Dark Annealed Wire

 I have been wanting to play around with dark annealed wire since I got a copy of Brenda Schweder's book Steel Wire Jewelry. The book is full of the most interesting and unique designs I have ever seen. I'm a huge fan of Alexander Calder jewelry as well so my taste for wire is growing stronger by the day. Yesterday Joe called me as usual after he was out of school and said he was at Ace picking up some keys he was having made. When he said Ace, I instantly remembered someone had told me that they sell this wire, so I asked him to look around for it for me. He brought me a spool.

This morning I put together a few pair of earrings just to play around with it a little. I like it! It's nice and easy to work with, and you can hammer it nicely too. I didn't have black hands afterwards, 

 surprisingly enough!  And I love how it looks mixed with other metal such as brass components. 

some tips i learned this morning from Brenda as we chatted on FB:

cleaning the wire with steel wool and
then coating with Renaissance wax will
prevent the wire from rusting.

if making ear wires, do these 2 steps VERY well.

 Little does he know, he's going to back to pick up MORE- I hope there's more available!

I have been wanting to play around with dark annealed wire since I got a copy of Brenda Schweder's book Steel Wire Jewelry. The book is full of the most interesting and unique designs I have ever seen. I'm a huge fan of Alexander Calder jewelry as well so my taste for wire is growing stronger by the day. Yesterday Joe called me as usual after he was out of school and said he was at Ace picking up some keys he was having made. When he said Ace, I instantly remembered someone had told me that they sell this wire, so I asked him to look around for it for me. He brought me a spool.