Whew! I'm still busy taking my stone setting classes at Pratt Fine Arts Center in Seattle and learning new techniques every day. Here is my latest success - a labradorite stone set with a sterling silver heavy pedestal base with 6 prongs. I've attached some accent peacock pearls and a really long, trendy sterling silver chain (34") to give this necklace a modern look. Take a further peek at it in my etsy shop here.

Wishing everyone a happy and safe Halloween!

My First Turtle Setting

After a couple of months away from my bench this summer, I'm taking a class to learn how to make settings other than bezels. Things like prong settings, tube settings, flush settings... To be honest, I was getting a little bored with bezel settings because I've been yearning to add a little sparkle to some of my work and bezel settings don't work with faceted stones. It's an 8 week class and I'm having a wonderful time learning so many new tricks and techniques.

Here's my very first wire turtle setting. Not perfect by any stretch, but not bad for a first try. I used argentium wire and fused it together to form this setting. A few glitches along the way required that I use a different stone than the one I originally planned to use, but that's the nature of learning something new. This stone is an American golden opal. The setting is about as plain as you can get, but I'm just learning the basics before I add in anything complicated.

After finishing this, I was in the mood to do some polishing, so I spent a few hours polishing my stone setting tools. That's one of the tips I learned (or was reminded of) in this class - dull, scratched tools dull & scratch your jewelry piece. Now that my tools are shiny and better than new, hopefully I'll have less clean-up after stone setting in the future!

Featured Artist of the Week!

Fellow jewelry creator and team etsyrain member, Kristi Bowman, has featured my jewelry creations on her website today!

Be sure to visit Kristi's blog, as well as her etsy and artfire shops. Kristi creates wonderful jewelry components using PMC silver, copper and bronze. I've use some of her components in my jewelry, too! She also creates beautiful finished jewelry and is a master at combining colors and textures in her jewelry.

Many thanks to Kristi for today's blog shout out!

A little re-make for a custom order

Here is one of the custom order rings I've been working on this week. The stone is a wonderful little blue Amazonite. It started out as a pendant that I had made about a year ago with a similar setting (double layer back plate), then a customer saw it and wanted it made into a ring. So I re-made the setting for the stone and attached it to a new ring shank. I think it makes a darling ring. I hope she likes it!

I love being able to custom create jewelry for clients so the piece suites them perfectly!

I'm back and creating new something new!

I've been off having some summer fun outside of my workshop for a few weeks. I went home to MN to visit some family and friends. While I was there, a couple of friends hosted impromptu jewelry parties for their friends and it was so nice to see several of my bigger, favorite pieces go to their new owners. I love getting together with people and seeing their reactions to my jewelry. It's always so interesting to see which ones appeal to each person. I don't have that advantage when someone purchases my work on-line, but I'm not really complaining. I often get emails or messages from past buyers telling me how much they love the jewelry they purchased from me.

A while back, I wrote a Mother's Day series of blogs, featuring items from my mother's jewelry box. One of the items, a Danish pendant by Bent Larsen, I found particularly inspiring. It was a gift to my Grandmother from my Mother. In my research, I've found Bent Larsen designs to be modern, minimalist, bold designs with interesting, clean cut textures. Here is a photo of my Grandmother's pendant:

This week, I made a new piece with a bit of influence from this pendant. In my Grandmother's pendant, I love how the heavy bezel wire is textured and adds a wonderful outline for the focal center. I wanted to create a similar effect using my own labradorite stone. My new piece is pictured at the top of this blog and here below. It is titled "Love Triangle" and is listed in my etsy shop here:

I've also been working on orders for 3 custom rings and will show you those in the next few days. As summer quickly draws to a close, I hope all of you have enjoyed your summer and are looking forward to a beautiful autumn.

Inspired by Play

The theme this week for the Year of Jewelry Project 2011 is "Play". That word always reminds me of my childhood. What carefree child can resist running through a field of grass or climbing every rock they see? I've created a couple of items inspired by the "Play" theme. The first is a rough cut, maroon quartz stone ring, set in a fine silver bezel with a textured sterling silver back plate and ring shank. I use some recycled sterling silver for the back plate. The stone was given to me by a dear friend who loves her play times; "recess" as she calls it. I made this ring for me to wear as a reminder to stop what I'm doing and take a fun recess occasionally. I call this ring "Rock Climbing". It's shaped a little like the Prudential rock logo, higher on one side than the other and every time I look at the stone, I hear the "Own a piece of the rock" jingle in my mind.

The second item I made is a pair of playful dangle earrings. I used some fiery lush green labradorite stones. I hand wire-wrapped them onto some wonderful, flowery PMC fine silver components that were handmade by Kristi Bowman of Dreamsome.etsy.com. I've used some of Kristi's components before and love everything she creates. I love it when earrings sway playfully and these earrings remind me of running through the grassy playground near my childhood home. These earrings are called "Grass Play" and are listed in my etsy shop.

My Secret Garden - Sterling Silver Rose Pendant

When it comes to gardening, I have to live vicariously. You see, I don't have a green thumb. I must either enjoy the beauty of other people's gardens or simply imagine the perfect garden in my mind. One of the many flowers I would need is beautiful roses with soft, fluttering petals.

Recently, I wandered through the Rose Gardens at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, WA. The roses there were fabulous and inspired me to hand create this rose pendant out of sterling silver. I love the depth that the layers of curved sterling petals gives this little pendant. It's about the size of a US dime. The specific rose that inspired this piece is shown in the main photo on the left.

The weekly theme this week for the Year of Jewelry Project is "My Secret Garden", so I'm using this piece as my weekly entry. I recently created a custom necklace for a client, using hand cut sterling silver and brass lotus leaves. I was quite please with the result and had originally planned to use that piece for my weekly entry to YOJ, but then on Friday, I was inspired to create this rose and have opted to use this instead.

The rose necklace is listed in my etsy shop here: My Secret Garden