Guess who's got new hammers!

They've come all the way from America and I love them!

There are actually two hammers with four different textures. The first one has wide ridges and gives this ripple effect:

The next one - and my favourite - has raised circles which give this lovely texture which reminds me of fabric.
Narrow ridges give this tree bark - or pouring rain effect.
The fourth one has little squares which give an effect like basket weave.
These are really sample pieces - just to see what the effects would be. I'm excited now to use them in more complex designs. Watch this space!
At last I've used one of my etched pieces (blogged about here). This reminds me of a tattoo - hence its name, Love Lies Bleeding.


And lastly, a new shaggy loop bracelet. This one is made with copper rings and glass magatamas in greens and purples and is called Lavender Garden.

Sarah and I are off to Devizes tomorrow to sell at a Craft Fair.

I hope you have a great bank holiday weekend and that the sun shines on us all.

Much love,
xx

A really good day...

You know how some days, everything just goes to plan... I had one of those yesterday and this is the result...This first one, I am SO excited by. I have, for the longest time, been an Art Nouveau addict and I've tried to express this in my jewellery... and yesterday I finally got it. This piece is three squiggles soldered together. I'm keeping this one for myself, but you will be seeing lots more of this type of thing.

This was the stage before - two squiggles joined together. I love the organic internal shapes that are formed.

This sweet little ring I made using an excellent on-line tutorial from Evan Hollander. Here's the link... http://www.dawnandevan.com/spiral_wire_wrap_ring_tutorial.htm

And this one is a simpler ring, hammered to give texture.


Then, more etching. These were done at college - still waiting to pluck up the courage to try this at home.

These first ones I drew the pattern on with a pen that's used to make printed circuit boards. It doesn't give a crisp design, but I like that. These look like they could be of archealogical interest, don't they? The thing I was trying with these was to get a border - and that worked.

For my next experiment, I pinched a couple of stickers from Martha's card making kit and burnished them onto the silver to make sure they got a firm hold. As you can see, this gives a much sharper outline than the pen. Both of these pairs will be made into stud earrings.

Then one that also used the pen - I really like this one. A pendant, I think...

And this last experiment used strips of address label. I'd read that they could be used as a resist, so thought I'd try it. The paper started to peel off quite quickly once they were in the acid, but obviously the solution was hot and strong enough to have already had an effect.

So, that was yesterday.

Today has been more of a paperwork day, so nothing new to show you. But who knows what tomorrow will bring!

Hope you have had a good day too.

Much love.
xx

Come up and see my etching...

Woohoo! It's finally warmed up - and I can be in the workshop without the extra heater on... at least for some of the day!

Had to come and show you what I've been up to. We did more etching in my class on Monday and these are the results.



This one is an 'inny' - the letters are lower than the rest of the surface.

I did this one by rubbing on some letter transfers, painting the whole thing with the resist (stuff that stops the other silver being etched) then carefully scratched away the letters.

I was a bit disappointed that this didn't come out very clean - the acid had eaten away at the resist and given it this rustic look. But it's growing on me!

I expect I should have put the resist on thicker and/or not left it in the acid so long.

And this one is an 'outy'. The design is higher than the rest of the metal.

I drew the design onto the silver with a resist pen - and so the acid ate away at everything else. I'm really pleased with this one and think you may see more of this kind of thing... very soon!

I'm gradually gettting all the bits together to be able to do this at home... My mum has dared me to post a picture of myself when I'm all togged up to do it... pink rubber gloves, mask and protective goggles... watch this space!

Much love xx

Look now... it'll never be this tidy again!

I'm in the new workshop! Yippeeeee! Although I can only spend a limited amount of time in here at a go as - despite the new radiator - it's flippin' freezing. I've got another heater which should be arriving tomorrow, so hopefully, I'll be all cosy by the end of the week. I hope so as the weather forecast is for this freeze to continue for a while.

Anyway, here's the computer bit... so that's where I'm sitting typing this! The bear on the shelf was part of one of my Christmas presents from Martha... he came with a bottle of Bucks Fizz and a little box of chocs!

Please ignore the huge stack of filing on the left... I hate filing!

This view shows my lovely cupboard... which is filling up way too quickly!
This is the jewellery bench side of things. Brian has cut a groove all the way round the workbench so that beads and things don't roll off. How clever is that? The meters will be boxed in... there just wasn't time to get that done before I had to move in. And the shelf under the window has got half its tiles... they should be finished off on Wednesday.
Another view of the workbench. This time showing my new bench vice. I've been waiting for this for ages. The little drawers hold my collection of semi-precious beads - all sorted. Some drawers need a label, but I'm getting there. At the near end, where my little torch is, that's where the soldering hearth will be. Soon!
This gorgeous suncatcher is hanging in the little window. You can just see some of the colours in the photo above. It was part of my Christmas present from Lynn (Tinkerbell) on UKBeaders forum. We were paired up to swap presents - and Lynn and I exchanged ours across the Atlantic as Lynn lives in Canada.
Long view on the other side. The interesting 'sculpture' in front of the cupboard is my spinner. It comes in two halves and this is the easiest way to store it. The black tree is nothing to do with it, but I thought it looked good there!
I managed to clear my old room in time for the party... and then no-one used it! Ah well, it got me moving. I've not got everything transferred into the new space yet, there are 'one or two' boxes full of bits and bobs that were pushed into various cupboards on New Year's Eve. I wonder if I'll find them all?

I hope you all had a terrific Christmas and New Year celebrations - whatever form they took. Our party was super - lovely friends, great food (Brian cooked) and a great start to a New Year.

Once all our guests had left, we pulled up the drawbridge and the four of us had a Lord of the Rings marathon. We watched a film a day (the extended versions), snuggled on the sofa, ate chocolate and popcorn and emmersed ourselved in Middle Earth. It was wonderful.

My jewellery class starts up again tonight and we're doing some etching this term. I've never done any of that before and I'm really looking forward to it. Watch this space for the results.

Sarah and I are having our first meeting of 2009 tomorrow to plan out our world domination scheme for the coming year. I think we both realise that we made some good decisions last year, and some not so good ones. But as long as we learn from those mistakes, we're heading in the right direction. All businesses are going to find it hard to grow in a recession, but we'll be trying our best!

I'll catch up with you later in the week. Going for a warm now!

Take care, keep warm and much love. xx