What do you mean - chipped?

A few weeks ago, Rachel from The Glass Cavern posted two pictures on Facebook, of an ammonite with inlays of Bello opal (lab-created). I have admired them more than once - and not just the ammonites, Rachel makes beautiful lampwork and so much more -, but I'm trying to use what is in my stash and my seed bead orders are bad enough, so I always resisted.

This ammonite was a little different, though. While polishing it, a little accident happened and a bit got chipped off the edge. Not wanting it to end up in a drawer, Rachel posted it asking if a wire wrapper or bezel maker was interested.
I'll admit that I jumped on the chance like a hawk on a mouse although I had no idea at all for it at first and only a very vague one minutes later. When the ammonite arrived, that idea had already decided to leave my brain because I hadn't written it down.

So I had to come up with a new idea and I decided to try something really new to me. Ammonites are of course flat on top, but not at the bottom, and from another pendant I knew that it could be a little difficult to bead a good bezel for it.

How about adding some of the beading foundation at the bottom and level the fossil out? How about making that piece a little bigger and then bead on it? Oh, or how about adding layers of beading foundation to both level out the bottom and "complete" the ammonite, so I could bead a bezel all around that and have an even better chance to hide the chipped edge?
I really had to wing this, but I was pleasantly surprised when it worked out just the way I had hoped.

After beading the bezel in bronze and golden seed beads, I had to fill up that extra space somehow. I decided on a organic look with a mix of golden size 11 and 15 seed beads, making one layer with seed beads sewn on individually and going through all of the layers of beading foundation, then I added some extra beads on top.
There is a two row edging of the golden beads all around and an embellishment with garnet beads only around the ammonite itself. For the garnets I chose different sizes, so some sit lower, some higher to repeat the organic feel of the golden addition.

I really struggled with a bail for this one.
Due to the spiral, the pendant isn't symmetrical, even if you may not notice that at first glance, and I wasn't sure if I wanted a very simple bail like peyote or herringbone or something a bit flashier like a triangle peyote bail.
To be honest, my preference would have been no bail at all or rather a hidden one (you may have noticed that before in my bead pendants, no matter if loomed, woven or embroidered), so after working out the best way, I did that in the end.

P.S. As usual, I had a hard time not to add dangles, but I think they really wouldn't have worked for this one.

Tackle that stash - Ammonite carnelian pendant

Lately I have been neglecting my wire badly. One reason is that my thumb tires much more easily when handling wire, so I have to take more breaks, another is that the beads simply talk louder and especially clearer to me at the moment. Not literally of course, I'm not THAT crazy.
This pendant started out with a few very bad attempts at a simple woven bezel. It almost felt like my first time doing that. My thumb hurt, my motivation sank, and even the wires started looking tired. I ripped everything up and only a few days later a small idea popped up in my head that you can't even see in the piece anymore.

Often I don't choose a stone or cab and make a bezel for it, but start weaving and bending the wire instead to see if something comes of it, and then I go looking for something that has about the right size and make the two come together.
In this case I tried a fossilized coral, an agate and a glass cab before I found the ammonite.
If you know my previous ammonite pendants, you see that this is not a variation of those, and there are no tentacles! Actually the tiny swirls at the top were there before the ammonite as well, so it's not an attempt to sneak at least something "tentacly" in ;-)

To give the pendant a little more color, I decided to add some beads, chose matte carnelian to enhance the autumn feeling and filled up the empty space on the left. You'll have to trust me on this, there's no weaving underneath there.

Even if it looks as if the woven part on the bottom is flat against the fossil, it's not. I hope this picture can show it a little better.

This is my welcome to autumn :-)

Noooooooooo - The fail

This pendant has taught me quite a few things.
First, it's easier for me to make an anti-clockwise spiral than a clockwise one. That's probably a right hander thing.
Second, don't feel safe before you have actually and truly completely finished something.
Third, I can be such a brute.
Fourth, sometimes a spiral just wants to stay a spiral.

So what is all of this about then?

I made a pendant the other day using half of a cut up ammonite and some copper wire and it turned out pretty cool. The obvious consequence was to use the other half now.
Of course it didn't look exactly like the first one. I made a different weave, the little spirals and the bail were in different spots on the pendant and the spiral following that of the fossil was a little bigger and not curled in as much. Things looked fine. The pendant was almost finished.
Just tightening and flattening those wires a bit more - CRACK!

What the .... no. Nooooo. But ... seriously now?
Yup. Seriously. The ammonite had several cracks. I mean, hey, only a few tiny bits had fallen out. Good to know that my wire frame held it safely, but ... seriously now? Broken? Now??

Of course my first thought was to toss the whole thing. Out of my sight, you .... you treacherous fossil! It's no excuse that you are millions of years old.
On the other hand I know I overdid it. I pushed you to the edge and you couldn't handle the pressure. It was my fault.

I decided to keep it as a reminder - maybe hang it on the wall or put it on a chain and on one of my teddies - but of course I needed to do something to make sure the parts really stayed together.
*cue ominous music* Glue. Oh dear. You know that glue and I have a somewhat shaky relationship. Granted, there was nothing here that I could mess up except maybe glueing myself to the pendant.
I applied glue to both sides of the pendant and let it dry.
Funny, the glue on the front of the stone had settled in a little groove in the middle that I hadn't even noticed before. I generously applied more glue until the surface looked smooth. Three layers later I still have that little groove showing and decided to leave it that way.
Now I just hope I have really learned something from this! ;-)