I'm Back from my little "Blog Vacation"....

I thought it was time to wave a virtual 'hello' to everyone! I took a teeny little 'vacation' from my computer this past week to tend to gardening and working through my backlog of bench work deadlines. I've made lovely progress in the garden, chasing weeds, trimming last year's dead flower stalks and uncovering this year's new growth. It seems my two pink rugosa's did make it through the drought after all, and they are freshly trimmed and growing beautifully. My rosemary came through the cold winter, too. New green needles are peeking out out from the brown ones I feared were dead. And my viburnum bushes are in full fragrant bloom. This weekend I'm going to plant my broccoli, radishes, and maybe even my beans.

As for meeting all my jewelry deadlines, I'm almost there - here are a couple pictures of yesterday afternoon's work in progress, and a pile of pieces nearing completion. I think I will actually be fully caught up in a couple more days, even with my custom orders - yay!


While I've been working, I've had several new ideas that I just can't wait to start working on, and I've also been experimenting more with fusing copper, since I had a couple of little fused copper hoop earrings to make. Here's yesterday's little pile of fused copper circles - only two failures, probably because the joint wasn't flush enough. I wondered if using flux would make it fuse better, but I found that it actually seemed to make it worse, which is great because it saves a step.



Another thing I noticed is that if it looks like the joint is going to pull apart, if you pull away the heat it will often "swell" and fuse together just fine. Interesting.

I hope everyone who celebrates Easter had a wonderful holiday! Saturday Night at 1000 Markets and Sunday Morning Coffee and Etsy will be back with flying colors this weekend. I've found some wonderful goodies that I can't wait to show everyone. See you all soon!

Works in Progress, White Chocolate, and a Thank You

I've been busy as a bee in my Etsy store lately, and I'm sooo happy for that! Sometimes I think I must have been crazy to quit my day job and take such a risk, espcially in times like these, but I think it just might work! I'm working on a wholesale order for a little shop in a mall - handmade in a mall, how great is that!! Yay for handmade! I'm also getting ready to teach a class tomorrow - Introduction to Fire - which focuses on fusing fine silver. I'm really looking forward to it. Fusing is how I got my start with the torch, and it will be fun to 'pass the torch' to others....(sorry 'bout the pun, could't resist)


Also wanted to say thank you to my blog friends who have tagged me and sent me several lovely awards!! I promise I'll be posting and sending out my tags soon - I'm looking forward to spreading the blog love to some great new blogs I've come across lately!


Lots of things on the bench this week too. I'm working on a custom order with a prong set stone. Thanks to Jen, I've been pushed to finally get going on using my little stash of faceted stones. I've got a ring planned with a gorgeous 8mmm Irai Citrine. That one will be called Mountain Sunrise. Hoping to get it done this weekend after Saturday's class, along with the labradorite one started a while back.




I've been working on a buttercup pendant for a customer this week, too, and now I think I'm going to do something with pansies next. Check out all the tools that go into one teeny little buttercup.....sheesh!

And then I've got a couple of copper leaves going. This one will be called Dragonfly Spring, and have either a blue topaz or rainbow moonstone "raindrop" on the leaf. Probably the topaz, I think, kind of like April showers.

I think this burst of new things is fueled by the fact that I ran out of tea, and am back on coffee this week. Out of cream, too, so I melted squares of Green and Black's organic white chocolate (left from Christmas baking projects) in it. Wow, unexpectedly delicious!! I really didn't even think I liked white chocolate all that much, but this is just totally fabulous. It has 40% cacao in it, so there is a definite chocolate taste, and it also has a lot of real vanilla bean flecks in it, along with milk, so it actually is like cream when you put it in coffee. I'm going to have to make some white chocolate chunk cookies with this stuff - or maybe some of the incredible looking White and Dark Chocolate Mousse. And then eat a lot of salad.........

See you guys later, gotta get to "work"!

Back from the Retreat!

What an amazing week it was! Non-stop talking, learning, creating and eating - lots of eating!!! I learned fold-forming and anti-clastic raising, and am busy buying hammers and figuring out how to get a wooden stake made so I can get busy making more pieces. My Etsy shop hummed along all week, too, so I am busy today getting my bench back together and getting orders out. Here is a quick peek at my fold-formed leaf piece from the retreat. Copper leaf, with a brass dragonfly, and tiny little bezel set peridot. Already sold!! I'll be back soon with more pictures and details about the retreat.

Earring Party!

I'm still short on time, so no torching or metalwork this week - I hate that!! I've got soooo many ideas that my sketch book is getting full. I had to make something, though, so whipped up a batch of earrings last night. At least I got to hammer stuff and make headpins and earwires! Made my first pair of long kidney earwires, too. These are fun, and show off smaller stones really well. I'll be making more, I think. Here's a sampling of yesterday's work, more are up on my Etsy shop. First, a pair of copper hoops that were patina'd with the torch. Then there is some great deep blue lapis on my handmade kidney earwires, and finally a pair using some georgeous bloodstone beads I've had for a while.

My retreat piece

We are all bringing a piece of jewelry with us that was designed on the theme of "mountain retreat". I just received some of my new tools, specifically a jeweler's saw, so I thought I'd try it out and make something. I cut c corner from some of my new sheet copper and made a little necklace I call "gecko mountain". Forged copper, pewter gecko charm, and fused silver swirl all hang from a necklace of matte blackstone beads with copper accents.

Hammerin' and Stampin'...

Wow, where has the time gone? I can't believe it has been 10 days since I last posted! I have been busy playing with metal. Got some new stamps, and some lovely 18g copper discs. Here is a pair of earrings - 3/4 inch discs which I hand stamped with my new dragonfly stamp, then textured a bit with a hammer. Made some sterling silver wires to hang them on, and accented them with a little bali-style copper bead and a tiny sterling bead. I love these, and may just keep them for myself! I really like copper and silver together. Have also been making some chains from fused links - much fun. Have made a bracelet, and am working on a necklace to match. Stay tuned - hope to have these posted in the next couple of days.

Another pair of hand-forged earrings....

This is a pair of earrings I did last fall when I first started forging fine silver. I'm in the mood to play with this again, and really love the look of copper and silver together, so I've decided to add a new section to my online store specializing in hand-forged pieces in these two metals. More soon!

Casual Copper

I started doing copper pieces earlier this fall so I could perfect my texturing techniques on something less expensive than silver. Somewhere along the way I fell in love - copper is a joy to work with, and goes so well with all the lovely, warm colors and textures of the fall and winter seasons. Here is one of my favorite projects - a pair of hand textured copper earrings with onyx chip dangles. Very fun and casual....

Irai Citrine and more Fun with Metal...

I have had this 8mm round Citrine from the Irai mine in Brazil for more than a year, and couldn't decide what to do with it. The Irai mine is known for producing these lovely deep reddish-orange citrines, which are supposedly not heat-treated. I was playng around with a hammered copper focal and decided that the citrine looked really pretty with the copper. I set it in a simple little setting and dangled it inside one of my fused silver circles. I will be doing some additional pieces that are variations on the hammered, V-shaped focal - lots of embellishment possibilities here!