Wire-wrapped Dragon Necklace

So my Sis-In-Law recently hit a milestone birthday, and I wanted to make something appropriate to the gravity of the situation that celebrated our shared nerdiness. First I made a dragon outline from 18 gauge silver wire:

I felt like it came out well! The little hanging loops at the tops of the wings worked great, and I was pleased with how the ends hid in the end of the tail. But the wings were a little off-proportion and the whole thing seemed a bit... empty. So I set to work looping 26 gauge silver wire in rows starting from the top edge of the right wing:

I love how lacy and scaly it looks, and I'm still pretty shocked that my first try worked out so well. Here's the fully filled out wings:

After filling out the wings so nicely, I felt our dragon needed  some head spikes to even out the detail. Sorry for the low-quality close-up, but here are her spikes:

Again this detail was added with 26 gauge wire. Here's a more distant view, along with the spine I added so I could attach the rib plates:

Each rib is comprised of a doubled and twisted strand of 26 gauge wire, which I then coiled around the spine I had created. My attempts to coil those ends resulted in my breaking the spine piece repeatedly, so I ended up twisting in two more strands to strengthen the spine. 

Finally the pendant was finished! Here's the complete dragon:

Next I needed to set her on a necklace. I used the 26 gauge to make two lengths of Viking Knit chain, which is a very exciting technique I'll tell you more about some other time:

Then I used the 18 gauge to create endcaps for the chains, a closure hook, and a large-link closure chain to allow for variable lengths:

Et Voila! A masterpiece is born. This dragon necklace was a fantastic adventure to make, and a piece of art I'm pretty proud of. Thanks for joining me!

Braided Wire Tie Clip

My dad mentioned that he was a little low on formal wear for an upcoming trip and I've been on a wire-wrapping / jewelry kick lately, so I thought a tie clip might be in order. I figured a nice multi-stranded wire braid would make a pretty pattern and could be bent into the appropriate shape. I have lots of braiding experience, so I figured braiding wire would be a cinch:

I was wrong. The cross-shape here was my first attempt, in which I started with 9 or 12 strands, gave up that idea and split into three sub-braids, all of which came out fairly poorly. the straighter braid on the left was my second attempt, with similar results. I decided it was time to call in the professionals. I searched up this tutorial on Pinterest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI7SFuvnwG8 and used it to create the bottom braid you see here (the top is attempt #2 or #3, for comparison):

From there it was pretty smooth sailing! I bent all the loose ends in over the last wire they crossed and cut off the excess to close the ends into loops, and then formed the overall clip shape here:

Et Voila! I tried it on one of Dear Husband's ties. Overall a very successful craft project!

This one is a few years old, but I found the photos on here and enjoyed reminiscing. It's a project I'm pretty proud of, because I put in a lot of work and it came out so well. One time, I made this really cool stained glass portrait! I started with this photo of my Popo:

I printed it and traced the shapes I wanted to use on his face, and cut them out of cardstock. I numbered the lines on the cardstock so I could figure out how they went back together:

Then I traced the pieces of cardstock on my glass and used them as guides to cut and grind the glass shapes.

Then I wrapped each glass edge with copper tape to make the solder stick, and soldered it all together! The photo of the final portrait is a bit blurry, but I was pretty pleased with it.

Nothing To See Here

I'm working on it. Come back when I have Unicorns for you!