Jewelry Metal Preferences (POLL)

Just posted a poll to help me gauge interest for types of metal in jewelry. Please take a few minutes to complete the poll which is located on the right-hand side of this blog - you can vote for up to 3 choices. Thanks!

What's Growing in Your Garden?

Went out the door this morning and noticed I am still getting blooms in my "English" type flower garden. (I have a very small garden, 10ft x 10ft - so I cram lots of flowers in that small space so it does look like the English gardens I have seen in my past travels.)

Even with the unseasonably hot weather, my garden seems to be "weathering" it. I haven't watered the garden this year and have relied on the few rain showers we have had recently to revive the blooms. My favorite is the gardenia - love it's own brand of heady perfume.

And, I only do perennials or those that re-seed themselves - I have no patience to plant each and every spring or fall.

My garden includes a hardy hybiscus, red roses, yellow roses, gardenias, peonies, love-in-the-mist, bluebells, sedum, day lilies, calla lilies, hydrangea, and the mailbox flower (clematis).

What grows in your garden???

Locket Making

Continuing my progression into metalsmithing, 3 weeks ago I started a 6-week course in using the hydraulic press.

This class introduces you to making dimensional jewelry by forming metal into puffed shapes using matrix die-cut forms and the hydraulic press. Our project was to make a locket or hollow form pendant. I opted for the more challenging project - a locket.

In addition to learning how to make the metal forms, we would also learn how to rivet set a stone to a domed piece and how to tube rivet to connect together the locket halves.

Along the way we also cut a 1/8 inch wide silver bezel to make 2 very thin bezels (half of 1/8 inch), embellish the bezels (make very tiny cuts in the bezel) and to recover from a stone falling out of the finished setting.

After my first session, I stayed in the studio and made 6 pairs of copper pressed forms - it was very addicting! I even purchased the matrix die-cuts that evening from BananaNan. I now have several more pieces in different stages, including a pair of oval copper and sterling earrings.

So what do you think? BTW, if you are interested, I have a Facebook photo album that chronicles the locket process.