New work!

I haven't been totally without time to create....

For your viewing pleasure, behold a bracelet made from the headpins I mentioned in my last post:

And made from a recent estate sale find, this necklace, called 'Relic', from my own copper tube beads and vintage glass and metal beads, mixed with my own lampwork:

And the matching bracelet:

Some heavy-gauge copper wire -- working on my hammering and shaping skills.

I especially love that fall leaves bracelet. I keep intending to put it in the shop, but I haven't yet....telling myself that the pictures aren't good enough, and waiting for a sunnier day to take more shots...

And that 'Relic' is one of the longest necklaces I have ever made -- 26". The photo does not do it justice.

I need to make a bracelet with those pumpkin headpins....THAT is really cool-looking in my mind....I just haven't had a chance this week to sit down and work it all out.

Art Bead Scene's October challenge is awesome, and I want to enter it (I already made appropriate beads), but once again, haven't had time to work out the design. Must learn to design in my head, on the run, so I can knock out the piece in one go when I *can* sit down to the work table (ironing board).

Okay, that's it for now....hopefully I will have more soon!

Puzzles and Works in Progress

First, I want to direct your attention to a wonderful podcast I was listening to in which Rice Freeman-Zachery interviews Sharilyn Miller. The podcast is at this link. She talks a lot about herself and her work, but also offers some really interesting insights. Personally, I love her work, so I am always eager to read and listen to anything I can about her and what she is doing. Someday, I would love to go to one of her Wild Wire Women retreats.

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Somehow, today I have been able to get a few things done in the workshop. I have a long (LONG) list of 'stuff to make', and things I want to try out, so whenever I get some time to create, I never feel like I get enough done. Not to mention the fact that I have to shift between workspaces all over the house (metals in the garage, beading in the office, anything with water in the kitchen...). But I did get a few bits of copper enameled, some washers hammered and heat-patinated, and a decent start on some wire wineglass charms.

It's those wineglass charms that have been giving me the puzzling issues. I know in my mind's eye what I want them to look like, but getting there is....well, most of the fun, but still seriously taxing my engineering skills. I'm not even sure how much of a market there will be for them, but there are two wineries that are vendors at the market I am doing, so maybe I'll actually sell some. But first, I have to make some that work right.

But I'm always grateful for some time to make things, even if I wish I could work faster or make more things. :)

What are YOU making?

A Catch-Up Post

The time just gets away from me! I can't believe it's been almost a week since I last posted.

So, let's catch up.....

I will be part of Lori Anderson's Bead Soup Blog Party again! She is an amazing woman, and even more so to put this whole thing together. Over three hundred people are swapping beads and making a jewelry piece with their partner's beads. The last go-around was so much fun, and it's astonishing the creativity that people possess! Stay tuned, because I'll be posting more as time goes on.

I had a dismal sales day at the market this past weekend, which was funny because the market was busy and the weather was fabulous! Oh well. The good part is that I had a great time, chatting with other vendors and talking to folks attending the market. Every day can't be a zillion dollar day.

My enamels order from Fundametals came in and it was like Christmas! Jeanette is a wonderful person to do business with, and I highly recommend her shop for enamel, mixed-media, and metalwork supplies and tools. I got transparent and opaque enamels, and some Klyr-Fire. I had to wait til yesterday (Sunday) to play with everything, but it was SO worth it! I remembered most things from Melissa Manley's Hard Candy class at ArtBliss last year, and I made some nice enameled discs for pendants and earrings.

Apparently, yesterday was a Muse day, because somehow I made five new bracelets, one after the other. Awesome. I love it when that happens! Effortless creativity, using materials that have been sitting there all along, but finally decided to show me how they come together!

Some copper was etched, and this is the unfinished result....starting work on Halloween stuff, too.

Oh, and my shop has been updated with some more pieces. I'm trying to get my stock up before holiday shopping, so look to my Facebook page for updates!

I think that's it for the catch-up....for now, anyway!

Have a great week, everyone, and I hope to have more to show you in a few days!

Fairy Tale Blog Hop!!

I know, I know....I'm late to the party. *hides*

I received such an amazing stash from my partner, Tara Plote, of Newbie Beader, and I was able to make three pieces with the beads she sent. ALL of the beads were 'challenge' beads for me, as I don't really "do" shiny or sparkly or precious. *grin*

I was stumped for a long time as to what I should make....I kept thinking silver was the only metal I could use, because the beads were so light in color and more dainty than what I typically use. Also, I am completely out of silver (what with it being so costly), but then it hit me! I can use my old favorite copper and make some gorgeous things with an unexpected bead and metal combination. So, here is what I made...

For The Faerie Queen

Night Garden

A Midsummer Night's Dream

I feel like I made some successful pieces, and I really like the way they came out for several reasons: One, since I NEVER use any kind of faceted, sparkly bead, much less one with an aurora borealis coating, I was pleased with how easily I could integrate them with my 'signature' metal, copper. I'd never really considered the more dainty, sparkly look with earthy copper. Another thing I like is my use of fiber in the Midsummer bracelet. I have not really used ribbons in any of my work, much for the same reasons as I didn't use "sparkly". But I really like the eclectic look of that bangle and how the beads and charms mingle with the ribbons and the forged copper bangle.

You'll have to check out Tara's page for what she made with the beads I sent her....but she has broken a finger on her dominant hand, so it may be a few more days before she can get her creations done. I hope you enjoy the rest of the hop, though. See below for links!

Lori Anderson, Pretty Things

Rebecca Anderson, Song Beads

Courtney Breul, Beads By Breul

Loretta Carstensen, Designs by Loretta

Evelyn Hall, Dragon Lady Evelyn

Sandy Richardson, Sandy's Coloring Box

Dana James, Dana's Jewelry Design

Tara Plote, Newbie Beader (My partner!)

Christine Brandel, A Hot Piece of Glass (You are here!)

Lisa Sittniewski, Alterity Art

Joanna Matuszczyk, Filcowe

Jenni Connolly, Jenni Bead

Geneva Collins, Torque Story

Elisabeth Auld, Beads For Busy Gals

Sally Russick, Wireworked

Mary McGraw, MK's Creative Musings

Norma Turvey, Moonlit Fantaseas

Erin Prais-Hintz, Treasures Found

Stephanie Haussler, Pixybug Designs

Shai Williams, Shaia's Ramblings

Johanna Rhodes, Fire Phoenix Creations

Sandi Lee James, Do Be Do Bead Do

Sweet Addy Designs

Valerie Norton, Hot Fused Glass

Teacher's Gifts 2011

Every year, I've always tried to make nice and thoughtful gifts for my childrens' teachers. Having worked in school systems, I know what teachers are usually given, and what they really do and don't appreciate. Since I've always been crafty, I've made a variety of things over the years. Since I learned glassworking and metalworking, the last few years have been jewelry gifts.

Jewelry has always been a very personal thing in terms of style for people, so I don't get too trendy or 'out there' when making pieces for people I know, but don't know well on a personal level. And I've always tried to choose themes that have meaning beyond the whole pencils-crayons-an-apple-for-the-teacher thing.

This year, I focused on the proverb, "Mighty oaks from little acorns grow." For the ladies who teach my little kids preschool, I made a series of simple copper necklaces featuring either a hollow glass acorn, or a polymer clay acorn, both of which I made myself.

For my oldest child, who is in middle school and has many teachers each day, I'm still working on gifts for those teachers. Her English teacher is male, so a necklace is Right Out. I'm thinking bookmark and gift card instead.

Of course, now that I am laid up in bed after having several outpatient surgeries on Wednesday, NOW I'm getting all these great ideas. Right when I have no energy to do them. Thankfully, Kira has a couple more weeks of school so I have a bit of time to get things done.

I really like the way these necklaces came out, and I'm thinking of offering them as glass or polymer clay pendants in my shop. It's a bit late for teacher gifts for this year, but not for this coming Christmas and for next year.

I think I'll list those earrings I wrote about recently, now that I have time on my hands and no ability to really do anything too involved.

What do you do (or have you done) for teacher gifts for your kids and their teachers?

Memorial Day Metalsmithing!

Some of you know of my love for medieval history, and the fact that I participate with theSociety for Creative Anachronism periodically. Memorial Day weekend in my local group means it's time for a Gem Joust event -- a large tournament held over the three days of the holiday weekend. Every year, my friend Don Downie, who is a silversmith and goldsmith, makes the tournament prizes, and delivers them to Richmond directly to the tournament. He usually stays with us over the weekend, and for the last few years, this has resulted in metalsmithing lessons for me.

Last year, I mentioned I wanted to learn to forge a copper bowl, so he told me what tools and supplies to buy and taught me to saw, hammer, shape and anneal. We used 16ga copper sheet, and it was a bear to hammer, even after annealing. I didn't get nearly as far as I hoped, and the bowl is still not finished. I love it, though, because it was my first.

My first copper bowl, May 2010

This year, I had been talking to him about soldering, but I still wanted to work on my copper-forming skills. We went to the tournament on Saturday, and hung out with people, schmoozed, chatted and had quite a few laughs with people I don't see often enough. Right before the prizes were awarded to the winners of the tournament, I photographed them for him. These are silver with rose gold accents and set stones -- a ruby and a sapphire. They are solid and heavy and beautiful!

Aren't they fantastic? Don's work is really amazing. And, he's a great teacher and wonderful friend.

Sunday, after we dragged ourselves out of bed, had breakfast and generally woke up, Don and I talked about raising and sinking and the things he had been teaching other people lately.

With an 18ga copper disk and a homemade dishing "stump" and a couple of hammers, he taught me to do this:

I'm hammering a raised design into the bottom of the bowl, so it has several more cycles of hammering and annealing before it's done. My arm is tired! It's really physical work, and I love it. The design will be a spiral tree, a motif that is really prevalent in most of my work already. I'll definitely post more pictures when I'm done.

In addition to the actual teaching Don provided, he also gave me my very own portable dishing 'stump' and wooden forming stake.

A landscape timber cut to about two feet and drilled deeply with a paddle bit becomes the stump where you begin to raise the bowl.

A deck finial, drilled, becomes a forming stake.

And you can conveniently screw the stake to the stump to make working easier and to keep things together.

Needless to say, this, and learning the technique of hammering a raised design to sheet metal has set my creative fires burning. I think some quality time with the sketchbook is in order.

And I need more hammers. And more sheet copper.

Good grief!

FINALLY.

I finally am able to access my Blogger account and post something. I don't know what the heck is going on with Blogger, but I am not pleased. granted, you can only be but so upset with a service you aren't paying for, but I am beginning to think I might switch this blog to another platform, like Wordpress. I don't know, it's more of a gut reaction at the moment. Still considering the details.

For those of you who have been having trouble with Blogger, what do you think? Planning to stay? Switch? And if you switch, to which platform are you going?

Anyway, I've been making earrings. Still in love with copper!

I think the last set is my favorite. I love those hammered disks and the blue beads. I hope to get them all listed in the shop soon, but if you want any of these pairs, let me know!

Have a great weekend!

State of the workshop

I posted the lovely shot of my "bead table" for Bead Table Wednesday the other day, and I thought, you know, that isn't the only place I work on my art. Lacking a real studio or my own dedicated workspace, I take over various places all over my house. A corner of the kitchen is my jewelry-making space. My lampworking stuff is set up along one wall of the laundry room. And my 'metals shop' is actually all over my husband's workbench in our small garage space. My little kiln is in there, too, and the poor guy has no place to work on his own stuff.

Someday, I will have my OWN studio space, where I can put ALL of my art stuff in one place, leave things out while I work, and keep them there til the project is done, and not worry about little hands or animals messing around with my stuff.

Until then, I have this:

My dad, who is a contractor, saves me all his leftover compound wire

Kiln doubles as stand for handheld torch station

Sawing, pounding, quenching, pickling

And my trusty bowling pin. I don't like to be without that!

Yeah, it's messy. But at least I have a little space. It could always be worse, right?

Encircled

I just completed a custom order for a friend that included a necklace and a pair of coordinating earrings. It is one of my 'Industrial Revolution' series pieces that I started a year or two ago. I don't go in for all-out steampunk style, but I do like an overall industrial feel to some of my work.

This is the necklace, 'Encircled':

And these are the earrings that go with the necklace:

Have I mentioned just how much I love working with copper? I love it.

Lucky

With all the worldwide events in Japan, Egypt, Afghanistan and numerous other places, having my XM radio receiver stolen out of my car night before last definitely falls into the category of "First-World Problem". It was still upsetting and left me angry and disappointed.

But then I made this, knowing that is it true. I am so very Lucky.

I thought about Ireland's "Forty Shades of Green" while I put it together, and used up a number of green and yellow and gold beads in my stash. I love a project like that.

The necklace is in the shop right now.

Today I will be making pizza for dinner, and Nigella Lawson's Guiness Cake for dessert (just 'cause). I'll pray for the people of the world who are going through rough times and disaster, and for friends who have lost loved ones at home and abroad, and I'll remember just how lucky I am, and thank God for my blessings.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Little Acorns Into Mighty Oaks

Awhile back, I mentioned that I was hard at work on a few pieces for a silent auction fundraiser for a friend of mine. Ken is a good friend from college, and he is a teacher in the theater department of the Rochester School of the Arts in my hometown of Rochester, NY. Ken is a fabulously talented artist and designer, and a gifted teacher. When we were in college, Ken was often responsible for beautiful lighting and scene design on stages I performed on, and I am thrilled to now have the chance to support his work with my art.

A little background on this worthy cause...

The theater department at SOTA was selected to perform at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland this summer, as part of the 2011 American High School Theater Festival. if you know anything about theater or about the Fringe Festival, you know this is a major honor. The school was chosen to be one of 75 schools to attend and perform at the festival, out of over 2,200 applicants.

If you've traveled overseas (or anywhere!), you know this is not an inexpensive undertaking. They have a goal to raise $125,000 to finance this trip for students and teachers, and represent their school and their district in Scotland. One of the fundraising efforts is a benefit concert this weekend in Rochester, and along with the concert, a silent auction. I created a necklace and earring set for the group to offer in their silent auction this Saturday.

'Little Acorns Into Mighty Oaks'

These pieces are entirely copper, with my own lampworked glass beads. I think I showed you the etched leaves in an unfinished state a while back, but here they are, looking MUCH better now!

I'm so incredibly proud of this work, I could just burst! I think these are my favorite of all the pieces I have done recently, and although I never repeat work, I might just have to make a pair of earrings like this for myself. The oak leaves are really fantastic, and now I have a million designs all clamoring for attention in my head. Oh, and can I just say how much I adore using my Lortone tumbler on finished work?? How did I ever get along without it? Everything comes out SO shiny and beautiful, and work-hardened (a blessing if you make copper earwires with 20ga!)!

But I digress....

So, if you happen to be in the Rochester, NY area on Saturday, and you want to hear some live music and support a fantastic cause, then you should go to the Go Plaid or Go Mad benefit concert and check out the silent auction. It looks to be a great time, and if I were going to be anywhere near NY this weekend, I'd totally go!

And if you CAN'T go to the benefit concert, you can still help out by making a donation to support the group. Go here to make your donation.

Thanks!

Back At It

I hope everyone has settled back into a good routine of things since the New Year and holiday celebrations. I've got one more party, tonight at my daughter's karate dojo, and my mom and her husband coming over Saturday for belated family Christmas, and then the holidays are officially over at my house. I love Christmas and the season, but I am happy to move on once everything is done. No year-round Christmas tree in this house! ;)

This week has afforded me some extra energy and tolerance for the freezing temps in my garage workshop. So, I have been able to work on some copper projects and ideas I've had kicking around in my head. I promised pictures of my etching work a while back and never got around to showing them, so here ya go!

Done with a cheapie rubber stamp and ferric chloride, this image is HUGE (2") and I LOVE it! I particularly adore the hammered look it has after I domed it on my leather sandbag that I covered with a piece of acrylic fleece. It's been pickled, but not patinated yet.

And this is what happens when you leave a piece out exposed to air that has been in contact with the ferric chloride. I love the green and copper, but it's a thick layer of dust, essentially, so I couldn't keep most of it. Must play around with this some more...


I mentioned in my last post (I think) about a silent auction fundraiser I am going to donate some work to. This is the preliminary work. Sawn copper leaves for a pendant and earrings that I etched (again with ferric chloride), and then formed. Also not patinated as yet in this photo.

Some foldforming experiments. Not my favorite, and I think I am not annealing things enough, or using too heavy a gauge sheet metal, but all in all, not terrible. Earrings, or some dangle charms here.

And finally, working on some valentine's and heart-themed stuff. Hand sawn, formed, embellished. Love!

So, what are you working on this year so far??

Experiments in the Workshop

This weekend I got some time to fool around in the workshop a little, playing with sheet copper and some discs I got in a few weeks ago. Inspired by an article in Art Jewelry Magazine, I tried out some foldforming and played around with heat patinas.

These will become earrings:

It's really hard to capture how really cool-looking the heat patina is on these....all shades of blue and purple and yellow...really, really cool. I wish I could tell you exactly how I did it, but really, heat patinas are fickle. I'm just happy they are similar enough to become earrings. They will be sealed with lacquer to keep the patina.

I also made this, a pendant. It was made out of a 2" copper disc, and the same foldforming and heat patina. It came out way better than I had imagined!
Again, really hard to capture the patina in a photograph. I haven't decided what the rest of this piece will look like yet.

I did some really outstanding etching on copper, too, but I didn't photograph that yet. Maybe in a few days. I need to make the beads for the necklace the etched piece will be, so I might just make you wait til I get that all done. :)

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday weekend, if you were celebrating, and enjoy your week!

OOH! I almost forgot....I am looking to upgrade to a digital SLR camera....something not too terribly expensive, but that will handle macro photography as well as general-purpose family and landscape photography. Anybody got any opinions on this issue? Email me if you'd rather: ahotpieceofglass AT yahoo DOT com.