oooohhhh .... ahhhhhh ..... pretties

In the midst of everything that I've been supposed to be doing and actually have been doing ... wholesale orders are out the door, but the scary pile of debit receipts and the checkbook balancing and housecleaning will have to wait for another day or so... I managed to squeeze in some extracurricular projects.  I mean, I was in production mode and I did have to fire the kiln several times, so why not throw in a few fun things.

Like reworking some pieces for Etsy.  I added the l i g a blessing to the Starry Night Cross, really just needed it, I changed the green garnet in one piece from that same post to a lovely translucent green amethyst, I've made several of the listed components into finished pieces, just had to do it and put together a few more pieces with components that I've had for a while and I finished this absolutely gorgeous piece.  I really really love this necklace.  It's 36" long and uses four lengths of tiny rolo chain with green amethyst and moss aquamarine.

The Sea Goddess necklace .........

Here's a closeup of the silver shell pieces - these are sterling silver pmc and very thin ....

I'll be listing and re-listing a bunch of stuff and updating Etsy this weekend.  Here's a preview ....

And then for something completely different ... I had some pieces of beach glass that I had drilled ages ago.  They've been sitting in one of my bowls of rocks and glass and I just had to make pendants out of them.
  

The really great thing is plain old white glass like this .......

...... gets fumed by the silver and changes color - like this ..........

After tumbling and oxidizing, they are absolutely transformed ........

More often than not, you have no idea what the source glass is, so it's always a surprise as to how the glass will change color.  This batch was especially exciting - I got two pieces that turned kind of a peach color.  White has always gone amber, so the peachy color was a nifty surprise.  Amazing, but I don't think I've ever seen anyone else doing this - pmc wrapped beach glass - can't imagine why.  The finished pieces are just so bloody cool!

Okay, time to get dinner on the table ... taco Friday with anasazi beans that have been cooking all afternoon!  yummmm!

l i g a - kvk

in the studio

Woke up feeling a bit out of sorts and have been struggling to get things done.  I've made tea and showered and got the tumbler going and fired a new batch of sterling pmc and picked flowers for a couple of small arrangements and downloaded some new tunes and checked email and checked a couple of blogs and switched tumblers from steel to finishing and made some more tea and then took a few photos to chronicle my scattered thoughts.  Looks like maybe I have been getting things done, just not in any order.

So here I am doing a blog post, like that's really on my official to-do list ... trust me, it's not.  But I'm going to make a serious effort to hunker down after I finish here and there's a couple of things I was pretty excited about and I'll be better able to focus when I'm done ... really.

I just plunked these new sterling pmc components into the tumbler.  It was tempting to leave them as is, but the Angel Wing is a special order, so traditional finishing it will be.  It's about 4" long and I tucked in a tiny raw white sapphire at the top - not sure why, it just seemed like the thing to do.  It kind of takes my breath away ..........

And I've been thinking about this shape for weeks.  Inspired by another shell I picked up on the beach in St Augustine.  They're about 3" long and quite narrow.  Also, sterling pmc allows me to work very thin - really loving that.  Can't wait to see where they'll go .............

In my morning's agitated state, I couldn't decide what I wanted to listen to.  A favorite song popped up on one of my Pandora stations and I realized that was it.  So of course, I had to download what I could find and have had this song on repeat for the last couple of hours ... Ulrich Schnauss, Stars.



You can get more of an idea about my widespread focus (or lack thereof) by my current stack of reading material...

I'm a huge fan of Sibella Court and have been dying to get my hands on her new book, The Stylists Guide to NYC.  To order from Sibella from Australia, it was going to cost a small fortune.  There was one or two from Amazon sellers for even more astronomical sums.  Then I happened to check one day and there was one in the UK for $28 - I snagged it.  Of course if I'd waited 6 weeks there's a bunch of US Amazon sellers that have them for $24.  Oh well, I'm still a happy camper aside from the fact I really haven't had time to do a thorough perusal.  It's a great format, designed and set up for use ...

... and the pages are dark and lush and full of tantalizing little details - ABC Carpet and Home, one of my top five places to hit next time we're in NY ...

So what I'm really supposed to be doing is this ...

... a nice big wholesale order.  If I don't get my distracted self to work pretty soon, I may be working nights for the next couple of days.

Okay, I'm better now ... so back to it for this little peep. 

l i g a - kvk

no cigar but lots of potential

I've got a bunch of new additions to the Talisman Elements series, but first I thought it'd be fun to share the evolution of a one-off design ...

It started here - a fragment of an angel wing shell from St Augustine.  I made an impression of it in polymer clay and then used a big piece of my sterling silver metal clay to make the pendant.  I tried to make it fairly thin to test the strength of the sterling - I'm happy to report, it's very strong.  I love that the pendant hangs kind of off kilter.  Plus it's very ... well all I can think of is that it's very wabi-sabi.

So I've got the pendant, next I started gathering potential elements.  I've got gemstone nuggets - rutilated quartz, then the amber and citrine from Andrew, a few ochre trade beads, my stash of Basha beads, unbleached linen to make into cord, hand cut and dyed silk ribbon, silk thread, oh and some big honkin bronze pearls.

I worked on the layout and how many strands of linen cord and tried different stones with different hole sizes - I wasn't in the mood to drill any stones or pearls - and pondered closures and lengths and ended up here ... 

close, but no cigar ...

It's just not quite there.  Don't get me wrong, there are elements I like, but overall, it's just not done.

For instance, I do like the closure, I like it off center and the loose ends with the linen wraps - it reminds me of Zoe Keating's hair!  BTW, been listening to her CD's non-stop - so so so very excellent.

And I like the trade bead and rutilated quartz nugget together on the linen cord ...

But the jumbo citrine nugget doesn't hang quite right and overpowers the pendant and the rest of the piece.  I do like the little stack of copper and silver spacers.

I'm also not sure about the linen cord.  I've been thinking about grouping linen cord into something for days ... just not sure this is the best application.  So, this piece is still very much a work in progress.  I'm going to take it all apart and start over.  I'll keep you posted with my progress.

But I also wanted to show you my latest additions to the Talisman Elements series.  The overall concept is finally starting to come together.  I got all inspired to do some carving in polymer clay, which lead to the idea for the Medallions.  I've got a chalice, a crown, a compass, a portal and a spiral.  I also made a couple of unicorn-looking horns.  Then there's the reproduction of the little eastern European vintage cross I bought from Cool Vintage on Etsy - really love everything in that shop! 

Also, I've really hesitated about the use of text, but decided to dig out the rubber stamp sheets I had made way back in my ArtFest days of early 2003.  So some of the medallions have ready made messages stamped into the back and some have individually stamped words.  

I am pretty excited about all my new Medallions.  

Oh, there was one more piece from my sterling silver firing - Eros ... another stamp from my long-ago rubber stamp making days. Pretty sure  he's destined for another one-off piece, but that remains to be seen.

So that's where I am right now.  I'm probably not going to get anything else done in my studio this holiday weekend.  Dave and I have this idea we're going to re-stain the deck, which means taking everything off the deck - like those bloody huge, fully soaked flower pots of mine and all the other not so heavy stuff, a bit of sanding and then painting.  WOO HOO - Boy howdy do we know how to party!

I guess that's it for now.  I hope everyone has a wonderful, fun and ever so safe holiday weekend.

blessings - kvk

Jackie O's pearls + new jewels

I'm always on the lookout or listening for bits and pieces and clues for ideas and inspiration.  Include in that keeping my radar tuned for potential nice things I can do for someone else.  Nice things, little things, things that are easy and joyful for me, but could have great meaning for another.  Making jewelry is a small thing for me.  It's what I do, it's what I thrive on.  In the last couple of weeks, in between working on wholesale orders, I've had the opportunity to do some custom pieces.  A rare thing for me as I am usually quite hesitant to take on special requests.  All I can say is, I must be loosening up in my middle age.

The most recent one just went out in the mail.  It wasn't a special order, but one of my radar picks.  A recent conversation with my older sister gleaned the tidbit that she is obsessed with Jackie O's three strand pearl necklace.  Of course I remember seeing the necklace and there's been lots of 'first lady pearls' in the news thanks to Michelle O's stunning assortment of contemporary interpretations, bringing the pearl necklace to a whole new audience ... I especially love the Tom Binns pieces.  But my sister said the Jackie O version.  And I thought, "hey, I can do that!  The gem show's coming up and I'll do a bit of research and see what I pull off."

So yesterday I headed to Franklin for the gem show with my miniscule shopping list, perused and shopped for a couple of hours, found the exact pearls I was hoping for and headed home.  I had already made the 'bling' piece for the three strand closure.  Jackie's was emerald and gold, mine is pmc, white topaz and sapphires - close, sort of.  Since I got home early, I set to work right away and, well, see what you think.  Here's the clasp ...

And the full necklace.  The shortest strand is 17", graduating to 19" ...

There's something enormously satisfying about knotting perfectly graduated strands of pearls.  This is in the mail today ... I'm hoping a nice little surprise for my sister.  Unless she reads this, which I'm thinking is not likely, I don't know, we'll see.

Then there was the Talisman style necklace for a friend ...

I don't normally do text in pieces - there's just so much out there, it's hard to do anything different.  But a friend had asked if I might be able to do something with her word choices plus a couple other elements and I figured I'd give it a shot.  The other unusual thing here - the text nuggets are sterling silver pmc.  Yep!  My first batch of mixed and fired pmc3 mixed with pmc Pro.  My letter stamps were kind of big so I wanted to use the sterling for the additional shrinkage.  There will be more sterling silver goodies to come - hopefully later this month.

And then I got to make a special order version of one of my favorite new pieces.  This one is for the woman who cuts my hair, I guess that would be hair stylist, but the stylie part only lasts until I wash it.  I'm not known for fancy hairstyles or fancy product usage.  Anyway, she's buying this for a birthday present to herself.  

And lastly, this wasn't a special order, but it's a piece you may recognize.  I made this component a while back - channel set tunduru sapphires in a bar of pmc.  I originally planned to attach it to leather, then changed my mind, then decided to list the component on Etsy, it got several 'hearts' but didn't sell.  Then one day my eye caught a zip-loc bag full of bits of chain - a tiny rolo link that I've had for years.  I've always loved this chain and seeing it in a pile I finally figured out what to do with that little sapphire bar.  I'll be re-listing the finished piece on Etsy first of the week. 

Silver prices have been all over the place in the last couple of weeks and took a nose-dive in the last few days.  Normally I price things based on replacement costs, but because I've had this chain for a while and there's a lot of it in this piece, I'm going to price it at the old chain price.  Yeah, I'm softening up. 

And new jewels! 

Like I was saying, I didn't really need much of anything, but I'm always on the lookout for new and intriguing jewels.  Lately I've been obsessed with hammered gemstone nuggets - really rough, chiseled looking facets.  They're pretty hard to find, but they are out there.  Some on Etsy, a few on some gemstone sites.  I saw very little of this sort of thing yesterday, but did find a few strands to play around with.

I love the warmth of this quartz.  So much of it looked plastic and glaring and garish.  This strand was perfect.

I had to get two strands of this green amethyst - looks like green ice don't you think?

A bit of a splurge, but this gemstone is so so so hard to resist ... this not quite so chiseled moss aquamarine.  A bit more refined, but still rough enough for my plans.

And this was my big splurge, golden rutilated quartz ... $50 for a really short strand, 5 bucks a nugget - oof!  Thing is, I saw it first thing in the morning and kept thinking about it the whole time I was there, so I knew I better succumb or regret it later.  It's just so raw and I know it's going to look amazing with some big chunky something to be designed sometime soon.

All in all, a good trip and a good couple of days and, come to think of it, a good couple of weeks.  

I can't wait to see where these new jewels inspire me to go next.  That's the whole point, discovery and exploration and innovation and the delicious unknown.

Onward.

Blessings - kvk