Tut008: Ooooh laa laa. What a cab! update 3

For Tutorial008,. I needed the perfect cabochon,. and I am so glad I waited for this beauty to be made. I am absolutely in awe of this cab,. and if you think it looks nice here,. let me just say that this picture does not do it justice.  The second I saw it, notice the orange shrimp swimming there with a little eye staring at me. I absolutely adore it!!! Mind you,.. if it was a real shrimp,. I’d probably eat him .

I have to sincerely thank local(QLD, Australia) Jewelry Artist Lynette Owen for making this for me. I found out recently that Lynette is expanding her creative talents and is now making Dichroic cabs and will be offering a range of her work in the very near future. Lynette can be found here http://lowen56.blogspot.com/ . Check out her Photo Albums. I feel very fortunate to have found someone who does this kind of work so close by.

EDITED on 15 AUG: Just had a look at Lynette’s range of dichroic cabochons and Oh my!! they are awesome with some really innovative designs I’ve never seen been before *thud* . I don’t know how she does it.  I want more dichros now whaaaaaa!!

Ok,.. so tomorrow,. I will make the piece and do the photographs.

Week - 44

This week’s theme is ‘Simmering Summer’ and with that, sometimes comes enormous bushfires. A few years ago we had what was termed ‘Fire Storms’ that threatened our small city(more like a large country town) on several fronts at the same time. It raged through some of our suburbs. 300 houses and many other properties including historic were burnt to the ground and several lives were lost. This pin represents that firestorm racing towards our city through the native gum trees. 

I had a blast doing this piece. It was not meant to be a functional piece of jewelry as such,.but rather a mini sculpture,..an excuse to fiddle around with a few techniques I have been wanting to try for a long time. It is made from copper sheet and wire, and apart from the bird’s eggs it was all made from scrap that I had lying around on my workbench.  I wanted to see if I could cold connect sheet,. so I have a rivet located between the nest and the stem. I deliberately snapped off a bit of the flame so that I could see if I could rivet it back on and was amazed how well it worked. Last piece I made, I LOS’d it, but for whatever reason,. the LOS had a weird dulling effect on the copper and I was really wanting colours like I achieved here. These colours were achieved by holding the piece in the flame on my stove.

I’m enjoying working with sheet,. and one day I might bust out and buy some sterling silver sheet. I really need do buy some proper tools to work with sheet however.

Tut008: Modern Pendant - update 2

I am about to begin Tutorial008, and will commence making a new piece for the tute tomorrow. I made these three pendants many moons ago, many of you may have seen them already as I submitted them for my Week 7 FSOJ piece.

This photo is not the best so I will take better photos of these also tomorrow.

If you read my Decision Decisions post you’ll know I was indecisive about which out of two tutorials I should do,.. since I was still indecided when I received an email just now from a fellow jewelry maker, whose name shall remain unmentioned,.ok you twisted my arm,… it was Lynette,lol.  Lynette suggested my Week 7 pendants would make a nice tutorial and as I had these on my list of future tutorials I thought yes,. why not.

This tutorial will be another free tutorial, as a special thanks for your patronage.

Cheers,

Remy

Week - 43

Before Liver of Sulphur

Everything fell in place for me this week time-wise, I had time to just play around with the FSOJ piece which is such a treat. Almost every week I do a rushed piece for the FSOJ, just to get something done and stay commited to the challenge, so this was a nice change to be able to just sit at my workbench and play. The ’suggested’ theme for week43 was ‘Mixed Metals’ and although I rarely follow the themes (I try, buuut…), since I had free time this week I thought it would be fun. Co-incidently I find out,  the theme this week was my suggestion,lol.

 
After Liver of Sulphur

This is my first attempt at playing with sheet metal. I have been wanting to do this for eons,. and this week’s theme seemed like the perfect reason to give it a go. This is copper sheet, from a scrap heap. I haven’t a clue what guage this was but is was soooh hard.

I haven’t got the right tools so I layed the end of the sheet over a heavy wrench which had a round hole in the handle for hanging and whacked it with a cheap ballpein hammer to get the dome, then just snipped the shape with flush cutters and filed the edges. I sacrificed the points of three of my tiny files for the pupose of punching holes in the sheet,lol. The wire is Gold Filled and the beads Sterling Silver. There is scratch work all over the piece which can be seen better in real life, including the dots on the left of the dome.

I was disapointed with the LOS on this copper,.. everything else turned black but the copper just went boring dull but not darker. I think I need to buy some better sheet copper,. I’m sure copper usually gets beautiful abolone shell like effects.

Anyway, too much fun was had in one afternoon.

Picasso Jasper / Picasso Marble

Uploading a pic of the nuggets to show Lori. Purchased a few years ago under the name Picasso Jasper,. but I have also seen this same stone referred to as Picasso Marble.
Hope that helps.

Tut008: Hmm, decisions decisions - update 1

I have a tutorial in mind that I really want to do, but some things I need for it, are absent from my supplies *sigh*. So I will put in an order and peg that tutorial in for later.

So right now I’m trying to decide between two tutorials I could do but I’m having an indecisive moment and cannot make up my mind. :}

Feel free to comment and say what you would like to see,.. because your comment just might push me off this fence I’m sitting on and help me decide which one it will be.

Week - 42

This ring is another variarion to the same ring design. I have used a faceted lentil bead,.special thanks to The Baroness of Windypuff - Lori for the beads, because I didn’t have a round cabochon and I really love this one.

Note: I haven’t been able to make any other jewelry over and above the pieces I’ve been doing while writing the tutorials, time and energy won’t stretch that far for me. So to enable me to stay committed to the FSOJ, I’ll need to use these pieces for now. I hope you understand, it’s either this, or drop out of the FSOJ completely. I’ve come too far with the FSOJ, and would hate to let it go now.

Week - 41

This ring is a variarion to the same ring design. Using a triangle shaped cabochon instead of a faceted gem. The ring was dipped in a weak solution of Liver of Sulphur (LOS) which I think really looks great with Turquoise.
Note: I haven’t been able to make any other jewelry over and above the pieces I’ve been doing while writing the tutorials, time and energy won’t stretch that far for me. So to enable me to stay committed to the FSOJ, I’ll need to use these pieces for now. I hope you understand, it’s either this, or drop out of the FSOJ completely. I’ve come too far with the FSOJ, and would hate to let it go now.

Week - 40

This week I made 28 charms for a Charm Swap.  Well 26 for the Swap and one each for my daughters with their choice of colours. While I could provide a photograph of these now,.. it might spoil the surprise for the Swapees, so I’ll leave this (?) here and replace it will the real photo once I know everyone has received their charms.

Week - 39

This week I have been working on a new ring design for faceted gems and this is the result.
Note: I haven’t been able to make any other jewelry over and above the pieces I’ve been doing while writing the tutorials, time and energy won’t stretch that far for me. So to enable me to stay committed to the FSOJ, I’ll need to use these pieces for now. I hope you understand, it’s either this, or drop out of the FSOJ completely. I’ve come too far with the FSOJ, and would hate to let it go now.

Week - 38

This pendant was made with copper wire and a 1.5″ cabochon. The colours in the cab don’t show to their best here,. it is awesome in real life.
Note: I haven’t been able to make any other jewelry over and above the pieces I’ve been doing while writing the tutorials, time and energy won’t stretch that far for me. So to enable me to stay committed to the FSOJ, I’ll need to use these pieces for now. I hope you understand, it’s either this, or drop out of the FSOJ completely. I’ve come too far with the FSOJ, and would hate to let it go now.

Week - 37

This piece was made using copper and a slice of agate. Very quick and easy pendant.
Note: I haven’t been able to make any other jewelry over and above the pieces I’ve been doing while writing the tutorials, time and energy won’t stretch that far for me. So to enable me to stay committed to the FSOJ, I’ll need to use these pieces for now. I hope you understand, it’s either this, or drop out of the FSOJ completely. I’ve come too far with the FSOJ, and would hate to let it go now.

Testing this theme

by adding in a photo of my little helper, Holly…hmmm  Are the modems ok Holly?

Time for a face lift.

Right now I am working on my journal and have chosen a new theme as the base for it.  While this theme is gorgeous,. I think it is too different to the rest of my site and as I would like to integrate my journal within my website,. I’ll need to work on getting it to blend more. So sorry if it is looking a bit odd right now.