30-Minute Earrings--Not Your Average Earrings!

This is one of the most inspiring jewelry making books I have ever seen. I'm so glad I purchased this book.

 While there are some beginner projects, many of the projects require metal working skills and tools that a beginner jewelry maker would not have. A beginning metalworker, versus someone who has only done basic bead stringing, could do well with these designs. There are also some designs using metal clays, rather than traditional metalwork.



Some designs call for a rolling mill to pattern metal, but the designs could be made with metal patterned in other ways, like etching or hammering. It's not necessary to have every tool mentioned.

 I'm pretty sure that many of these would take ME longer than 30 minutes to make. I intend to put this book on my bench, practice and hone my skill on these designs until I can make them in 30 minutes. I love this book!

 The table of contents is pictorial. This makes it very easy to see what page a certain design is on and quickly turn to the instructions.

 The photos are clear and close-up. The photos are all of the finished jewelry or a detail of the finished earrings. There are some line drawings of templates. There are no step-by-step photos.

 The designs are modern and unique. Just leafing through the book gave me inspiration for many different designs. Several of the designs gave me ideas on ways to improve some of my own designs, even though I use different techniques with my designs.


This book is good for those wanting to take their skills to a new level, and for those seeking inspiration with their own designs.

Adorn Me! 2010--Day 2 & 3

The two day Found Object Sandwich (FOS) workshop with Thomas Mann was the most challenging workshop I took.  It was also a great experience and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to take it.  He's a great teacher.

I had a tintype from my collection to use for the photo.  I wasn't really sure where I was going with it and hadn't planned a design before class.  The first part of the class was spent getting our photos scanned and sized and designing our brooches. I was looking through the embellishment items when I found a cat and the sand dollar and knew what I story I wanted my brooch to tell.

The difficulties I had sawing the night before had been on my mind.  One of the things I've learned in teaching Pysanky (Ukrainian Eggs) is that most beginners need to avoid parallel lines until they have practiced a little. I usually teach designs with a straight line next to a wavy line.  I decided I should probably avoid parallel lines in sawing until I got better at it. The inside line would follow the contours of the photo and the outside line would be mostly straight sections. 


Thomas Mann demostrating use of center punch.

When I took a sketch of my shape to show Thomas Mann he held my drawing up to the class and pointed out that I had given myself the easiest shape to saw! I hoped he was right.  My straight lines hadn't been very straight the night before.

The first part that gets sawed is the interior line.  My sawing was much better than the previous night!  I don't know why--maybe "sleeping on it" works for sawing.  By the end of the first day I had completed sawing the sandwich. 

The second day I etched the front plate, did some drilling, tapping, riveting, filing, antiquing, and the sandwich was assembled. 


riveting the pin back before assembly

Here she is:



I don't know who this young woman was.  She represents my many times great aunt LaPeyre.  During the 1900 storm at Galveston she gathered her nieces and nephews into the upper floor of the house where they survived the storm that killed thousands. At the height of the storm a chest of drawers floated through the window with a cat clinging to it.  She saved the cat.  After the storm the family moved from Galveston.  They took the cat with them.

What Inspires You?

My friend Billye and I went to see Avatar recently. Avatar is an extremely visually rich film of breathtaking beauty. The exquisitely detailed beauty of Pandora, to say nothing of the 3D and the cutting edge technology, makes the movie a must see.   

Billye makes jewelry also, and we both paid particular attention to the jewelry this time.  The jewelry appears to utilize natural materials, fibers, leather, and feathers along with beads. The beads look like glass, ceramic, or maybe pearl or gemstone.  There are bone ornaments as well, and lots of feathers in the Na'vi clothing.  The fibers often appear to be woven into macrame.  Sigourney Weaver's character, Grace, wears an interesting assymetrical necklace that appeared to be made of stones and macrame.

I googled Avatar jewelry and found some on Etsy. This terrific necklace by serenasgifts (shown below) is inspired by Mo'at's tree necklace. She kindly allowed me to post this photo. Click HERE to go to the listing. This is my favorite of all the Avatar inspired jewelry I've seen. The purchase benefits Haiti relief.

Some designers made macrame necklaces that were very close to the necklace Neytiri wears in the photo at the top of the post.  Others were inspired by the rich blues and used those colors in their creations.

Of course, there are the inevitable pendants using photos from the movie.  I'm a little bothered by those (and others) because they use copyrighted images for profit. 

I also came across this review of the movie by jeweler James Allen that mentioned an increased interest in natural jewelry.

I don't usually do macrame or seed bead work but I'm really thinking about making something inspired by Avatar. Probably it will be wire jewelry, or clothing. If I can figure out how to put lights in it...I do have an Arduino kit. 

Jewelry designers and artists, what inspires you? 

Trying New Things-A New Year's Resolution

Before Christmas I had a commission to make a necklace with this pendant and peridot. I think I strung it about three different ways and it never did look right. Finally I decided it needed a pendant dependant so I made one. Actually, I made four, until I got one like I wanted. (The pendant dependant is the little U shaped wire that the pendant is hanging from.) The nice thing about this one is that it is secure, but you can still remove the pendant and wear it on a neck wire. It looks really simple but it was the first time I've made one.

I've been thinking about New Year's resolutions. Here are some of the things I want to do:

• Try new jewelry techniques, especially more wire work and Art Clay.
• Post at least once a week on Etsy.
• Submit some of my written works for publication. I already have several short stories.
• Write some more, particularly fiction.
  
• Make at least one component for jewelry everyday. Usually I just buy my findings, but I want to start making them.
• Submit jewelry works for publication.

Designing Dilemma

I haven't posted much because I'm getting ready to go to my biggest show of the year, Red River Revel in Shreveport. It started Saturday, but I'm doing the second half so I will arrive on Tuesday and be in the booth selling (hopefully) Wednesday through Saturday, then drive home Sunday. It is a great show, lots of fun, great volunteers helping in the booths, but very exhausting because of the long hours. A few days ago rain was predicted for the entire time I'm going to be there, but now it's just looking like it will be raining during setup and take down. Take down is Saturday, which is usually my best selling day. DRAT. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the weather will be better than that. Please, please, please.

Also, I seem to be in the process of completely changing my jewelry style. The consequences of this is that right now almost nothing I do satisfies me. I feel rather like my brain is exploding with ideas. I have several pieces which I need to finish for this show that aren't finished yet. I keep harrying off on experimental projects which really need more work before I'm ready to sell them. I don't have nearly the amount of jewelry done that I usually have before a show.















Speaking of experimental projects here is a bangle bracelet that I've been working on. I bought soft copper 1/4 inch tubing at Lowe's. I was going to make copper beads. I went to Home Depot for a tube cutter and found a cool thingie to bend the copper tubing with. I'll post more on it the tool thingie later. The beads went right out of my head and I started playing with the tube bender. The bending worked pretty well, although I did learn a thing or two that will help me next time. This bracelet is the result. It's not finished yet. I am going to wrap wire around the ends of the copper tube, and rotate the copper wire leaf a quarter turn. Then I'll antique the silver and brush the copper to shine it up. Or maybe I'll just antique all of it with liver of sulfur.














One of the things I like about it is it fits on my forearm and stays there comfortably.



















For way too long now I have been in the process of moving all my jewelry stuff from everywhere in the house to one room. Of course, I'm also still trying to get rid of the stuff in that one room so progress is slow. In the mean time, I CAN'T FIND ANYTHING. I'm stuck in that stage of organization where everything is completely disorganized.

Enough complaining! I'm going to go work on some jewelry.