BAD CAT!

(Note: Don't mind the scratched up table, it's 40 yrs old and will be refinished soonly...)

EVIDENCE

CULPRIT

Moral of the story, never leave chewable goodies in the same room as the chomp monster.

March Blog Carnival: Spring Plans

Each month, members from Jewelry Artisans Community (JAC) all write on the same subject. After a lengthy hiatus, I have joined this blogging activity again. This month we are discussing our plans for Spring. 


My plans revolve around learning a new technique: metalsmithing. I have taken one class already, and created these super fun "spiculum earrings." Spiculum refers to something sharp and pointed, like a shard such as crystal or ice. 

In this class I cut out the pattern from a sheet of 24 gauge copper metal, filed the edges smooth and hammered them around forms to get them to curl like you see them. Then heat via a jeweler's butane torch is applied to anneal the metal to make it pliable again. This process of hammering and heating is repeated until they are the shape I wanted. Then the last step was to apply heat again one last time to get the metal to display the beautiful colors you see. Copper starts out that bright shiny coppery color all over. I much prefer these beautiful colors! At least for this project. Then the hole is punched out at the tops, I hand-fabricated the earwires and the spirals, attached them, and voila! A cool new pair of earrings.


Next up, pretty enamel flower earrings with some more metalsmithing involved, and then a fold formed cuff bracelet! I am very excited about learning these techniques. This opens a whole new world in jewelry for me and I can't wait to learn more!


Thanks for stopping by. Please check out these posts by other JAC members:


Islandgirl's Insights     Bead Sophisticate     Cat's Wire     Jewelry Art by Dawn

Bead up a Storm

I won, I won!

Two things, actually...one was some fabulous items from Magpie Gemstones' Free Beads for Blog Buddies promotion. I've never won anything like this before, so it was a complete thrill. Here are my goodies:

Silver and turquoise focal. This guy is humongous at 2.5" x 3.75".

16" strand of yummy multicolored 3mm x 5mm rondelles

Some sturdy 10mm split rings

Now I'm a bit embarrassed to say I won these back in December, and haven't blogged about them yet because they haven't spoken to me yet about what they want to be, but it's certainly high time to introduce them to everyone. :)  They are whispering now, so I hope to play with them a bit and see what comes forth.  I'll be sure to post what I come up with!

And I even have a second win to announce. I have won a One Year Doctorate Membership at the Jewelry Making Professor's website. This is where I learned how to do the puffy heart, which hooked me onto videos for learning techniques. I very much look forward to utilizing that free subscription! Thank you JMP!

Puffy heart done in rose opal and fuchsia Swarovski crystals
using the video tutorial from Jewelry Making Professor.