Friday Favorites!

I am borrowing today's FF from a friend - Melissa of Melissa Meman Designs, but in a more general way.

My fave for today is 'blogs'

Blogging and blogpals and blognews and blog memes and blog themes and blog schemes.....oh, wait, sorry - got carried away.


But seriously. I love blogs.

I enjoy blogging to some degree, but moreover I just enjoy blogs in general. Love reading them, following them, linking to them, commenting on them. My only problem is there aren't enough hours in the day! I can't get to them all.


I think blogs are a great way to stay connected, a great way to meet people, to speak out, to share, to see, and be seen.

I have probably have about 40 blogs in my 'reader'. I don't actually visit them each day, but I skim every post in my reader, every day. I often click through though and comment - on a handful, and not the same ones each day. Just when I am particularly inspired or moved or feel I have something to add......... or when something surprises me or in some way catches my fancy, or just 'when'. A blog the other day asked about people's favorite colors - I'm a people, so I commented! :-) (seems a lot of people like red and purple)


As with sappy commercials, I can be moved to tears by a blog. Someone, you know who you are, has been intermittently writing about her experience with adoption. Been moved to tears more than once there.

I laugh out loud at blogs - Lisa of "It's a lovely life" often causes me to LOL. (thank you!)

There are blogs that make me hungry, (yum, and ohh yum)
blogs that inspire me,
or make me think,
or just entertain me
or some that do a lot of the above

and some that blow me out of the water - in more ways than one - check his employee award in the sidebar - Hans is one of a kind, truly. :)

there are blogs that I read faithfully that I've never commented on. Sometimes because they are written in another language (OK, it has subtitles, but I'm not sure it always did) and sometimes just "because".

So now you know.

I'm a blog-aholic.

And I don't want help. I am hopelessly addicted and really happy for my enablers - ya know, feeds, readers, "following". Its made it relatively easy to hide my addiction and carry on without anyone performing an intervention. And many of you are co-dependents. You visit here, you comment, you link to blogs in your blogs and on your websites. Its all a sick sick web we're weaving........but I'm planning on living in denial. How 'bout you?


:0

OK, enough about that. I mentioned rings the other day and someone asked for pics......

Recent rings...

"Crater" - sterling and swiss topaz.














"Sprouts" Sterling














and then this friggin' thing which I can't seem to get polished right and if I keep going over it with wheels and buffs and steel wool I'll have no gold left on it...















The part inbetween the gold balls looks bad - its got like umm, drag marks kind of, ya know? I LOS'd it to cover but then can't get the LOS off 'right'....what to do? Suggestions? My last resort may be to LOS it dark and then scratch finish it so it looks like graphite...the gold would still pop and I'd not have to worry about scratches or too much LOS or LOS in the wrong spots, etc.

Thoughts?

~Janice
Keep comin' back, it works if you work it! ;-)

TT - A little late

Tutorial coming - pics of 'fold and gold' for now.....

Yes, Tuesday Tutorial WILL be posted today, but its going to be a LATE date post - well, more like a night time post. :) Hope you'll come back tonight or check in tomorrow. I'm having a good time posting metalsmithing tutorials that I find and also sharing those of friends.

In the meantime, I said I'd try to grab a photo of the fold and gold ring now that its oxidized. I didn't get to it last night - swim team is going to be a killer! Yesterday was our first practice. My father was good enough to take LG to the pool at 5pm at which time we found out he'd be in the 6:15-6pm group. They decided to stay and wait it out, so I ran home and picked up little Lisa and took her to the vet. I returned home with Lisa around 7pm and little guy and Pop-Pop pulled in a bit after 7:15. Needless to say, dinner was on the late side last night, little guy needed a shower after being in the strong chlorine, and after he went to bed, I crashed.

Ohhhhh, No, scrap that. I did go to the bench - - got started with the 14k gold bezel - on a lovely little triangular (trillian) cut aquamarine cabochon. After fiddling with that a bit - I then crashed in front of the tv for an hour and went to bed early. (again!)

So I snapped these photos on my way to work this morning and now that I'm taking my lunch break have uploaded them.

Whatcha' think?

I don't really like the way the LOS was left on there....I may redo the LOS and use pumice instead of steel wool, but my pumice doesn't arrive until Friday, so the ring is going to stay as is for now.

:)

Don't forget to check back for the Tuesday Tutorial - if all goes well it will be up whilst its still actually Tuesday!

Oh, and for fun, here's little guy playing Ultimate Frisbee at the school fair this past Saturday.

Isn't he just too adorable?

~Janice

TFT - 05.27.09

Last night worked surprisingly well. I am finally about over my headache which made things much easier than they have been in over a week. We had leftover food, from Memorial Day, ready to go so when I got home I threw it all together, we ate, then I slipped off to the basement. (I'm getting good at this!)

My son did join me not too long thereafter, and he continues to want more of my attention than when I began this Tuesday night studio thing. He's so cute, I can't get mad, I try to engage him and I take brief (I mean really brief) breaks to watch him or do something with him. Its all fun. I enjoy it. :) Last night we danced and huggled (somewhere between a hug and a snuggle) and generally chatted a lot while I was working.

Despite my best intentions to complete some of my pieces, I really began a couple new ones. . .I can't seem to make myself stop! But I've publically committed to doing just that, stopping any new creation until I finish these and I've determined to finish everything I have in various stages by the end of the month. Oy. But seriously, remember the necklace, with the beads and bits of chain and whatnot? Thats STILL not done. So, its high time I get serious and then get some of these listed for sale.

Last night I began this sterling and charoite ring. I like how the stone is set on horizontal and the setting is no fuss. its kind of sleek which is different from a lot of my other work.




The setting needs to be cleaned up, polished and then the stone set. Right now its just in there for a test drive/fitting.




And here it is on my hand. Whatcha think?

Does it stand alone well or do you think it needs some embellishments?

I also did some work on this 'far out' pendant.



It reminds me of something from the solar system. Its sterling, fold formed, hammered, soldered.



Needs clean up and then some LOS, then the lapis and amethyst (bullet) will be set.



And by far my favorite........this ring.

Its going to be SO hard to part with this one. This is sterling, fold formed, with 14k gold balls. It just really appeals to me.

Right now it has a very rough finish and I'm not sure how high I'll take the polish...then definitely LOS to really pop the gold.





Finally, I've been remiss at sharing about the class I took with Loren Damewood on Saturday. I made a cuff bracelet and a ring (ring picture coming, along with full details of the WONDERFUL workshop)

This is a knotted fine silver cuff. It is created from ONE uninterrupted strand of fine silver wire. Cool, huh?



I ordered some fine silver wire. I don't normally use fine silver but the knotting really requires a soft wire to work with. Sterling would kink and break I am sure.

I also ordered...dun, du-dun-dun-dunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

14k gold sheet, bezel strip, and wire. OY. I want to make an entire ring of 14k gold. I am not sure I have gold solder though so I may have to go back and place another order. I finally ordered from Rio. . . . I had been resistant to Rio as I think their prices are higher than one needs to pay, however, that was looking at tools and other supplies. Their metals prices are very competitive, so I was pleasantly surprised and I will be back to Rio on a regular basis now. I happened over there as Thunderbird doesn't have fine silver wire or sheet. (who knew??? lol) So I tripped on over to Monsterslayer and as I was getting my order together I decided to just price out the same metals at Rio. BINGO! Just about the same on sterling and fine silver - but considerably lower on the 14k gold. So it worked well.

I'm a bit nervous about using the gold but I'm also excited. Stay tuned, hopefully there will be a success story showing up soon!

~Janice

Well Hello again!

I've been holed up at home much of the past couple of weeks with a tooth that needed to come out but apparently was quite secure staying where it was....which ended up causing me a fair amount of grief and pain. In between trips to the dentist and oral surgeon, bouts of bedrest, and intermittent pain-med-induced-incoherence-dizziness-and nausea.....I managed to grab a few clear headed moments here and there to work on this pendant.

This pendant was truly done in tiny snatches of time and amazingly it ended up working out well. Maybe its a lesson in 'slow is the way to go'. I have always known that I rush things and in doing so I cause myself more work or to just give up on a piece. Setting it down and allowing it to just 'be' and then coming back and working in stages really allowed me to focus on each stage or step.

I am hoping to begin taking more time and really working through each step from now on in order to have truly clean pieces.

I have received a lot of comments about the photo itself. This was taken in my traditional 'photo box' which is a plastic container turned on its side. I cover that with paper towels to help diffuse the light. In this picture I used a VSH cassette tape box and a piece of raised glass (I raised the glass with two pop of lids from disposable propane canisters). And used no flash.

The only downside to this photo is that it doesn't show the more mellow colors on the right side of the pendant, the overall photo is a bit dark. The right upper corner of the pendant is a mellow light orange, then a whitish stripe, then the rest of the stone is a yummy translucent red.

In this photo you will see a not quite as flattering version, but the color of the stone comes out better. Partly it is the lighting and partly the angle which the photo was taken.

The pendant is sterling, 14k gold, agate, and (I think) a faceted orange sapphire.

~Janice

More in the series

Using a simple 'fold' as a design element forges on!

The first piece is a success I think, in terms of the fold and the overall design, however the keumo-bo piece lacks pizzazz. I like the contrast between the bright silver on the fold and the oxidized part, but the overall piece is missing something. While originally planned as a pendant, it will now become one of several links for a bracelet. Repeating the element might interject some 'wow' .

and for fun, here is the holes piece after it was tumbled for a couple of hours. Its so shiney that it was hard to get a decent photo of it!

First in what may be a series

I've contemplated doing a series before but have never followed through. I think though that this may be something that I play with in a 'series' sort of fashion. This is a super quick project with lots of possible variations.

This pendant is 20 ga sterling with a TINY 14k gold ball on the side. A section of sterling tubing completes the piece on the back for a bail.

I already have another one in progress, but its VERY different. The next one will go back to being more like this but with smaller variations.