For the words that swell inside...

Wordcatcher

I wonder if I can...

Abandon dreams of far...

Hush my frantic heart...

Quieten my rushing mind...

Smile, breathe, and go slowly...



 

Smile, breathe and go slowly


I have jewelry dysmorphia...

You know, a bit like body dysmorphia - when you're a regular looking gal and you look in the mirror and see yourself 100 pounds heavier, toothless, boobs dropping to your knees and a moustache like Groucho Marx? (BTW, I always hate making references to any famous people in my blog - doesn't it always show your age?...)

Except that happens to me sometimes with jewelry - I have this image in my brain of what something will look like, I think I have all the tools, supplies and the ability - and when it's done, it has nothing to do with what the coggs in my brain are showing me. hmmmm....
Mind you, this time, it was not my fault. I hate you, colored aluminum tubes!

I wanted to make metal earrings with either negative space holes, or resin-filled holes, and I wanted a dangling bead matched by tubular rivets in the same color as the bead and the resin! I bought the colored aluminum tubing for my rivets, waiting the longest time as usual for them to arrive (if they did at all - thank you mail system for keeping things surprising for me) and then proceeded to make my earrings - beads and all had already been selected.

So here they are:

 

 

I knew you were going to ask about the matching tube rivets! well, it turns out they are only colored on the outside, so when I rivet the pink and the green aluminum tubing rivets, the color is actually on the inside and what you see is the white inside of the tubing, baaahhhhh...... (caption: this is me crying).

To  make myself feel better, made a bunch of my favorite earrings:

 



You know, these earrings are cut and sanded, the inside edge formed to accomodate the resin, the metal is colored, images glued and then resin poured, dangle beads wire-wrapped. It bugs me sometimes that:
1) my clients sometimes have no idea how much work goes into the process, or how long it can take - but maybe it's my responsibility to be better at talking about my work;
2) that while I make one pair of these, someone makes 3 necklaces stringing handmade beads from other artists in an artistic way and selling them.

But then again, that's not my path, and I always wanted to see my blood, sweat and tears in my work - the more the merrier. So I guess that's ok.

Disclaimer: I have a bunch of gold-filled earwires I bought at the very beginning and I'm trying to save a penny of two, so I used them in these earrings instead of making my own as usual. So sue me.

Thou shalt remain unnamed...

Because it's hard coming up with suggestive titles...

Busy, busy bee, making jewelry, packing bags and tools for my travel later this week, making sure all systems are in place in the house and that I don't come back to a starving husband and kid after my 2 weeks off...

I still managed to make one piece of jewelry three times... because I'm stubborn as hell and won't let a piece of metal defeat me... (exceptions made for guns,  knifes, speeding trains... you get the picture...)

I had another beautiful slice of agate and wanted to hold it in tabs, but using 2 layers of metal underneath it, with negative space in between them. Now I had read somewhere that you can create that space by riveting the layers of metal with some paper between them, and then just getting the paper wet so it would come off.

So silly old me grabs a piece of cardboard, rivets the layers together and then.... IT WOULDN'T COME OFF! not with water, not with scalding water, not with submersing in water overnight, not with boiling in water... sigh...

So here comes my saw again, I sawed new metal layers and tabs, sanded, oxidized, stamped, made holes, and then decided using small pieces of cardboard only under the rivets, and not between the whole layers. Well, this time it did come off, but there was hardly any negative space between the layers. It looked nice, but wasn't what I wanted...

Third time: re-read all the steps in previous paragraph, minus the paper and adding small pieces of copper tubing which I sawed and used between the layers, inserting the rivets through the layers and the tubing, and then riveting together. Voila!

I made the bail as well, and used a beautiful bead by ChelleV2 and silk ribbons from Marsha Neal to complete the piece - all mimicking the colors of the stone. I love it!

So please, people! Remember - you can use paper with rivets to make moveable rivets, but be careful with the type of paper you use. And if you want to add space, use tubing instead. Lesson learnt the hard way.

Here's a better picture to show you the space between the layers.

 

Just look at the gorgeous inside of that agate... Nothing beats nature...

 

 

Then made some rings. Other than necklaces, they are the pieces of jewelry I wear more often.

The teal one is for me. The band is stamped "Temet nosce" - know thyself.

I guess this is it for now and the next 2 weeks at least. I'm off on Thursday to Paris and then on to the South of France for my jewelry workshop with Susan Lenart Kazmer and Jen Cushman. I'm hoping to learn lots and not finish a single piece of jewelry. Yes, that's right. I don't want to waste my time putting pressure on myself to finish pieces, but would rather spend my time learning as much as I can and practising. Well, that's the plan anyway.

I leave you with Lola, in what is apparently a comfortable position for a dog to be in. Go figure...

Cheers,
Carla