My summer ‘blog vacation’ is officially over!

And yes, this is finally a piece for my “Stones of the American West” collection.  One of my main goals this summer was to increase my production speed so I can keep up with orders and work for my galleries, but still have time to create new things.   Ha ha, and my goal for the Fall is to keep up with orders, make new things, and still have time to blog and twitter…….and we won’t even mention the benign neglect that my poor garden has to put up with!

Speaking of galleries and shops – I now have work in the lovely Spirit of the Hand gallery located in Dandridge, Tennessee, just outside of Gatlinburg.  I’ve shopped there for years, one of my very favorite places for Christmas gifts and fabulous pottery.  I’m so excited to have my work featured there!

I’ve also been busy this summer with quite a bit of custom work, which I am finding that I really love!  My customers are truly a source of wonderful inspiration for new pieces to add to my shop!  I’m making myself a pair of these Dragonfly Dreams  earrings that I made for Doris to go with her Dragonfly Treasure ring (originally inspired by another customer request!)  Doris loves iolite, and both her ring and earrings have gorgeous iolite stones.

 Another request from this summer with an iolite stone was this sweet pendant that I did for Robin.  This one will soon be available in my shop, too.  I’ll be calling it “Live, Dream, Soar”, a saying that I’ll be incorporating into several new pieces that I’m working on.  

 

 

I’ve also been playing around a bit with fold forming this summer.  I really love this technique, and will be filling out an entire line in the next few weeks.  I wish silver prices would go back down so I can do some pieces in silver, but sheesh, I hate to buy a bunch of sheet at today’s prices – it’s almost $17.00 per ounce!   Here is a sneak peek at my next cuff-to-be.  This is just a small piece that I was playing with, and unfortunately, not long enough for a cuff.  It’s not soldered or anything yet, I’ve just got the embellishments set loosely on the piece.  Not sure what I’ll be going with in the end.  I might end up making a brooch and some earrings out of this piece.  It’s made with 16g copper, requiring HUGE fire to get it hot enough to solder, but I love how the thicker metal makes such detailed ruffles and textures.  (had to get out the BIG hammer, too, lol)   This fold forming technique is the ‘line fold’ which has been hammered flat after it was opened.  It’s amazing what can be created with fold forming, such fun to play! 

That’s all for now, but I’ll be back soon with great Etsy and 1000 Markets finds, as well as more about what I’m working on, and of course, gardening and cooking tidbits.  See you all later!

 

Technorati Tags: Maury Mtn. Agate,artisan ring,sterling silver ring,amethyst,dragonfly earrings,iolite,copper,fold forming

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.

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!

Fun with Rings!

Still playing around with metal, and have found that I love making rings! I've started a new line of fused and hammered pinky and stacked ring sets. The

little pinky rings are made from handmade ball-ended headpins which are then bent and hammered into shape. I'm thinking about added some that also have little gemstone dangles - we'll see. The stacked rings are little sets of 3 or 5 fused circles that have been hammered in different ways to provide some texture. Stay tuned for variations on this idea, too - I'm thinking little tiny bezel-set gems would be fun here....

Fine Silver, A Hammer and a Torch

I am taking a long distance class in metal fusing from Iris Sandkuhler of Sandkuhler Studio in Pacifica, California. She is a very

talented artist, and her course has opened up a whole new world of creative possibility for me. I'm having sooo much fun creating new things. Fine silver, which is .999 pure silver, (unlike sterling which is .925 pure and tarnishes faster) has been a joy to work with. Fine silver must be used when fusing in order for the metal to melt and fuse together correctly. The technique involves making shapes where the the ends of the metal are touching as smoothly and completely as possible, then heating with a torch until the metal becomes liquid and fuses, but still retains the original shape. The piece is then textured, shaped some more if needed, polished and embellished with whatever comes to mind. Here are a couple of my first pieces...