I had to think about these for a bit before I could come up with an answer but I think my biggest challenge right now is embracing structure & repetition, particularly with pendants. I have placed too much emphasis on each piece being unique and just going by feeling that I don’t spend much time drawing or planning my pieces. I see them in my head and just start wrapping. I often figure out the frame for the main crystal as I am making my main weave and at times this means I end up with not enough wire or compromising the piece somewhere else to make it work. Other times I think I use too much or unnecessary wire because I am not confident that my crystals are totally secure. I want to confidently sell my pieces, I want them to be clean and for the people who receive them to feel like they are a sturdy & dependable as well as beautiful. In a years time, I hope to have developed this confidence and a body of work that I am proud of and confident in selling.

Hey there beautiful people! My name is Fiercely, and I am the female half of Craftyfingas.

I'm not sure if we are supposed to create a new post or comment on the original post. So I'll do both but let me know for the future. I made this snake wrap bangle and did a few of them. For my challenge, I decided to make a snake wrap ring. The stone is upside down, flat side on the bottom. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️. I was too far in when I realized and didn't want to start over. 😂😂

Hey artists! I’m Gina and I’ve been wire wrapping for 12 years. I’m originally from the suburbs of Philadelphia but have been in Tulsa, OK for just over a year so still pretty new. My husband, 5 yo son & I moved here after living nearly 9 years on Hawaii island and I sold most of what I had there before we left so I am getting to start over fresh creating new pieces and building my inventory back up. I hope to start vending at markets soon and getting to know more artists locally. I am looking forward to practicing some new techniques and pushing myself as an artist. I feel like I created some imaginary rules for myself that have held me back a bit and made it harder to build up a body of work (thinking every piece has to be totally unique vs being able to create repeatable designs that are still unique but share the same construction). I also loved the idea of learning in community. It’s so hard to pick a favorite piece but this one is probably my biggest and most complex, I started in Hawaii and finished it last year so took about 2 years from concept to finish! It was a gift for my husband and I know he wears it with pride 🥹

So, I didn't end up actually doing the micro challenge this week because sometimes when creativity sparks you have to just jump on the moment. I rarely feel personally creative so I had to just go with it. I have to be honest, my OCD bothers me when I see pendants that the back doesn't match the front. I'm coming to understand more that the way framing works with some of the more complex pieces that have multiple attachments that hiding the back just kind of isn't possible really. However my brain wouldn't let go of the matching front and back so I created this instead. This is an Oregon Sunstone with an Augite accent on the bail. I used copper and created two separate pieces that I then wired together. This is 20g base wire, 26g weave wire and 32g wire to bring it all together. What I didn't take into account is that two separate pieces, one with three base wires and the other with four, gives you 14 total base wires to deal with once it's all wired together and the stone is in place. This became a exercise in taking it very slow, backing up when I needed to, and in the end I clipped off a few of the base wires ends and hid them behind the wires that wrap around the base of the bail. The only part I don't really like about this piece are the wires that wrap around the bail. I couldn't get them to lay straight and flat against each other no matter what I did, this is the one part where I finally just said forget it and moved on. To fit with the micro theme, this is one of the smaller pendants I've ever made. It's about 2 inches in diameter, I have big fingers so I typically tend to work in the 3 inch range. It's not the smallest I'm shooting for, but it is one of my smaller pieces.