And the Winner Is...

Therese of Therese's Treasures is the winner of my earrings!  Congratulations, Therese.  And thanks to all who participated.

Celebrating my Followers-A Giveaway

I've decided to celebrate going over 100 followers with a giveaway.  This giveaway is open just to people who are already following me either on Blogger or on Networked Blogs.  There will be another giveaway shortly that will be open to everyone.


I'm giving away these earrings:






These have etched copper domes with a Swarovski crystal and hand made sterling silver ear wires.  They've been finished with a patina and a jewelry finish so they won't tarnish or need to be polished.


To enter you must be a current follower, and you must comment on the blog.  Make sure I can contact you in some way, or leave me your email.  Comments will close on next Tuesday the 27th of December at midnight.  The winner will be selected with a random number generator. Good luck, and thanks for following. 

And the Results Are...

Thanks to everyone who entered the giveaway for Craft Activism.  The winner is #2 Martha!  

Congratulations, Martha!

Bead Table Wednesday and a Giveaway

I had hoped to give my anvil a good workout today and do some foldforming.  Unfortunately I couldn't get to it.  Instead, I got this necklace ready to go to the buyer.  I had to shorten it slightly and I took this picture for my records.  








I call this one "Home is Where the Heart Is."  The focal is the creation of Martha Eason, of Menagerie Studio.  I love her charms and pendants.  I really like how she finishes the back of her pieces, too.





Yesterday I posted a review of the new book Craft Activism.  This is a book that needs to be read and I'm hosting a giveaway for it.  Leave a comment on this post for a chance to win.  Comments will close at noon central time on Wednesday, November 9th. Good luck! 

Key Giveaway--The Reveal

First of all let me apologize for posting this so late.  I had a very interesting day and not in a good way.  Mostly it involved the water well at my parents place and my car.  Probably I will soon have another car, which unfortunately will come with a car payment. 


I selected a winner by numbering the comments, with extra numbers added in for those who had more than one entry.  Here it is:

The winner is Patty from "My Life Under the Bus."  Congratulations Patty!  I did post this on Patty's Facebook so some of you have probably already read this.  


Patty selected the mauve/lavender key.

The white pearls are big hole pearls so they are excellent for wire wrapping.  Also included are some more pearls and some fluorite. The pearls have a funky shape but the color is to die for. There's a lot of color that didn't photograph. 

And some Czech glass.

And finally 2+ yards each of my favorite colorfast hand-dyed sari silk ribbon:

After I took all the photos I realized I hadn't photographed the matching copper washers, but they are included.


I have another giveaway, this one a book and metalworking supplies, coming up soon so if you didn't win this time check back. 

Bead Table Wednesday--Torch Enameling and a Giveaway

Yesterday and today I've been playing a little with torch enameling.  I haven't gotten much done but I'm having fun.  


Here's what I've been working on: 




Sorry it's such a poor picture.  The steel keys had rust on them and I used the buffer to get that off.  The key on the left has been cleaned but not enameled.  I used two methods to enamel.  I heated the second and third key from the left until red hot and dipped them in the enamel a couple of times, following directions in Barbara Lewis's excellent new book. I did the Robin's egg blue one first.  I was pleased with the enameling, although I didn't get it as high up on the key as I would have like.  I had some problems with the red one.   It threw off sparks or little burning embers when I was heating it.  This caused the enamel to pit.  I have no idea what caused this but hubby theorized it was bits of carbon flaming up.  I haven't cleaned the oxidation from the flame from any of the keys.  I rather like the oxidation on the three right hand keys so I may not remove it on those. 


The three keys on the right were done by sifting enamel onto one side and torching from below on a tripod.  I'm pleased with the way they turned out. 


Next I textured some copper washers.  I've just begun to enamel them.  The half enameled one was done by the dip method and the small one was done by sifting.  The small one is textured on the back side and the larger one that I dipped is textured on both sides of the top.  The bottom hole filled up with enamel so I'm going to have to rethink that. 


I'm so pleased with how the keys came out that I'm going to have a little giveaway.  I'm giving away your choice of one of the keys on the right:  cobalt, mauve, or bitter green.  (The mauve looks lavender to me and the bitter green is a yellow green but those are the enamel names.) I'll also be including enameled copper washers and some other items which will be determined after I go through my stash and find coordinating goodies. 


To enter leave a comment on this post.  Post on Facebook or follow the blog for extra chances.  Just leave me a comment letting me know (if you already follow leave a comment) and be sure I can contact you through your comment or include your email address. I'll cut the comments off at noon on Monday and select a winner sometime later in the day.  Good luck!

Bead Table Wednesday--Tools and Beads

First up, I've got these awesome beads that just arrived today from Heather Powers:





I love these little birds and eggs! Heather also has a new book out--that's it on the front of the card.  I was hoping to get a look at it but the bookstore didn't have it yet. 


While organizing in the studio I found a set of number stamps that had rusted right in the storage box.  Yikes!  After a lot of elbow grease with a brass brush on one of them  I decided it was time to break out the new buffer/grinders.  




Not too long ago I paid my teenager to put this nifty bench from Sears together.  I found this plywood at Home Depot and had them cut it into two tops with a piece left over.  I used the one on the left with the fiber brush (also on the left) to clean the rust off the stamps.  I bought this little grinder just for that brush.  I used one like this in Richard Salley's toolmaking class at Adorn Me, and I loved it. One of the stamps got away from me and was spun across the room by the grinder, hit a plastic container and bounced almost all the way back.  Of course, I had eye protection on, but I started putting a cardboard box behind the grinder to catch things, and I paid better attention after that. 

Then I put some Boeshield T-9 on the stamps and also on the hammer head of my new Fretz Michael Good hammer.  Boeshield T-9 is a waterproof lubricant and rust and  corrosion protector.  You wipe it on then wipe it off.  It is petroleum based, but dries to a hard waxy finish.   I love it for tools. Here they are drying. 






A couple of days after setting up the grinder I set the second one up.  It has a cotton type buffing wheel and I used it to buff a pendant I'm working on.  The wheel's too small for a lot of things, but it is still handy and I may move this one into the studio later.  Right now they're in the garage.  I do have a full sized buffer from Sears, but I've got to sit down and read the instructions and get the parts put together before I can use it.  It's not as "plug and play" as these little ones are.  Both these grinders have flex shafts that attach to one side.  I don't plan on ever using them.  


And here's what I hope never gets in the garage or on the bead table:






The two on the left are full grown and the three smaller ones on the right belong to one of them.  I haven't seen the other one's babies, but she appears to be nursing.  The raccoons have been devoring the cat food at an alarming rate.  Feeding the cats only in the day doesn't help because the raccoons just come out in daylight.  Those mamas are really hungry.  After they quit feeding the young I won't see much of them until next breeding season.  I found some out-of-date peanut butter last night in the pantry and have been doling it out.  They like it so well they have been leaving the cat food alone. According to wikipedia it's probably better for them than cat food. 





This is either the bravest, or the least intelligent of the babies. He's was about five feet from me when I took this. He's not super frightened of me like the other two babies are. They see me and go up a tree.


We have a lot of ponds in our area but they must all be dried up because the raccoons empty all three of the water bowls every night.  One is quite large and sometimes they lay down in it. I guess raccoons need to bath sometimes. 


Check out the other bead tables on flickr.

Something Unique by Lana--Huge Giveaway

Lana at Something Unique by Lana is have a huge giveaway.  She has some fantastic beads and findings from many Etsy artisans.  There are a lot of art beads included.
Check it out. It's a fantastic collection of goodies.

The Jewelry Upcycled Winner Is...

My friend Martha experimented with getting her bird to draw the winner of her giveaway. I thought that was pretty cute so I decided to see if I could get one of the cats to draw. I used some scrap paper and numbered the slips one through ten for the ten comments. Then I presented the choices to Scrappy.



Nope, Scrappy wasn't interested.



Still not interested. Meanwhile the wind is blowing everything into a pile.

Ater replacing the slips on the sidewalk I had Stefan draw. 





He picked:



The second commentor, My Life Under the Bus, is the winner! Check your email!



Why it's sometimes hard to take pictures.

One of the other cats might do a better job next time...

Great Stamp Set Giveaway

Lori over at Pretty Things has a fantastic giveaway going.  She's giving away this great set of metal stamps:

Head on over and check it out.  Also take a look at the great jewelry she made using these stamps.

And the Winner is...

Shelby of sundownbeaddesigns is the winner of Stephanie Lee's Semiprecious Salvage.  Congratulations Shelby! 

Homesteaders 1 & 2 and Book Giveaway

During the summer I had the pleasure of taking Homesteaders' Metalsmithing,  an online  course by Stephanie Lee.  One of the major things I learned was soldering with a torch.  I had some reservations before the course began about whether the online format was a good one for learning to solder, but my fears were completely unfounded.  The class was fantastic!  It's a combination of blog posts, pdf's, videos, and a wonderfully energetic and supportive yahoo group email list.  I learned a lot but didn't get as much done as I'd hoped (I was getting ready for Red River Revel and got sidetracked making jewelry for it.) 

I signed up for Homesteader's 2, which started this week. New material is being introduced in this session, although much of the material is a repeat. The class runs five weeks instead of four. The material is available on-line for several months so the videos and other material will be available for review. One of the new subjects is use of a rolling mill. I gifted myself with an economy model rolling mill after Red River Revel so I'm looking forward to this part. Hopefully I'll get a lot more practice this time around as well as learn some new things.


I ran out to Sears today and got a stand for the bench grinder. We didn't have a place in the garage to mount it and now we do! And it wasn't expensive or hard to put together. Plus, plus! During the last class I did all the filing on the little brass squares and rectangles by hand and it took way too long.


I finished some components but not soldered pieces in the last class.  My friend, Bren, sent me some pictures to use. Didn't she do a great job?  Bren and Julie and I met at Adorn Me! last year and all three of us took Stephanie's online class.

The photo above is Elvis Presley as a child.

Bren used a napkin ring and a clip on earring in this pendant.

This pendant utilizes a skeleton key and scrapbook paper.

This is a dried daisy in an antique bezel, with resin.

A handmade bezel with a photo behind resin, and a screw back earring.

Bren cleverly used some hardware trim on this one.

Check out Julie's blog HERE and look at her work. 

Now for the giveaway.  Homesteader's 1 included a copy of Stephanie's great book, Semiprecious Salvage.  Reading the book is like taking a class.  I love the story format she uses, and the multitude of close up photos.



I already had a copy of Stephanie's book so now I have two.  You can win one of them by commenting on this post.  If you post it to Facebook or tweet it you can get another chance. Tell me about it in separate comments.  Just be sure I have a way to get hold of you, either through an email linked to your profile or leave me your email address. You can spell it out:  "name at suchandsuch dot whatever" instead of using the symbols.  The deadline for comments is noon CST on Monday, November 15th.  Due to the incessant spamming comments by people promoting links to  "adult" sites I've turned comment moderation on.  I'll be out of town on some day trips this week, so don't get stressed if your comment doesn't doesn't get approved right away.  I'll get to it! 

And the Winner Is...

The winner of the issue of Artful Blogging in my first blog giveaway is Corrie.  Corrie has quite a few giveaways listed over on her blog, Corrie's Contest Cache. Check it out. Congratulations Corrie!

The process of selection involved the order of the posts and me telling my husband to pick a number from 1 to 5, inclusive.  He picked 2.   He never reads my blog so I figured that made him fairly neutral. 

I'll be starting a giveaway for a copy of Stephanie Lee's excellent jewelry making book, Semiprecious Salvage: Creating Found Art Jewelry,  later this week.  If that's something you might be interested in check back. 

I'll leave you with a fun picture of Pawlie and Yertle. Click for a larger view over on Flickr.




Yertle has been hanging out at our house during the warmer months for several years now. For all I know, he's wintering-over under our hedge or in the woods across the street during the winter.  He (she?) has a fondness for cat food.  Yertle wasn't sure he liked Pawlie being so close to him but it didn't stop him from chowing down.

Percolator and My First Giveaway!

I've been playing with my new Percolator iPhone app.  It's so much fun I wish I had a Percolator version for my laptop.  I percolated this from a photo I took of a water lily in the gold fish pond.



Here's a lizard.  I love the way the app makes mosaics. Check out the Percolator group on Flickr here.

Now for the giveaway!  I managed to buy two copies of the July-August-September Artful Blogging, so I'm giving one away.  If you missed getting one or are wanting to check out the magazine here's your chance.  This is one of my very favorite magazines!  It's chock full of gorgeous photography and beautiful blogs, along with tips on your own blogging.

Comment on this post.  I'll randomly select a winner next Monday, September 13, and ship this off to you. Stay tuned, I'll be giving away a book next week.

Update 09/12/10:  There's still time to post a comment.  I'll cut off comments tomorrow evening at 10 pm.