Category Archives: Techniques

Necklaces, Pendants, Techniques, Torch Work, Wire Work

Swirling

I thought the wind would take all of our Fall leaves this week, but a few hardy souls remain. We’re not especially used to the blustering breezes nature just sent us, but the movement of the trees outside my studio window seemed to symbolize the rushing of people as they ready for the holidays. Of course the people are gathering as the trees are shedding. I hope the gathering brings good fortune to our local merchants.

I’ve been doing a bit of swirling myself this week – round and round and round. I saw a pendant made of three wire swirls in a catalogue my friend brought me. The swirls graduated from large to small in a straight line as they layered at the edge of one another. Of course, I couldn’t just make that one, mine would need to be different. Eventually, my pendant became a necklace composed of five circle swirls. swirl1

These swirls are soldered together and finished with a dark patina and a tumble. I liked this look and decided to enlarge it. Then I learned that often “less is more”. The larger necklace has the same number of swirls, but they have bigger diameters.

Before starting this piece, I didn’t realize how much more difficult it would be to keep the rounds held together. swirlchar2 I kept adding solder to these circle hoping to connect the parts of each round. This, of course, led to solder showing on the front. Hmm . . . now what? The dark patina on the first piece did a nice job of covered the solder, but didn’t do as well on the larger piece. Also, the swirls continued to want to pull apart. Finally, I soldered a wire to the back of the necklace alleviating this problem.

swirlcharback

 

You can see the solder still showing in this photo. Since it was also showing on the front of the main circle, I soldered a bezel and placed a charoite cab (from magpiegemstones.com) on the front.

Hurray! Following one last patina that required extra Q-tip applied liver of sulphur in spots to cover that stubborn solder, the piece went for a tumble and was complete.  The last picture shows the different in size between the two necklaces. Both of these are fairly heavy and used a good deal of wire. This was fine in copper, but I think I will curtail my plans for making this in sterling silver until prices for this wire go down. Do you think that will ever happen? It’s possible that the only way I’ll see this in silver made from my studio is to let that solder flow on the top!

swirls for twoThe wind blows gently today, but bodes of cooler South Texas weather. I wonder what ideas it will bring me this week.

Necklaces, Techniques, Wire Work

Obsessive . . .

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. . . chaining. An obsession is an idea that cannot be gotten rid of by reasoning. I’ve created so many designs with chain in the last week that I’m wondering if this is an obsession. Most of us largely consider an obsession to be negative, but I’m pretty pleased with the new necklace designs. Do you think an obsession could be positive?

The chaining phase I’m in initiated with a piece that has already found a home, but it led to two necklaces that have the same designs, but different stones.

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Next, I made a couple of variations on this style. The first one featured faceted black onyx beads and it went quickly to its new owner. This second piece is done in turquoise with a bone eagle and other stones. You can see that all the wire components of these pieces are handmade including the headpins. I had not intended to make the latter, but on the evening that I wanted to attached the gemstones, I was completely out of headpins. So, I made a date with torch and balled them myself. I’m still facinated with how you can hold a piece of wire in the flame and a little ball forms and crawls up the wire. I lost a few of these balls as I was watching them climb the wire. They got too big and fell right off! I think I finally gave in on the turquoise piece and went to the store for “boughtin” pins.

chain2Eventually, I grew weary of making jump rings and tried a different design with purchased chain. Also, I wanted a mixed metal look.  I was attempting to achieve a “no droop” effect with this piece and made a looped half neck ring to stabilize the design. I attached a handmade chain to finish it off and give it more motion. There is a cluster of faceted black onyx beads on one side of the necklace. I don’t know if this will be as popular as the pieces with gemstones, but I think it has lots of potential. Gemstones or pearls could easily find their way on to this piece.

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So do you think I’m being obsessive with the chaining? Probably! But, I choose to think I’m just putting in a lot of good practice to improve my skill in making chains. I don’t think I need to go to the doctor yet!

By the way a couple of these pieces are in my etsy shop if you want to check them out.   http://www.etsy.com/listing/63457769/turquoise-and-copper-chain-necklace

Bracelets, Earrings, Necklaces, Techniques, Torch Work, Wire Work

When Gold Turns to Silver

I believe this saying has to do with the color of someone’s hair (Knoffler sang something about when the gold of her hair has turned to silver). It might also represent a tact for saving money in the jewelry design business. With today’s spot price for silver at a practically intolerable $22.70/ounce, it’s still more economical to use than gold which lists at $1,330.50 per ounce. You won’t see me using any gold any time soon.

Of course, that’s the same thing I said about silver last year. I was working exclusively with copper, a good deal of which came from the recycling establishment. Lately, however, feeling that my skill has progressed, I’ve delved a bit into silver wire. Today’s photos show the use of fine silver which fuses to itself without solder. Sterling silver requires the use of solder for fusing. One problem that arises with fine silver is just how quickly it melts. My pieces have a few bumps on them where the metal got too hot. Still, I feel it is better to see small flaws that lumpy solder.

The first pair of earrings turned out much bigger than I anticipated, but they do make a statement.silver large I’ve wanted to incorporate seed beads with the wire for some time and enjoyed using needle and fishing line to attach these embellishments to the ovals. They are very lightweight.

 

The second pair of earrings is, obviously, just a simple set of ovals.

small silver

Also, I fused some fine silver circles and put them on a double strand of sterling silver wire. This piece is very simple and delicate. It was trickier than I expected when I tried to get the circles to hang correctly.

silver neck

What’s a girl to do with earrings, a necklace and no bracelet? I answered that question by getting brave and using some 14 gauge sterling silver wire to make a small simple wave bracelet. I’m still debating as to whether or not to embellish it with beads.   silver brace

 

 

 

These pieces are a very different style than what I usually make, but were fun to do once I got past my panic of cutting the expensive wire.

I suppose the title to this blog entry should really read When the Copper Turns to Silver since that’s the change I made today. I’m just too much of a tight wad to work with gold right now. They don’t ever seem to have any at the recycling place!

Color, Earrings, Metal Work, Techniques, Torch Work, Wire Work

I Think That I Shall Never See . . .

. . . an earring lovely as a tree. I must certainly apologize to Joyce Kilmer whose original work compared a poem to a tree. Didn’t many of us have to learn to recite those verses in school?

The last few days I’ve been working with tree shapes. It may be the anticipation of the changes soon to occur with the leaves on the trees or simply an inclination to get away from things that are circles. For whatever reason, I’ve been working with the shape of some trees, triangles. This is always a bit of a problem since triangular shapes in jewelry mean you must deal with three sharp corners, but I decided not to let that deter me.

The first trees are a bit large, yet interesting looking. These earrings are copper triangles sweat soldered together to imitate firs. The liver of sulphur patina seemed appropriate on these.  I also made a smaller, upside down pair.    fir large

 

 

 

    small tria

 

 

 

 

The next pair is made of copper that spent several days turning blue. The household concoction worked well and I didn’t want to spoil the color; therefore, I chose not to solder them. That would have removed the blue patina. I made them into pretty good swingers by using the copper rings.

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The last pair of earrings initiated with a picture of a pair that a friend gave me. I intended to use silver circles as part of the embellishment, but the bottle caps sitting on the work bench begged to be used. The star in the cold connection adds a little western flair to this pair. Yes, I do realize that this tree shape is upside down, but it seemed like the way to go.

western

Maybe the next tree shapes should be rounded at the top – I’ll have to give that some thought.

In the last line of her tree poem, Kilmer wrote:

Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.

I could certainly say the same about these silly earrings.

booches, Creativity, Metal Work, Pendants, Philosophy, Techniques, Wire Work

Children and Problem-Solving

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I was somewhat bothered by a short five paragraphs in the Parade section of last Sunday’s newspaper. I waited several days to comment in order to see if my thoughts changed. They did not. The title of the article was “Teach Problem-solving to Prevent Bullying.” It was based on research conducted through Louisiana State University and the University of California the results of which indicated that those youngsters who have trouble with solving problems are more at risk of being bullied.

Bullying has also been on the television news lately as a result of the school bus incident during which a child was bullied and her father later threatened her attackers. This child, who is handicapped, would probably fit the profile suggested in the abovementioned research.

It wasn’t, however, my concern about the relationship of bullying and lack of problem solving skill that concerned me about the article. I believe that is a good point. It was the fact that the article focused solely on how games could help develop problem solving skills. I was pleased that the author mentioned checkers and chess since these do require rational strategic thinking. We might add to that dominos, chicken feet (played with dominos) and a number of other similar games that require thinking. None of these rely solely on chance like so many of the simple spinner type games.

I wanted the article to also talk about the place of art in the development of problem solving skills. I believe that almost any form of art requires this type of thinking. Even when the child is merely drawing a picture, he/she must figures out and plan where things go on the page, what colors work well and often what to do when a mistake occurs. Consider why a cardboard box is so often a child’s favorite toy. The child must solve the problem of how to create something out of very little. Also, if the art form selected requires tools or supplies, a young artist may need to solve the problem of what to do with limited supplies or lack of tools.

Many of of schools have no art classes other than what the classroom teacher might squeeze in. With extremely tight budgets most of the “frills” of education are gone. I have heard parents at school board meetings plead for retention of arts programs. Among other things, their rational is often based on the value of art (including music) in bringing joy and self confidence to the child. Should we instead be discussing the higher level thinking and problem solving skills that the arts teach our children?

My most recent example of difficult problem solving in art comes from the angels I first mentioned on September 11. I have continued to work with them for days trying to solve the problem of their crooked halos and messy backs covered with too much solder. Finally, after considerable work (problem solving) I completed some angels that are working. The halo now goes around the angel rather than just in front and the solder is hidden between the body and the wings.angel1I’ve also solved the problem of how to display/market them in boxes with a small poem. Doesn’t everyone need a guardian angel? (www.dreamcatcherdesigns.etsy.com ) I wish I could send one to each child who is forced to endure bullying.

angelpoem

This problem solving adventure is only one of so many that we find in art. Does that mean I’m ready for those big bullies? Hmm . . . I’d still just as soon they stayed away from me and from everyone else. Maybe the bullies need the opportunity to learn problem solving skills in order to direct their misguided energy down a better path.

Bezels, Metal Work, Necklaces, Pendants, Techniques, Torch Work

The Pickle Ate My Pants

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I looked up the word pickle and found all sorts of connotations that I hadn’t considered. The first definition usually appears as food or something you do to food as in pickled okra. Then there are all manner of situations that cause one to be “in a pickle”; yet, none of those fit this situation. Let’s get to the beginning of the pickle I’m talking about.

As I’ve probably mentioned before, when learning something new, I try to practice it every day. This goes back to learning and then teaching piano and realizing how skills develop over time. I’m continuing to do daily practice on making sterling silver bezels. While some days I think I’ve really mastered it, the next day is often a disaster and puts me back in my unskilled place.

Lately, I’ve completed a bevy of bezels, most of which are already gone; but a few are shown here. bezebl glack

 

bezel copper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

blue bezel

The copper backed bezels remain the most difficult due to the variation in temperature needed for copper versus silver.

Now, about that pickle. After spending considerable time one afternoon working on copper backed bezels, I took off my apron and noticed big holes in my shorts. I didn’t recall any sparks flying from the torch or any pain in the area of the holes. This did, however, remind me of the time I went fishing with my dad and his pocket caught on fire. He was dancing around pretty well when he figured out that his tobacco pipe, which he stuck in his pocket, was not completely extinguished. I think we later threw away those trousers. I guess I was luckier than him since I didn’t have to do any dancing around.

It wasn’t until a day later that I figured out what happened to my now-holy shorts. The pickle must have eaten them. I remember seeing drops of pickle fall on the shorts during several trips of the copper back and forth to and from torch block to pickle. (For those of you who aren’t metal workers, pickle is a solution used as“a treatment of metallic surfaces in order to remove impurities, stains, rust or scale (Wiklopedia).” I think I either mixed my pickle a bit too strong or I need a longer, tougher apron.

This morning as I was making the daily bezel, I felt something easing down my leg. After the shorts versus pickle incident, I’ve become more aware of what gets on me while I’m using the torch. The bezel had just reached the right temperature for the solder to begin to flow and I didn’t want to have to start over by stopping to see what was after my leg. So, I decided that I would not jerk or yell when the “something” bit me and I WOULD finish that bezel. Luckily, when I finally completed the bezel and extinguished the torch I learned it was just my untied apron string that was crawling down my leg. I think I lucked out on that one.

I can’t wait to see what “get’s after” me during the next bezel practice. I never anticipated so many extraneous happenings would occur while designing jewelry.

Pickle . . . we all either eat them or get in them from time to time, but I never imagined that one would eat my pants!

Metal Work, Necklaces, Pendants, Philosophy, Techniques, Wire Work

A Day Like Alexander’s

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I would NOT like to be Alexander who is best known for his bad day. Perhaps you have read about him in the children’s book by Judith Viorst. The title is Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and you can hear Ms. Viorst read her book out loud online at the following Barnes and Noble link: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/storytime/index.asp?cds2Pid=34152

When I’ve had a tough day, I try to remember Alexander and he usually makes me smile and feel better. Recently I had an Alexander day. It seemed fine at first, but by mid morning a neighbor came for coffee and wanted to talk county politics with my husband. Trying to be friendly, I grabbed my bead board and sat with them. I was working on an asymmetrical piece and should have known better than to let them see it. I’d been struggling with getting the multi strand necklace to hang correctly and kept holding it up to see how it was working. Each time, the men would sport somewhat pained and confused looks and each time I became more disgusted with the piece. Finally as lunch approached, I simply put it out of sight while I cooked. butterfly I pleased that the next day was NOT an Alexander day and I finished the piece shown here.

Following my ego deflating morning, I worked on making bezels most of the afternoon. Why did it take most of the afternoon? Because I burned up two bezels trying to get them to solder to copper backing. They simply wouldn’t connect. At one point I became so frustrated that I stopped and connected a different bezel to sterling silver for the necklace pictured below. This was much easier. However, since I was not willing to give up, I worked and worked until finally I managed to get the silver bezels to solder to the copper sheet metal. Yet, my ego took another hit.

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Later that day, I managed to string the pendants and was relatively happy with the outcome. The following day, however, when I was showing some pieces at a store, my good customer politely asked how to fasten one of the necklaces. All I could do was smile and tell her it was just an Alexander day. Look closely at the clasp in this next picture and laugh along with me.  clasp

Meanwhile, here at the ranch in the past few days, the puppy ate my good shoe and scratched the glass door. I put Vaseline all over the door to discourage him, but he ate that too. The pivot (irrigation machine)ran into a tree and wrecked. My car had a flat tire and the barn cat killed a rattler (actually that was a good thing since Angus got the snake before it got him). IMG_1494

 

I didn’t create this blog post to garner sympathy. I wrote it because I’m thinking you, too, could also create a narrative of the things that have happened to you on your own Alexander day. We all have them and we all survive. But just in case I forget that fact, I think I’ll keep in mind all the things that happened to Alexander on his own terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!

Bracelets, Color, Metal Work, Necklaces, Pendants, Techniques

Fall

Don’t you just feel that Fall crispness in the air? No . . .? Unfortunately, I don’t either. It’s rapidly approaching 100 degrees here in South Texas and I’m wondering why in the world I am working on Fall design pieces. Could it be because the summer merchandise is rapidly clearing out of the boutiques and the Fall clothing will start arriving in August. If I don’t start thinking Fall right now, I’ll be behind. So, here I sit with the Fall color predictions on one side of me and a boutique’s Nomadic Treasures clothing brochure indicating what she has purchased on the other. I’ve also turned the ceiling fan in the studio on high and am trying to think about cool weather and darker colors. (This is a BIG stretch!) Since I’ve been making the etched cuffs, it was a fairly easy transition to use more Fall-like designs on them. braceletleaf4 I used a Fall leaf stamp to make this copper on copper bracelet. Sticking with the metal, I also finished a copper leaf pendant shown below. I torched the metal until it was black and, following cleaning, the leaf offered a beautiful red color. Then I soldered the little dragonfly on to one side. The challenge came in digging deep into my bead drawers to find the right Fall colors. This was made easier by spending time at a boutique yesterday.leaf4 There, I was able to match the colors to a Fall wool vest that was in stock. I find it much easier to design with a garment in front of me. Both of these pieces are currently available on my etsy shop @ www.dreamcatcherdesigns.etsy.com Fall is definitely here in the studio and I should be ready when the real deal comes along outdoors. Think COOL.
Bracelets, Metal Work, Techniques

Itching to Etch

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Months ago, two kind souls in our Faux Bead Society showed us how to etch on copper.  I enjoyed the experience, but was involved in learning other things and didn’t do any further etching. Then, last month, a nice friend in the group brought me some mordant, the solution used to eat away the copper in the etching process. I brought it home and couldn’t leave it alone. I was itching to etch.

I’d been trying to develop a new cuff bracelet and the etching seemed a good option to try. The first bracelet, not pictures, was done on 20 gauge copper and although it turned out fine, it was extremely difficult to cut that gauge copper sheet by hand. Layering the metals seemed to be the answer. Initially, I tried to solder the two metals together after etching the top, but was not very successful. Therefore, the layers of the three bracelets pictured first are held together with cold connections (rivets).etched bracelets 

The next day I worked on another set of bracelets and was determined to get them to solder. My stubbornness paid off and these held much better.copper and brass bracelet I also put rivets in each end of these bracelets.   copper on copper bracelet 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following the soldering and riveting, these bracelets spent about three hours in the tumbler to both clean and work harden them. The soldering process also annealed the metal and the bracelets were very soft prior to being tumbled. Now they retain their shape.

Etching was very messy and I was pleased to finish the bracelets and several other pieces today so I could put away the etching supplies. I guess you could say that the itch has been scratched for now. I shall see what my customers say about these pieces before I decide whether or not to get messy again. What do you think?

Metal Work, Necklaces, Pendants, Philosophy, Techniques, Wire Work

Funny

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Is it funny “ha, ha” or funny “strange”? Yesterday was both!

I’m not sure what was in the air, but it seemed to me that those I visited yesterday were just happy. When I called on a boutique customer to supply an order and show a few new things, the owner and sales associate were already smiling. This is the great store that will honestly tell me whether my prices are appropriately marked. Yesterday, when I would say “do you think you could sell this piece for $x” both women would say in unison “we can do it!” After about the third chorus of this, it got to be pretty funny, but then you might have had to be there.

Next, I visited the nursing home arriving just as folks were returning to their rooms from lunch. I could see my mother wheeling down the hall wearing one of those flower adorned headbands I made her along with a big smile. We had a great visit and one of her stories was about being funny. At lunch, her tablemate asked her if her daughter was as funny as she is. I guess I never thought of my mother as funny, until she finished her story. She told me that this place, the nursing home, was where they bring people who have gotten “funny” and if you aren’t funny when you get here, you will be FUNNY soon! At that point I wondered if I should leave quickly before I became funny.

Even my design work was funny yesterday (in an ignorant sort of way). While etching copper pieces, I had run out of styrofoam used to float the pieces in the etchant. I was in a big hurry, etching and trying to cook dinner while shepherding the two blue heelers running through my house because they were afraid of the thunder outdoors. Having read that you could hang the copper pieces above the etchant with tape, I grabbed the least expensive tape I found and thought I had solved the problem. Did you know that when aluminum tape touches ferric chloride (the etchant) it gets very hot? Each time I shook the etching container to settle the copper, I could hear a big sizzle. When I finally removed the pieces from the etchant, the tape had either melted or formed little sizzling balls that were very hot to my gloved hands. The funny part is that my pieces turned out the best of any I’ve done previously.

As my final example of a funny day, the photo probably speaks for itself. bird with messy nest Look at the silly mess of a nest for this little bird. Not only is it funny looking, the process of getting the bird and the nest to remain on the copper was pretty funny. First I used E6000 glue to adhere them to the copper. That only lasted about 2 hours. Next, I attempted to cold connect the bird, but that didn’t work at all. Finally, I wired both the bird and the nest to the copper. The more I worked with this process, the messier the bird’s nest became. Then, I took a blurry picture of the whole thing . . . I’m trying to accept that this was just the perfect ending to a funny day.