Too long ago, I let my emotions get the better of me and I quit writing in this blog. 

I knew it was a mistake at the time.  I need my creative outlets.  I need to write.  I need to share.  However, as time passed, and I did not write, I felt guilty about not doing so and made more excuses not to.  It became a big, self-perpetuating mess and I could not break the circle.

This is my attempt to break that circle.

Pictures

The pictures that I will include here today suck…

Suck pretty bad….

I am working on adrenaline and am finally breaking my failure cycle at writing so I am not going to take the time to setup lighting, hang the jewelry pieces properly, and/or dig out my good camera and properly take pictures.  I am taking them with my cell phone, in crappy light, on a piece of paper, with shadows, and emailing to myself.

Jewelry

Enameling

About 2 years ago, I took a class at the Studio at Rush Creek (the Studio) on enameling on copper.  I liked it at the time, but really did not remember all the bits and pieces from it.  I also like the atmosphere of classes – having people to talk to, seeing what they are doing, etc., versus just always doing things on my own.  I saw that the class was being offered again and considered taking it.  I put it off though… then, two days before the class, my boss at work mentioned that her 13-year-old son needed to make an art project…

I told her I had a deal for her…

He could complete a project in the class…

I knew the teacher and she would be great with having him in the class (talking about you, Irene!)

Moreover, it would commit me to taking the class and getting back into the swing of things…

So, yes, I took the class, my boss’s son took the class, and Karen – the owner of the Studio – gave me an unwitting guilt trip about not blogging, not having anything on Etsy and not going to the Studio on a regular basis.

Back to talking about the actual class!

This class was on applying enameling powders to pieces of copper and firing them in a small kiln.  I made eight pieces – one is going to be part of a wind chime (eventually) and the other seven are probably jewelry.  I may – not sure – use a couple in wind chimes too; some are pretty large.

Here are the pieces:

Across the top row, left to right, and then the bottom row:

1. 1¾ x 2½ aprox.  Dark green background with medium and dark purple blobs on it.  This will be for a wind chime for sure
2. 1¼ x 1½ aprox.  Geranium Pink (yes, that’s the color name) background with a medium purple heart on it.  This is planned for jewelry and for one of the daughters who loves hearts.  This piece – and most of the others for jewelry – have a hole on the top (and some have holes on the bottom) where I’ll put on a jump ring.
3. 1¼ round aprox.  Medium purple background with a green tree on it.  Interestingly enough, I used the same punch to make the stencil for the tree that I’ve used to punch out copper to include in glass.  Karen had the punch at the Studio, but I’m thinking that I also own it.  I’ll have to check.  This piece has no hole and I’ll glue on a bail.
4. 1¼ x 1½ aprox.  Bright blue background with a medium purple tree on it.  Yes, I liked doing the trees!   This piece also has holes on the bottom.  I’ll have to figure out what I want to dangle from it.
5. 1¼ square aprox.  Egg Yellow background with a dark purple tree on it (looks black).  I went outside my wheelhouse with colors here and I really like the piece. 
6. 1¼ x 1½ aprox.  Dark purple background with a medium purple butterfly on it. 
7. ¾ x 1¼ aprox.  Bright red background with medium purple hearts.  This is also planned for jewelry and for the other daughter who loves hearts!
8. 1¼ square aprox.  Medium purple background with a green tree on it.  Yes, completely my colors!

Resin and Steam punk

I also took a Resin jewelry class at the Studio a while back.  I was fascinated by the two-part “epoxy” type of resin and when I got a 60% off coupon to Blick Art Supplies, I bought myself a big quart bottles set.  I also found cabochon frames for fairly cheap on eBay.  One night, I decided to just mix a small cup (I use plastic solo cups for a lot of art stuff; got a huge bag of them at the thrift store once) and play with a few things.  Here are the results of my mad mixing….

I used some watch parts (SteamPunky look), glitter, and beads.  None of these pieces were really planned but I may try to market the steam punk looking ones.  There was also a round one with purple glitter, but that’s went into my personal collection already.

Helpful hint to those wanting to do this – be very careful with resin and glitter.  Something about the thick nature of the resin and the glitter makes it kind of tricky to work with.

Torchwork 

I’m actually getting pretty good with torchwork. 

Really amazes me. 

I’ve been working on the flame for almost two years now, and I got to the “open Torch” time at Potek Glass two or three times a month (so between 10-12 hours of practice a month), but always assumed I’d never be very good at it.  Organic art is NOT my forte – I’m far more geometric and measured.  However, as of a few weeks ago, my beads are more often round than not (or cylindrical), I’m getting good at placing dots on them, and haven’t burned myself badly for a while!

I have a bunch of good beads that I could take pictures of, and I will, but for this “restart” blog post, I just have one to show.

The large bead on the top is one that I made.  I combined it with some smaller beads and copper wire to make a pendant.

Wire Wrapping

Wire wrapping remains a favorite of mine.  I continually buy gems and cabochons on eBay and play with them.  Most of what I buy is probably lab created gems, or even nice glass pieces, but they are pretty, I like them and that’s all that matters.  I have sold a few gemstone pieces and I stress that I don’t know the provenance of them.  I price the piece according to what I paid for the gem or cabochon and let the buy know.

From left to right:

• This is a large (35mm x 25mm) yellowish green stone.  I wrapped it in brass square wire.  The base around the stone is SEVEN wires as the stone is so thick. 
• This is a ~ 30-carat smoky quartz.  It’s a checkerboard cut in a teardrop or pear shape.  I wrapped it with two stands of brass in a more free flowing wire wrap technique.  The wires are randomly twisted up from the top of the stone.
• This is an ametrine cabochon.  You cannot see in this picture, but it is almost clear, with some green and purple stripes through it.  I wrapped it in square silver wire.
• This is another checkerboard cut smoky quartz (I found an eBay seller with a LOT of smoky quartz, large and in fun shapes and cuts).  This one is about 50 carats maybe, and oval shaped.  I wrapped it in brass again; the gold color of the brass is just so much more fitting that silver and I’m still very careful with using real gold.  With many of the bigger stones, I put another piece of wire on the bottom (generally, I wrap from bottom up, and pull all the loose ends of wires to the top).  I used that piece to add some more dimension on the bottom of the stone.
• This is a 15-20 carat (so small for me!) amethyst that I wrapped with a very thin silver wire.  I don’t actually remember why I bought a spool of 28 gauge fine silver wire.  I usually only use sterling silver filled wire (cheaper and just as nice looking) for wire wrap.  Fine silver (higher percentage) can be self-soldered and I use it differently.  However, since I have the fine wire, I tried it with a lightweight stone.  This is also a checkerboard cut.  I like the effect of the wire, and I have a twist of it that is rather free moving on the piece.  People may not like that, but I find it cool.

All of these pieces are for sale if anyone is interested.  I will eventually start up my Etsy again, but will sell outside of it if something is wanted sooner.

These next pieces are not for sale.  They are mine.

As previously mentioned, I buy the majority of my stones on eBay and I look for pretty and cheap versus anything else.

However…

There’s always an exception (or three)!

When I was in Daytona over Thanksgiving, I visited a cool shop there - http://www.collectivecollage.com/ .  Their site proclaims them: a Antique Store, a Collectible Store, a Thrift Store, a Bead Store (Shop), a Jewelry Store. 

Yes, they are. 

All of that.

I found a cabochon (45mm x 25mm) and two beads (25mm x 15mm) – all matching – in a stone whose name I do not remember.  The pictures do not do it justice.  It is a grey green base color, with lighter sections and with lines and spots of a translucent purple.  There is also a goldish red in a couple spots. 

The stones weren’t cheap.  But, green and purple is my personal color palette.  I could not resist them.  Cassidy (and Elinor) were with me and strongly encouraged me.

I used 26-gauge (thin) gold wire on the cabochon.  Even though technically one is supposed to use square wire for this technique, I used round, and half round for the bands. 

I like to work outside the box and break the rules!!

Rather than simply pulling the wires to the top and making a loop over bail as I do with many pieces, I added in another wire and “wove” a fancier bail for this.  Now I have to actually buy a nice, thin gold chain.  I have a thick gold chain that I use with most of my pieces that I’ve wrapped in gold wire, but it won’t work here.  Even though the cabochon is large, it is delicate – it’s thinner and the design just makes it look even more delicate.

I used thicker gold wire (I think it was 18 gauge) to make a simple head pins (curled on the bottom) for the beads to make them into earrings.  I looped the wire on the top and added some gold-filled ear wires that I had fortuitously bought at a bead show.  (Love it when I find useful things in my “stash”!)

Quilting

Despite my fascination with shiny things, and the copious amount of metal I have accrued in the last year, I still love fabric and quilting best.

On a Joann trip a month or so ago, I bought the end of the bolt of a couple batiks. 

At least I think it was there….

It also could have been at the Mill End closing sale in Eau Claire….

Anyway, two of the fabrics I bought were batiks – one a pink based and one a purple based.  I decided I wanted to make a project with each that focused on that fabric.  White or beige as a large background also appealed to me. 

I set the pieces on top of the “wish” pile and started looking around.

Then, when surfing through Craftsy.com one day a few weeks ago, I found a free paper piece block of the month.  There were nine blocks already available, but I really like two of them more than others.  I took those two and made twelve blocks each of both. 

Now I have 24 – 9 ½ blocks in a pile on my table.

So, 6 x 4 blocks.  Not sure if I should make a few more, how I should sash them, how I should set them… borders?  Hmmm….

Any ideas anyone?

Imagine that the patches in the nine patch are numbered like:

1  2  3

4  5  6

7  8  9

So that I can explain which fabrics are which….

The dark triangles in patch 5 of both blocks, the largest piece – the diamond – in patches 2, 4, 6, and 8 of block one, the interior piece (diamond again) in patches 2, 4, 6, 8 of block two, and the elongated diamonds in patches 1, 2, 7 and 9 of block two are the focus fabric.

The bright triangles in patches 2, 4, 6, and 8 on both blocks are an interesting story.  I picked a bright pink out of my stash – a ½-yard piece – to use for the small pieces as a method of calling out the other fabric.  I originally intended it for the small, peachy colored bits and would have had plenty.  I wound up using it for the triangles on those patches in the prototype block and loved it. 

What I forgot to think about, however, was that I only had a half yard of it….

To use to complete 4 patches in 24 blocks – 192 pieces altogether….

Yeah, realized I didn’t have enough.

I went to a fabric store that carries a lot of batiks in an attempt to match it.  After all, it’s a pretty “solid” colored batik versus a specialty pattern.

Didn’t come close….

Plan B ensued….

I bought two other pink batiks that were very close.  Each block design has four blocks with each of the pinks.  Thus, there are six different block configurations throughout the 24 blocks.

The Great Earring Heist

I keep my jewelry in a variety of storage solutions on my dresser.  I have chains hanging on a tie rack nailed to the wall, on a couple “trees” of different configurations, my bracelets in a couple two drawer cardboard bins, and my earrings – of which I had a LOT - in two fancy lidded boxes, each about 12 x 8 inches.  Also in this melee of shiny things is my change bin (a vase).

In mid October, our house was broken into (cut a window screen) and things taken.  It was quite a strange burglary.  The thief or thieves took my change bin, emptied three of the four drawers of bracelets into something (they left the drawers), emptied the two bins of earrings and took two of my husband’s watches.  The strange part of this was what was NOT taken.  The drawer of bracelets that didn’t get taken included the two diamond bracelets and the couple real gold bracelets – including an anniversary present from Italy – that I own.  While they took two of my hubby’s watches, they took a broken one, a cheap one and left behind the very expensive one.  They also left the iPad and the Kindle that were on the nightstands; the iPad being mere feet by things that they did take.

All told, the cost of the loss was very small, too small to report to insurance and risk anything there.  We did report to the police for tracking and/or pattern, but nothing else.  However, they took the vast majority of earrings that I owned!  My poor bare ears!

One of the earring bins had also contained my personal collection of fused glass pendants.  The first pieces I ever made, and a couple of my all time favorites were in there. 

I cannot dwell on it.  The reality is that no one was home, no one was hurt, and we aren’t crippled by the loss.  I’m taking it as a sign that I need to increase my wire wrapping skills so that I can make matching earrings (I’ve been doing “no two pieces alike” until this) and that I need to apply my fairly decent wire working and/or silver smithing skills to the copious amount of fine beads and gem beads that I already own and create original pieces for myself.