Piercing Update

A few posts ago, I told you all about a new tool I had recently purchased - my jeweler's saw. I showed the first attempt I made at sawing...pretty clumsy! Well, I'm glad to say that I really enjoy the challenge of piercing metal and while I'm far from perfect, practice does make "better"! Here are some of the pieces I have made with that technique:

Dreams Gone to Seed

New Growth

At the risk of sounding like I'm bragging, I think these turned out really well. Sometimes I can't believe how far I've come since I first started making jewelry!

Dear John Letter

Dear Gemstones, Knotting, Stamping, and Piercing,
I have someone new. Don't get me wrong; I have loved every minute I have spent with each and every one of you. I have learned so much from all of you! Gemstones, nothing can compare to the thrill I feel when I open a package that you're in. Knotting, you have given me many priceless moments of relaxation. Stamping, you're a wonderful effect, but you're a little moody - getting beautiful results from you is hard to do sometimes. And piercing, what can I say? We had such a short time together....but there's a new technique on the block. It's...wire-wrapping....

Coppery Sunset

So now do you see? Can you understand how I can leave you behind for this new beauty? Well, gemstones, I'll still need you from time to time. And knotting, yes, I might need you, too. Okay, okay - stamping and piercing, I can probably work you in, too. Oh, who am I kidding - I'll love you all ALWAYS and FOREVER and I can never leave you. Just try to get along and let's see if we can make this work....together.

Sawin'

Last month, I was so excited to get a new tool that I had been drooling over for quite a while...a jeweler's saw. I'm really glad I bought it. I've been enjoying it so much, it really opens up some new design ideas for me. Look and see:

Tradin' again!

One of my favorite parts of having a shop on Etsy is the ability to trade items with other shop owners. I have traded many times, and it's gone well every time. Well, today I just finished up my most recent trade negotiation with PuraBella. She wrote a forum post asking for someone to make some labradorite earrings for her in exchange for something from her shop, and lucky me - she agreed to trade me these


in exchange for a couple pair of earrings. I am so excited about them! They are natural Cedar Tealight Candleholders - a set of 3. I love the rustic, natural quality of them. Her shop might be a bit empty, but give her some credit - she has a newborn baby. Please do go check her out!

Random Facts for a Rainy Saturday Night

• I always eat my french fries with mayonnaise.
• I have never been able to do cartwheels.
• I like dogs, but I LOVE cats.
• When I was in elementary school, I was obsessed with anything involving Egypt or Michael Jackson.
• I bite my nails.
• As a natural blonde, I REALLY don't like blonde jokes.
• I still feel sad about Mitch Hedberg's death.
• I've never seen "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" or "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (but I did read that book).
• I'm skinny, but somehow, I still have fat ankles.
• Right now, I have a headache.
• My goal for the summer is to learn how to solder (for jewelry).
• In high school, I hated math and science and loved English.
• I don't like insult comedy. And Sarah Silverman is not funny, either.
• If I could have any talent, it would be the ability to sing really well.
• I wish I could play tennis better.
• Someday I want to travel to New York City. Also Europe.

That's probably enough for now. Do you know me?

The Great White Hunter Strikes Again

If you've been following my blog (as much as it's possible to follow something that doesn't move around very much), then you might remember that one of my earliest posts involved my senior-citizen cat, Cooties. About this time last year, he suddenly decided to start hunting and bringing in his catches. What's weird about that was that he is somewhere around 14 years old and had never, EVER done that before.

Well, it must be time for the bunnies to be born, because it's happened again. Last Friday night, around 3 AM or so, I woke up to the horrible, nightmarish sound of a rabbit screaming. I made it out to the living room in time to see my husband trying to catch the bunny. Thinking he had it under control, I went back to bed. The next morning, Brett told me that he actually had NOT been able to find the bunny after the cat spit him out. We looked around for a while, poking under furniture and behind things, but didn't see him. We weren't too worried about it, thinking that he must have gotten out, because certainly 3 cats and a dog would be going crazy if there were a bunny anywhere inside. Right??? :-)

Fast-forward to Monday evening. After supper, I decided that Hope (my 4-yr. old daughter) and I needed to go clean up her disaster of a room. Lo and behold, I pushed her door open, and what did I see sitting in the middle of her bedroom floor? That sweet little bunny! Hope and her brothers and I did a bit of chasing and digging through the closet where he tried to hide once we found him, but we finally caught him and set him free, hopefully far away from Master Hunter Cooties. Here's the one picture we managed to catch - isn't he the cutest thing???

He did seem to be all right - no blood or wounds that I know of, although I'm sure he was really hungry and thirsty. Hopefully, we won't have to see him this close again!

A New Technique

You know, ten years ago, if you had told me that I would one day be excited about buying tools (a saw in particular), I would have thought you were crazy. But at the ripe old age of almost-37, life has taken a lot of interesting twists and turns and my obsession with creating jewelry has made it necessary for me to learn to use different sorts of tools. Along the way, I've gotten pretty adept at using hammers (well, except for last week, but hopefully that was a lesson learned) and drills. And now my latest tool/toy is a jeweler's saw. Here it is:

You can adjust the frame to accomodate different blade lengths, and there are different sizes of blades. The ones I have are size 2/0, which is pretty tiny. They are about the size of a piece of floss:

I have a lot of practicing and experimenting to do! There are different blade sizes to try, as well as testing it out on different gauges of metal. Here's my first attempt:

It's not the worst thing I ever saw, but I can tell that I need a lot of work and fine-tuning. This copper is pretty thick, so next, I'm going to try using a thinner gauge. I'll let you know how it goes!