next to the last loop.

Cut wire from spool with flush cutters.  Straighten out the spikes that twisted up.  At this point you can bend the end loops of the spikes pretty easily to get it straight. 

It will kind of look like a crown with 8 “spikes”.  These are your tentacles.

---

Step 5: Take your 8-12mm oblong crystal bead and thread it onto one end of the 2 wires you just pulled tight.  This will be the head of the octopus. Push the head down close to the base of the tentacles and bend the wire from the top of the head to the bottom of the head. Wrap it around the base of the head 3 or 4 times.

Step 4: Take the 26 gauge wire and thread it through the bottom loop of each tentacle as shown.   Using the same wire, thread it through each tentacle one more time.  You will have made 2 passes through each tentacle.   Take each end of the 26 gauge wire and pull it tight.  You should have a small, tight little circle in the middle.

Snip both end wires with flush cutters and tuck into loops

Step 6: 

Thread your 6mm pearl onto the other wire. Insert the wire through the middle of the tight little circle you created when pulling the wire tight.
Continue to wrap the end wires around base of the octopus and through the center to tightly secure your pearl.

---

Expect to be asked lots of questions when wearing!

The Power of Color

Do different colors affect your mood?  Absolutely!
We associate different colors with feelings.

Red - An intense color that stimulates a faster heartbeat and breathing as well as appetite.  (You didn't think McDonalds picked the color scheme of red and yellow by chance did you?)  Red is considered an excellent accent color since your eye is drawn there.

Pink  - Considered a very relaxing color, the color of love.

Yellow - Cheerful, an attention getter yet is the most difficult color to take in so should be used sparingly.

Blue - One of the most popular colors, the color of the sky and the ocean.  It has the opposite reaction as red, peaceful and tranquil.


Green - The easiest color on the eye, the color of nature.  It is calming and refreshing.

White - Reflects light and symbolizes innocence and purity.

And that leads us to one of my favorite colors Black.

Black - The color of authority and power.  The color people wear to appear slimmer.  The color of evil.  It's also timeless and stylish and that is the main reason it is used so often in jewelry designs.

Stylish:

Abstract Art Pendant by Jans Art 

 Evil:

Mini Book Earrings by Illusion Everything

 

Timeless:

Black Heart by Strange Whimsy

Powerful: 

 Black Raven by Desert Rubble

 The above jewelry is an example of the talented people of the Polymer Clay Smoosher guild on Artfire.com.  These items were all made using polymer clay.  These were the emotions I felt when seeing these items in black.

How do they make you feel?

The Joys and Wonders of Polymer Clay

I have recently discovered the joys of working with polymer clay.  I had previously tried it a couple of years ago but didn't really know what to do with it.  I think I was trying to use it as I would precious metal clay.  Completely different animals.

Polymer clay is my new favorite medium to work with.  It's pretty simple (at least for what I am doing with it right now), pretty inexpensive and you can make just about ANYTHING you put your mind to.

Dragon sculpted from polymer clay, wow!

There are TONS of free tutorials online on how to make things out of polymer clay.  I did some basic searches on what you could make and when I started to see things I really liked (and thought I could actually do) I started to watch these tutorials and learn some basic techniques.

Basically, to start off, if you can roll a piece of clay into a ball you can start making things out of polymer clay. 

See?  The above balls were shaped into various skunk parts and when assembled looks like this.

This was one of the first tutorials I tried, my skunk looks like this.

Pretty cool, huh?

Anyways, don't be afraid to jump right in and start playing.  Polymer clay is really fun and some really amazing things can be made with it.  I am still in the beginning stages with it but I really like what I am making and look forward to continuing to experiment with this medium.

Some other Black Dog Jewelry polymer clay creations:

Happy Crafting!

Kelly and Rosa

Inspiration

The stimulation of the mind and feelings to special

             or unusual activity or creativity.

Inspiration comes in many forms and means many things.  A simple word can invoke intense feelings good or bad.  A beautiful item found in nature can unleash a wave of creativity.  A heartwarming story may find you reaching out to help others.  What inspires you?  

Below are some inspirational words and what they mean to me.

Hope 

  The emotional state which promotes the belief in a positive outcome

 related to events and circumstances in one's life.

When I see the word Hope I always think of my high school friend Tracy.  She is a breast cancer survivor and hope, to me, means one day we will find a cure.

This word also inspired me to create the above necklace which I sold for Tracy's

 Team Boobilicious fundraiser for breast cancer research.  All monies received for 

these necklaces were donated to her team. 

Believe

To have confidence in the truth, the existance or the reliability of something, although without absolute proof that one is right in doing so.

I believe.....hmmm, this is a tough one to put into words.  It's more a state of mind for me. 

For some reason, today while walking Rosa (the black dog of Black Dog Jewelry), I was thinking of how a blind man must put all his belief in his seeing eye dog to help him cross the street!

Love

 An intense emotion of affection, warmth, fondness, and regard 

towards a person or thing.


Love is a warm puppy (or is that happiness).
  Love is my husband, my son, my dog, my family, my friends, my health, my sense of well being...you get the picture.




Happy Holidays from Black Dog Jewelry!

October: My favorite month!

OCTOBER!  My favorite month of the year!  Of course I am in central New York, there is 90% chance of rain ,the heat is on and part of me is wondering why I'm not back in Florida but I still love October in central New York!

The trees are just starting to change color and gently fall to the ground. 
 Apple season is in full swing.  Crisp days (when not raining) and the crunch of leaves underfoot. 
And the best of all...haunted houses, haunted hayrides and haunted jewelry!  

It is SO much fun to wear and create Halloween jewelry.  Ghosts, bats, zombies, voodoo dolls, crosses, pumpkins...you see what I mean?  

From pure silver (to ward off those Vampires) to wired art.  Check out all my "haunted" jewelry at http://blackdogjewelry.artfire.com

Looking for something different this year?  Check out Artfire and Etsy for unique decorations, costumes, desserts, or jewelry.  Just about anything you can think of, and a few that you haven't can be found on these websites. 

 Truly amazing and inspiring work!  It's boo-tiful!

Til' next time!

Kelly 

http://www.BlackDogJewelry.net

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Rosa, the black dog of Black Dog Jewelry

I thought I would start out this scary blogging process by sharing the story of the dog
 behind Black Dog Jewelry's name.

Rosa, the black dog of Black Dog Jewelry

Our first "daug"ter was named Winter.  She was a pure bred American Eskimo spitz and the sweetest dog you ever knew.  She left us for doggy heaven in January 2009.  

A year later we were ready to get another dog.  I scoured Petfinder.com for hours, reading all the sad stories of all these precious animals needing homes.  We knew we wanted a rescue this time, we just never knew how hard it would be to pick one UNTIL I saw Rosa.  I knew the minute I saw her picture she was ours.  I think I loved her from that minute.  We contacted her foster Mom and got her information and background and it sounded like it was a perfect fit.  The day before we were supposed to meet her and bring her home we got a call that Rosa ate some poison mushrooms and went into a coma, they didn't think she would make it.  Well she did and after another week we finally got to meet her.

Rosa is the sweetest (with a spark of crazy) dog ever.  They say that rescues know they are rescued and I believe them.  Rosa was a stray so we don't have any background info on her but we have seen triggers to some past abuse.  She is an American Eskimo/Schipperke mix, a pure spitz through and through.  The characteristics of these dogs are explained as an excellent watchdog and extremely independent.

Which translates to barks it's head off and won't do what you say!

Well, not Rosa!  She does everything we say and hardly ever barks.  You can see she tries real hard to fit in so she can stay.  Well she's staying with us forever!!  She's very smart but does have a wild streak to her.

So far she has caught a squirrel, a snake and a bird.  All on leash!

The devil dog!

Anyways, Rosa is a Momma's girl and follows me everywhere.  She wants to do what I do and is usually under my desk while I am making my jewelry.  She surfs, goes to doggy daycare, plays with her Daddy, helps create jewelry designs, and even does yoga!

She also got her name from her foster home.  Her foster Mom rescues American Eskimo dogs.  Rosa was the only black dog there and one dog was prejudice and wouldn't look at or acknowledge Rosa.  So they named her after Rosa Parks! 

So that's the story of the black dog of Black Dog Jewelry.  I named my jewelry business after her because every time I see her, hear her name, or anything about a doggy it makes me smile.

I can only hope my jewelry creations will make you smile as well.

Til next time!

Kelly

http://www.Black Dog Jewelry.net

http://www.facebook.com/BlackDogJewelry