Week 34---Perfectly Clear

I have not decided if I like this ring or not. It is big, it is heavy, and it is a bit on the gaudy side. When I started putting it together I had just a simple ring shank, of one silver wire wrapped around the mandrel twice. Then I decided to do something with the two lab created tanzanite faceted gemstones that I had from a while back. I like their rich blueish color and thought they might look pretty on a ring. So I made a figure 8 out of a silver wire and tried wrapping it to make a double prong setting for the two jewels. I did this some 3 times, wrapping it, trying to set it, then taking it apart.

After trying normal straight prongs and not getting it to work right, I decided to try an open kind of prong with a little bit of wire weaved through it to keep it closed. It worked, however I discovered later while shining it, that the wire I had used for the prong parts was no silver but a silver colored copper wire. I was rather irritated with this, because it must have gotten mixed in with my scrap metal bag unknowingly. I wanted the whole thing in silver, but alas, can't always get what I want. It would have been too much work at that point to take it apart and do it over, so I left it...since it is going to be my own personal ring.

I believe the wire used for the ring shank is 18 gauge fine silver, though it might be argentium. I melted the ends of the ring shank and left them sticking out, while I wound a piece of 20 gauge fine silver around the center. I used that to hold the tanzanites in place while I wrapped the one end of the prong wrapping (which had been left loose and criss-crossed) around the ring shank. I attached a second piece of 20 gauge at the other end of the prong setting (up through a space between the gem and the wire) and used that to hold the other end against the ring shank.

Then I bent the two end pieces of the ring shank up so that they curled over and touched the gemstones. With the two end pieces from the prong setting (there was about a half inch left on each side after wrapping it once around the shank) I curled them up and over the ring shank curls. One is tightly looped around the shank piece, and the other was looped up through and left kind of away from the shank piece. I did the opposite thing on either end of the prong purposely.
In the center of the prong setting, the 20 gauge wire I had wrapped around the shank, had about a 1/4 inch of wire on one side and about a half inch on the other side. So I curled the shorter half against the prong setting tightly and made a loop out of the longer half. At first I was going to leave the loop bare, but decided to add just a touch more to the piece...as if it was already busy enough!

I took a pink aquamarine brio that was a bit on the largish side, and two small fat amethyst brios and wrapped them with (this time I was sure of it!) 28 gauge silver wire. I wrapped the pink stone in the center first, then wrapped each amethyst on the sides of it. I do think I am going to try this technique on a simpler ring next time, because I like the way it looks.

All in all, I am still up in the air as to weather I like it or not. Maybe it will grow on me as I wear it. It was a learning experience though...on to next weeks project, maybe another scrap ring!

Week 33---Egyptan inspired

I don't know how Egyptian inspired I was this week, so my project this week is somewhere between off topic and slightly inspired.

It was just another scrap of silver wire I had in my bag of scraps that actually was long enough to fit around my finger and then some.

I am still playing with my little butane torch, experimenting, and seeing what I can do with it. Of course it would help if I had something to use as a soldering block...at the moment I am using an old toaster oven pan to catch any drippings or hot pieces. But, I can't fire things on it. I like this ring as it is, though I am going to make another one with some other elements to it. Actually for this next week I have another ring I will be posting that I made for my daughter...Maybe I'll do a whole ring series or something. I've been feeling the urge to make rings lately. There is a braiding technique that I am trying out...not sure if anyone else has done it before, I doubt I am the first person to try this braid...but I will post it up at some point here for one of these weeks, once I actually get the hang of it.

What else can I say about this ring here...hmmm...it is a strip of fine silver, melted on either end and accidentally formed with opposite curving swirls. Yes, it was an accident that they are facing the opposite direction, I meant for them to both be curved the same way, and after I made the boo-boo I realized I liked it.

Well, back to work. Thanks for looking! :)

Week 30---Beach Party

This week was kind of hectic for me, between running my hubby here and there, kids, and poor sleep, I didn't have time to be super creative.

So, I came up with a simple Y chain necklace with a copper colored dichroic glass pendent piece. The chain is made from 18 gauge titanium chainmail rings, combined with teal and lavender colored glass donut ring beads. As a spacer I made chainmail florets to break up the glass bead design. The chain has a simple titanium lobster claw clasp.

Week 29- YOJ

Since I have been working on setting up a new blog and writing a tutorial, I did not have a ton of time to do something special for the Denmark culture, or for that matter do much research. I did do a little research on the history of Denmark...and quite frankly for a country smaller than England, they sure did cause a lot of trouble in the past. At one point the Vikings did take over most of that country...I thought about trying to do something Vikingish...but really didn't have enough time to research they art.

Maybe the Vikings wore ear cuffs? LOL Probably not...but they might have. Anyway that is what I did for this week, because that is what I am writing a tutorial on. I had a hard time taking pictures of it on my own ear by myself. The pictures either came out blurry or of my cheek or my hair. But I did end up with a few usable pictures of the end product. It didn't take very long to twist this together, in fact what too the longest was taking pictures while I was doing it. But with the ease I had and the quality that the pictures came out, I do believe that writing tutorials will not be a difficult task for me. What is difficult is playing with HTML, and stupid Adobe! I have been going back and forth trying to set up the PDF format on Adobe only to figure out that Adobe Acrobat does not support the .wps files from MS Works. I was so irritated after I had written everything in MS word processor and inserted all the pictures, I now have to go back and copy it all and reinsert pictures into Open Office to save it in a .doc file. This is what I get for not reading instructions first I guess. I am starting to get the hang of HTML but it is just so boring I hate reading the instructions on how to do it.

Well, a high point will be this afternoon...I am taking a break from my computer screen to drive the hubby out to the Ticonderoga NY, Walmart, where he has to do some work. While he is there for several hours, the kids and I are going to take a trip over to Lake Champlain (a 10 minute drive from where he is being dropped off) to look for fossils. We have been there several times, but I have never really searched very well along the coastline for fossil pieces. Apparently there are many fossils in this area, and all along the coastline of Champlain. If I find anything I will have to post pictures...but if I don't it will be an afternoon of getting the kids out of the house.

Week 28---Cancer Zodiac Sign

The Cancer Zodiac sign is most recognized as a crab. I did not want to make something typical for this weeks theme, so I went when the zodiac's flower, a rose. I attempted this design about 4 times before I finally settled with this look. I tried to do something similar to the leaves with the petals, but it just didn't work.


I used fine silver wire, wrapped with more silver wire, since silver is the color of the Cancer sign. I used light pink glass beads for the flower petals, and sprays of swarovski crystals in the center to give it a little bling. The leaves are a combination of green glass beads and green colored swarovski crystals as well. The pin attachment on the back is made from titanium and hand sharpened. I did not realize just how sharp I could make it and ended up poking myself more times than I care to admit. I used all the left over strands from the leaves and flower to attach the back, though I didn't take a picture of that, trust me it is a tad messy. It is a good thing no one can see the back when it is worn, but I learned for next time how to do it so that it is not messy.

I will be glad to get a new supply of wire in so that I can experiment with different flower designs. I have always been fond of flowers and there are just so many out there to try out. I would like to make a whole flower line...Earrings, pendants, pins...maybe even rings...but I need to find a better way to do it. I am thinking of experimenting with making the petals out of shells that I am carving myself. That might make it look a little more realistic, though it would be fun to do them out of sheet metal as well.

Overall, I am happy with my first pin and I foresee making many more. On to next weeks theme.

Year of Jewelry week 27 2008

This is my pirate treasure piece. I wanted to try my hand at the way Iza Malczyk wraps her pieces, but as with all things, it is a learning experience.

Since I was using my left over scraps of silver wire, because I am in desperate need of ordering more, it was kind of thrown together with out much planning to it. Basically I was flying by the seat of my pants, which I so often do when creating a piece. Not too big on planning things out, though I know I should. Much like writing an essay, I never did outlines until I had finished what I wanted to write...jewelry is pretty much the same way for me.

The bottom wire was a piece of 18 gauge wire I had already wrapped with 28 gauge wire from another project. The other piece were just left overs that I had floating around in my silver bin. I was more aiming to get the wrapping down, which I finally think I got when I got to the last section in the bottom right hand side of the piece. The top two and bottom left are all a bit messier than I like. I wanted to do something more to it, but I ran out of wire and space to wrap. Note to self on that for next time. All in all it was a productive piece of experimental jewelry, most likely only suitable for me to wear as I wouldn't want to sell a prototype to someone when I don't feel it is the best it could be.

On to next week's piece...if I can stay a head of the weeks hopefully I won't fall behind if something comes up. Now...where did I put those pliers?

The Season begins

I have decided to take on the challenge of making a piece of jewelry each week for the 3rd season of the Year of Jewelry. The piece I am making for this week is about half done and coming together nicely. I haven't taken any pictures of it yet, as I want to wait for it to be done. But I figured I would share my other big accomplishment for this last week with everyone. I caught my very first large mouth bass on Friday and kept it to eat.

We had to go to Ticonderoga NY for the afternoon, my husband's job needed him to visit the Walmart there, and afterward we went fishing at Crown Point just over the Vermont border. We stayed for about 3 1/2 hours and I caught this beauty in just 20 casts of my fishing pole.


I don't have a scale, but it felt to be about 3lbs give or take a half pound. This is the fish before my husband cleaned it (no I don't clean fish without a pair of gloves and that night I was fresh out of gloves.) I felt bad after he was cleaning it, because we found that it was a Mama fish with some eggs in her belly. Though she was not full of eggs as most fish are when they are spawning, she just had some. So either she had already laid some of them or she was really, really late in spawning.

I did catch another large mouth and my husband caught two as well, though we decided not to keep them because they were under 2lbs and most likely males. Fun fish fact: Male bass, like several other species of fish, are the ones who take care of the fry! After laying eggs the mother leaves never to return, but it is the males, once they have spread their seed, who hang out with the fish till they hatch and they do not eat their own fry.

The kids also fished a little, but their poles are not really made for bass fishing, they are more trout fishing poles. We did gear them up with some worms and my son caught a itty bitty baby bass and a bluegill, but my daughter only successfully had her worms eaten off her hook three times. After she just decided to go play on the beach part of the point.