Trunk Show at the Calico Cat

I'm busy getting ready for my trunk show at the Calico Cat.  The Calico Cat is a fantastic  store in the Uptown Forum in downtown Greenville.  I love the Flax clothing line that they carry, and the Baggalini bags and purses.  

Here's the write up from one of their newsletters.  Thanks!

Leslie Todd Jewelry Trunk Show on Thursday & Friday, September 17 & 18.

Local artist Leslie Todd works with semi-precious gemstones, pearls, coral, shell, glass and other materials, adding sterling silver, copper, brass and gold-filled touches.  Find just the right piece to finish an outfit or build a look around one of her necklaces, bracelets or earring sets.  Either way, you won't want to miss this beautiful jewelry!

M and L Studios

M and L Studios (Martha and Me) is the new name of our Canton Booth/store. Going south from I20, it's in the Canton Marketplace building on highway 19 before you get to the old section. If I can figure out how to put a map up I'll do that.

We also have a blog here.

We're in booth C122. We are offering 10% off to all customers who mention reading about it in a blog. This offer is good during the October 1st Monday Trade Days in Canton TX, October 2-4, 2009.

There are literally thousands of vendors at Canton Trade Days so come on out. Our building is the only one with heat and AC, and we are open from 8 am until 8 pm. The rest of the vendors close at 5 pm. Check it out.

Learning New Techniques-- Hammered Copper Bangles

I purchased several gauges of copper electrical wire at hardware stores and I just made my first cuffs and bangles using the wire. I used an article by Kim St. Jean in summer preview 2009 issue of Step by Step Wire Jewelry for instructions (Bodacious Copper Bangles).

I used 8, 6, and 4 gauge wires.

I cut the wires into various lengths for cuffs and bangles. The bangles are all extra large size. This is so I'll be able to wear them. I very rarely find a commercial bangle big enough to go over my hand.

The next step was annealing the copper. I had never done this before. I was worried about dropping the hot wire on my foot when I quenched it so I dug my Doc Martens out of the closet. Probably I should have worn pants too, but it was about a 100 degrees outside. I did have eye protection and gloves.



I enlisted my teen-aged son, Stefan, to take pictures. The sun was so bright that Ralph had to hold a piece of cardboard up to shade the work so I could see the orange glow. I used a fire brick that Ralph made a while back, after he figured out how much the shipping was on the bricks. Ralph kept saying things like, "I hope my brick doesn't explode." The brick was dry as a bone so I can't see why he thought it might explode.



I torched the first wire until it had a nice orange glow, let it cool until the orange faded, then used pliers to pick it up and drop it into a pot of water. Ralph scared me by immediately reaching in to the water with a bare hand and pulling out the wire. I didn't realize that the copper cooled so quickly.



The wire went into the water completely black, but as it cooled bits of the oxidation flaked off revealing pinkish red areas. The top wires have been quenched. The bottom ones are before annealing.



Stefan and I both picked up one of the annealed wires and accidentally bent it. That's how soft it got. I had no idea the change was that great.

After annealing I hammered the wires flat on top and bottom with a planishing hammer and then used various texturing hammers to add interest to the bracelets. The ends of the wires were pounded flat into paddle shapes. The 8 gauge wire was formed into a serpentine shape before hammering. The serpentine shape was something I wanted to try. It isn't in the article. I had to anneal one of the thicker wires a second time to finish texturing it.





The bracelets were then annealed again. After this I shaped them using an oval mandrel for the cuffs and a round mandrel for the bangles. I also used a file to clean up the ends a little and round off the paddle shapes. I was going for rustic rather than "fine".

After shaping I put them in a pickle made of vinegar and salt, rinsed, and brushed them with a brass brush.


I used some silver wire for a rivet on the bangles. This was the first time I had done rivets. I did not ball the end of the wire as the article instructed, mostly because I was tired of cleaning the scale off. I don't have a draw plate either, so I used pliers and a regular anvil. I just hammered around the end until I mushroomed it. I lashed one of the cuffs with silver wire. This was a real pain. I had trouble tucking the ends under. I then antiqued three of the bracelets using liver of sulfur. I really liked the way they looked after that. I put several coats of Renaissance Wax on the antiqued ones.



I still have one more rivet to set. I'm going to put Art Clay on two of the remaining bracelets.

Change a Life at Kiva

I've been loaning money at Kiva, a microfinance organization for some time now. Everytime I get a loan paid back I reloan it. I just made my 15th loan today.


This one went to Martha so she can expand her soft drink business by adding some other products. My part of the loan was just $25.00. Other lenders made up the rest.

This is a good way to help people help themselves. Check it out. Change a Life.

Antiquing with Billye

My friend Billye and I went antiquing on Tuesday. Martha was coming with us, but had something pop up at the last minute. (Read her blog here where we went antiquing earlier.)

We went to The Back Door in the nearby town of Caddo Mills. The business area on Main Street is about a block long and The Back Door takes up a large part of it. It's chock full of vintage, antique and new items. I'm quite sure I could go back tomorrow and see lots of things that I missed the first time, even though we spent about three hours going through the store!



This was my favorite find! It was labeled spice box, but had clearly never held spices. I think it's more of a sewing cabinet, but who knows? I'm in the process of clearing out a room at the house for my jewelry studio and this is going in there.



Next up I found these wonderful buttons and beads. The ones in the middle are cobalt glass buttons, kind of unusual. The crystals were in the cabinet so the owner said they went with it. What a bargain! Click on it for a detailed view at Flickr.



Martha's been wanting a sugar mold for paint brushes in her studio. This one just looked like it should be in her studio, so we got it for her.

I also got three interesting postcards that I'm going to use in some mixed media art one day.

Billye has recently moved and she got some great things for her house. Altogether we had a fun day.

New Texturing Hammers!

I got my hands on some patterned hammers recently and have started playing with them. Each hammer has two faces with different patterns. I bought one from Beaducation and the other at a show.





I textured some copper washers that I bought from Harbor Freight. The washers don't have a huge surface area and so don't show large area of pattern, but they are inexpensive to practice on.



Right away I whacked my finger. OUCH! I was bleeding. Maybe tomorrow I will have a patterned bruise. Just kidding--sort of.



These were my favorite two patterns. The one on the left is made with the square faced pattern and the one on the right is made with the hammer face with the narrowest lines.



I couldn't get a good picture of the other patterns. After my initial experiments I worked with the wide-striped hammer some more and got a much better looking pattern with it. The circle pattern hammer makes marks kind of like water and is pretty cool.

I could tell that if I hammered for extended periods of time this would aggravate my carpal tunnel. I get much less vibration in one hand if I use a tool to hold the washer in place. (Plus my fingers are out of range of the hammer.)

Most of these pieces will end up in earrings or bracelets. I textured both sides of the washers, although one side gets flattened a little when you textured the reverse.

Next on my list of metal work is stamping words on metal and etching copper.

Dragonflies and Cats

There's a huge dragonfly that has been hanging around my small backyard goldfish pond. I went out with my camera and got some pics.




I had to wait a long time for him (her?) to land on this flower right in front of me.

Meanwhile....



Scrappy made this difficult.




Ouch!




I did get some good shots though, IMHO.




Here's one of the water lily. It's getting ready to put on several more blooms, hopefully all at once, so I'll be shooting more of it.




I have a lot of news so stay tuned for more frequent posts.

As always, more pics and better detail at my flickr account. Just click on the pics.

Step by Step Wire Jewelry

One of my goals for this year was to get some jewelry published. Now that the magazine is out I can show you this picture which appears in the summer issue of Step by Step Wire Jewelry.



The photo appears in the reader gallery, WireWorks.