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! 

Mystery Beads

My aunt gave me a strand of interesting beads that she got at an estate sale.  They look like African trade beads to me, but I've seen a lot of trade beads and I've never seen these.  If you click on the photos you can look at much larger versions on flickr. If the first one isn't large enough,  click on the photo on flickr, go to actions, all sizes, then click the size you want to view.



The strand is about 24 inches long. The long broken bead in the middle is at one side of the strand, opposite the red beads.





I think the red beads are plastic but I'm not sure. The black beads appear to be horn.




The dots on the beads appear metallic. It looks like they were applied. Some aren't flat. If I scrap them with my fingernail they get really shiny like some sort of metal, or metallic paint. The stuff that scraps off looks like some sort of corrosion. If anyone knows what these are please let me know.







update 11/10/10:  I posted about these on the wire wrap jewelry list on yahoo and Perri (who has a similar donut and has seen a strand of these belonging to a collector) replied in part: "...The dots are most likely metal rod inlay (yeah, I know - think about the time
and work - AMAZING!)

The drop beads are definitely horn, look at the striations in the small part
next to the hole - this is also how you can tell they are older - because
although they are pretty well kept, they have dried out enough that the
*growth rings* in the horn can be seen easily. When they were new, they were
probably smooth as the proverbial baby's bottom, as were the inlay beads. My
donut is roughly 25 years old, and still smooth."


I think Perri's right.  I had wondered how the dots could be so uniform in shape and size.  Using rod inlay makes perfect sense.  And it explains why they look metallic--they're metal. 


Thanks to everyone for their emails and info.  And if any reader has more info please comment! 

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.

Back to Etching

I'm working on jewelry for Red River Revel.  This is the biggest show I do every year. Last night and today I've been working on etching some copper and brass. 



Here's an etched copper plate.  I annealed it this afternoon and put it in a pickle of vinegar and salt.  The black stuff is bits of black fire scale coming off the back of the plate.  I annealed it face down so the back had the most scale.  It's almost finished in the pickle.  Next I rinse it, bath it in some baking soda water, rinse again, and clean it with 4 0 steel wool. Then it will be ready to cut with my disk cutter and I can dap it (dome it). After that I'll cut holes, antique it (or not), tumble it, and coat it with a permanent jewelry finish.  I like the finish I choose to be trouble free for the customer so I almost always coat my copper. After that it will be assembled into jewelry.

I made a list one time of the steps I go through from beginning to end in the etching-to-jewelry process and there are 15 steps.  Eight of the steps, maybe more, have multiple steps. Sometimes I skip some steps if I'm doing something different.  It isn't always necessary to pickle items after annealing them.  The fire scale can be attractive in some applications.

I love etched script and I found some wonderful script stamps at the Heirloom Productions rubber stamp show in Grapevine Texas last month.  I also got some really cool stamps at one of my favorite vendors,  Lost Coast Designs. I'm going to be using them soon.

One of my new projects is etched light switch plates.  I have some copper and brass switch plates and will be experimenting with them.

Great Deals and Tips #2, The Portable Bench

In the last year or so I've started doing more metalwork.  I found that I needed a surface to work on that I didn't have to worry about getting scratched or beat up.  I don't have a lot of room for another table so  I got one of these at my local Wal-Mart:

I got the 29 inch tall one and my friend Billye got the 24 inch one for her studio.  It works nicely for heavy duty hammering on the bench block, and I can take it outside when I'm working on things that have to be repeatedly annealed.  I can clamp my vise on it, or clamp a bench pin on it.  When it's not in use as a jewelry workbench it's in the kitchen.  I frequently sit on it while cooking. Well, truthfully, it's in the kitchen a lot when I'm hammering on it.  The top still looks brand new even though I've worked on it a lot. It doesn't take up a lot of room.

I don't remember the price but it was around $25.00.  I tried to look it up online, but they don't have the exact one I bought.

Here I am doing a little fold forming with a copper strip.  I found out that I need a wider vise or a short piece of copper.  I could only get half the strip in the vise at a time. I'm not sure where I'm going with this strip.  I was going to put it on a brass cuff but now I'm thinking of cutting it up and making earrings. There's still a lot of texturing and folding to be done.

This was the first time I'd used my new Fretz hammer.  It's the brown handled one in the back.  It's a great hammer.

The Dangerous Dark

I walk around outside my house all the time in the dark.  If the neighbors could see me I know they'd think I'm insane because most of the time I have one hand up in front of my face as I'm walking.  This is why:



I don't know the name of these spiders, but they are fat brown squatty looking things that build a new web every night. They have nice webs and it's kind of impressive that they do all that work every day. They like to hang their webs out in the middle of an open space where you never expect a spider could put a web. They're sneaky that way. Sometimes the anchor lines are ten feet long.  They almost always hang them with the center about 5 feet above the ground which is face level for me.

Many times I have wrapped one of the webs around my head.  I'm pretty sure people in the next county hear me screaming when this happens, even though I scream with my teeth clenched just in case something wants to run in. I'm not fond of spiders and I'm less fond of the webs actually touching me.  One good thing I can say about these spiders is that they run up one of the support lines when something big walks through the web.  I appreciate them not running around on my face, although it doesn't stop the screaming.

This spider hung her web right above my car hood.  I had a nice shot lined up with my cell phone when Scrappy jumped up on the hood and started walking into the web.  You can see the spider is headed for a support line.  Half a second earlier it was smack in the middle of the web.

This time of year I also have a flashlight.  That's because I don't want to step on one of these:



Click on the photo to go to my flickr page and see it full size.  This is a copperhead snake. I was on the way out to my small gold fish pond one night a few years ago and saw him next to the sidewalk. I was checking the pond for snakes. There wasn't a snake in the pond but there was a huge spider eating one of the fish.

Copperheads are really hard to see in the leaves like this.  When they are coiled up in the leaves their skin makes a rosette pattern. A few nights ago I caught Scrappy and Pawlie playing with one. I heard a crack and Scrappy jumped up about two feet and back about three.  The crack was the snake striking.  Fortunately, Scrappy wasn't bitten.  I called the cats over to me and looked for what they'd been after.  It took several minutes for me to find the snake.  I didn't see it until it started to move slowly away.  

So if you see me walking around the yard at night with one hand up in front of my face, looking at the ground with a flashlight you'll know...I can explain that. 

Great Deals and Tips #1 - Fabulous Friday Find

This is the first in a new series of posts on great deals and tips relating to jewelry making.  I'll post when I find something or have a tip to share and they'll be searchable under "great deals and tips".




I spotted these at Big Lots today.  The cute little hammer was $5.00 and the 6 foot key chain tape measure was $2.50.  And did I mention the hammer is cute?

The hammer is just right for when I need a hammer and don't want to use one of my good jewelry hammers, like when I'm beating the heck out of some found object.  It will fit in a box when I travel. There were matching C clamps, spring clips, and a hobby sized hack saw, but I already have these, although they aren't as cute.

The hobby saw is also a great deal.  It was $3.50 and had several blades. The handle folds up into the frame for storage so it takes up about the same space as the hammer. I have a similar one that I use when I want to cut something and need more than the jewelry saw, but less than a big hacksaw, and don't want to break out the dremel.

My next great deals and tips post will be about the small, inexpensive, and very portable bench I use for a work surface  when I texture and pound on stuff.