Goodies!!!

I just got a bunch of free bead supplies in exchange for agreeing to make someone a necklace. Check out my loot!


Everything was purchased from Hobby Lobby, which is currently having a half off sale of on some of their beading supplies. Believe it or not, I'd never gotten around to shopping there before. It seems I was missing out! Anyway, I got mostly bead caps and a couple of nice pendants. Also a new pair of wire cutters because my old ones had gotten pretty dull and the soft plastic handle covers wore off a few weeks ago. And check out my cool little chasing hammer! It's for hammering wires.

I'm in the process of learning to make my own ear wires and wire jewelry. Unfortunately, finding a smooth steel block to hammer on proved impossible. I checked two local craft stores that both carried the hammers, but no blocks. I made a point to explain it to the staff (in the interest of being helpful, of course) that it's kind of useless to sell the hammers without offering hammering blocks. I mean, what are you supposed to hammer on without one? A mere table won't suffice -- it's likely to suffer a lot of damage during the hammering process... which would probably be ineffective anyway since you'd just be hammering the wire into the tabletop. A sturdy steel work bench would probably do the trick, but how many crafters have one of those laying around? Well, my mother-in-law probably does, but she's into really hardcore crafts like carpentry.

I also tried the local hardware store but they only had steel plates. They were sturdy enough, but they had an unpleasantly textured surface that would mar the finish of the hammered wire. You really need something perfectly smooth. Finally, I gave it up as a bad job and ordered one online yesterday. It was probably all for the best as the one that I found was made from smooth, case-hardened steel designed specially for hammering wire jewelry. You can find several such blocks on Etsy very easily if you are intereted, btw. Just do a supplies search there using the words "steel block." I can't wait until mine gets here! I've already shaped a ton of antiqued brass into ear wires in anticipation. I'll write up a nice free ear wire tutorial here as soon as I get the block, so look out for it! Until next time!