Get Silvered

Tiny Treasure Pendant

2012-01-23T21:30:00.001+08:00

Before:

After:

This pendant was inspired by those gorgeous cylinder shaped Bali Silver Prayer Boxes. I've admired them for a long time.
For my pendant I used some copper pipe from the Hardware store, and used the same techniques that I used with my trinket boxes. I've plenty of spare pipe leftover - it was a 1.5 metre length and the pendant is only about 4 cm long. Overkill?? HaHa maybe! Anyway, I hope to experiment some more with the leftovers! I may try etching the next one, and I want to try out some kind of safety catch...and... if I get really adventurous I may try out a hinged version and....Oh well .....we'll see how I go......... :)

Success or the opportunity to try again.....

2012-01-13T21:14:00.000+08:00

How are your resolutions and goals going?
I'm on target so far - My housekeeping schedule is getting organised and I decided that as the house was spick and span that I'd treat myself to a day of metalwork today.

My plans nearly didn't happen as the postie delivered my late Christmas pressie to myself! I must say I have excellent taste when buying gifts for myself....

This is an awesome book with instructions for making all kinds of boxes and lockets as well as the hinges and catches. There's heaps of jaw dropping gallery pictures to inspire too! But instead of sitting in the airconditioning reading all afternoon it inspired me to finish my second trinket box that I started last year at Tafe.

I had a ~~few~~ many soldering issues, then torch issues, but remembering Tim McCreight's comment in the book that there are only two outcomes - "success or the opportunity to try again" - I pressed on - trying again and again.......and again... until I finally got it right, all the while, ignoring my urges to go with third option which he never mentioned in the book which was to chuck the whole lot through the nearest window!
Heads up to my friends too - Carolyn for providing the copper pipe I used for the box and to Jane who suggested I check my torch tips for blockages. It did the trick!

Ta Da.....here it is:

and opened:

and with my first box:

Specs for those interested: Copper & Sterling Silver - Its about 5cm (2inches) high including the dome and about 3.5cm (11/2inches) in diameter.

Happy 2012!

2012-01-01T11:11:00.000+08:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season! Ours included a lovely day with most of the family and a Christmas lunch at our place, followed by a Boxing day lunch with our youngest who was away at work on Christmas day.The lead up to the New Year has been good, we're on hols from work, so eating leftovers, reading books, catching up with friends and general lazing around has been the focus.

Now the New year has arrived it's time to think about being more productive. I haven't made any resolutions but I have some loose goals and ideas I want to achieve so putting them down here makes me a little accountable.

I've decided not to go back and start another Tafe course this year, so the extra time at home will be spent creating and making more metal jewellery, so that the skills learned last year become second nature. I hope to devote at least one day each week to my metalwork!
I'm happier when my house is in order, so I'll continue with my ongoing decluttering and try and establish a cleaning routine that will work for me. I joined Flylady a few years back and although I don't subscribe now, I've adapted one of their cleaning plans to suit my house and I'm going to follow that to keep on top of things. I just revisited the site and it really does have some great ideas there.
Last year, one goal was to sort out the many pre digital family photos, it didn't happen so that's going to roll over to this year.
No suprises here: to address my health & fitness! I'm not doing too badly but the body could do with a little more exercise and a little less calories.
"Being Happy" is a bit vague, so I'll be working on specifics for that one - I'm pretty sure it'll include finding more time for connecting with family and friends but all of the others above will contribute to that too I hope!

Happy New Year Everyone - Hope all your wishes and dreams come true in 2012.
What are your plans?

Stringing it along....

2011-12-18T08:39:00.000+08:00

I love wrapping gifts - so Christmas is a good time of year in that respect!

This year I'd been coveting the red and white bakers Twine that is all over the internet at the moment. I picked some up last month when we were in Sydney! My husband thought I was crazy that we go all the way to Sydney and my first purchase there was.........string!

Well, this festive string has a bit of a natural look to it so doesn't really work that well with the glossy, patterned Christmas papers, so some regular plain brown paper was in order.
I tizzied up the ladies' gifts with the other ~~over exposed~~ ever popular paper product...doileys, but that wouldn't do for the men! Instead I got the printer fired up and made up some labels with a vintage wreath image and a holly border.

Now what am I going to do with the other 45 meters of Red & White string?

Sydney.............

2011-12-04T21:07:00.001+08:00

In my last post I may have given the impression that since the term finished, I've been chained to the vaccum cleaner. Well that's not strictly true....M and I did find time for a short break on the other side of the continent.
We were celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary on the 11/11/11 (Don't you love those numbers! - it wasn't planned back in '78 - just a lovely numerological coincidence!) and then M.'s Birthday on the 16th. What better excuse to spend 6 nights in fair Sydney Town down at the best ever location in the Rocks!
What can I say, we hadn't visited there in 25 years and it's still an awesome city.....

The Icon ;) Covered in self cleaning tiles no less!


The other icon complete with a most cooperative Seagull

Icon 2 viewed from inside Icon 1

Icon 1 viewed from Icon 2 - it was high - I felt brave!


The Heights: Didn't climb over but did walk across the bridge!

The Gaudy: No, I don't mean Murray !


The Quirky - No washing just birdcages!


The Arty- Recreation of the original laneway.

The Old Buildings - They treasure them and don't flatten them.


The Oldest Pub - one of many we visited :)


The Atmosphere: Friday night markets at The Rocks.


The Unusual: A Lovely pressed metal construction.....Umm... a urinal!

Thanks for joining me in my express 12 photo tour of the Rocks in Sydney. Believe me,you got off lightly -I was rather snap happy and took 251 photos. Maybe I'll put some of the other better pics up on Flickr. I'll pop the link up here when I get the chance to upload them.

End of an era - well that sounds rather dramatic....

2011-12-02T22:52:00.001+08:00

"Life is what happens to you, while you're busy making other plans" John Lennon

My year of study has come to an end. It happened over a month ago, but this is the first chance I've had to blog - I've been filling my time with other creative endeavours...........Hmmm, I wish.......I've actually been catching up on the housework, but it does make me somewhat happy to have a clean kitchen floor and a tidy linen closet ;)
I'm still waiting for my Cert 2 in Jewellery Manufacture to arrive in the mail. I've passed but I've been told not to hold my breath for the actual certificate to arrive. In the meantime I've done nothing creative! Despite my smug attitude about my kitchen floor and the sparkling bathroom tiles (did I mention the sparkling bathroom tiles?) I thought that with the extra free day each week now the course has finished, that I'd be churning out magnificent jewellery creations, but no..... it's pretty much been housework and the occasional half decent meal every now and then!
I still have my copper pipe trinket box to finish. It's probably only a half hour or so of work to get to the clean up stage but the weather's hotting up here in Perth and soldering out in the tin shed isn't that appealing at the mo. And of course it's the "season to be merry" and lots of shopping, wrapping, decorating of trees, socialising and prep to do before Christmas. Yeah, I know.....excuses, excuses!


To be continued.................

Class countdown!

2011-10-12T12:43:00.000+08:00

The Tafe year is nearly over for my course. I have mixed feelings - I'm looking forward to spending the time at home creating instead but really will miss the classes. And then there's the motivation issue when I'm at home - there's so many distractions: housework, shopping, washing, ironing and cooking.
I'm not saying I do them but the need to do them definately distracts me from the task of creating ;) Not to mention the biggest distraction of all - The Internet!!!
Anyway, we had a great day in class yesterday. A classmate is working on a new range and the teacher gave us all a lesson/demo in how to make a rubber mould. Jane was then able to use the mould and use the wax injector to reproduce her design in wax.

I took about 20 grams of scrap sterling in to class and melted it into an ingot then spent far too long (but I love doing it) rolling it down on the mill and then drawing it down into .8mm wire which I'll being using for earring hooks.

Another classmate Carolyn generously bought in some copper pipe for me to use for future trinket boxes. The teacher took us down to the metal workshop and we had it sliced on the cold metal bandsaw (at least I think that's what it was).
It took the metal workshop teacher a few minutes to do and will definately save me an hour, probably more of sawing. I'm always pleasantly amazed at the resources available at Tafe.

I also rolled down my ingot from last term a little more. I've decided I'll leave it now at about 1.5mm thick until I have a definate project in mind for the silver.

We also got the course info for next year. There's a possibility that we may be able to enrol in the Advanced Diploma as part time students and just do a few of the units. There's about 5 of us from this course interested in doing more. Love to be able to do that if it fits in with all the other commitments I have, like family and the day job!

Now that the formal class projects are out of the way I have to plan what I want to do in class next to make the most of my last 3 classes.............

Brass Box Pictorial

2011-10-04T22:48:00.000+08:00

Here are the pictures I took as I was making my little round Brass Box.
This isn't a tutorial (I wouldn't presume to try and tell anyone how to do this - I barely managed it myself !) It's more of a pictorial to show you my process - It was my first attempt to make a box and I'd be more than happy to hear suggestions if you know of a better or easier way to make these :)

I started with 1mm sheet brass which I formed and soldered into a 3cm diameter tube about 2 cm high....then:

I carefully sawed around the mark I had made with the calipers.


Yay! Two pieces - a lid and a base

Sand on flat surface in figure 8 action. I do this as required.

I used a cardboard template and made an extended lining to fit lid .


Lining Soldered in - now checking for fit to the base.

Working on the Base now - Bottom soldered on.

Sawing off the excess


Shoddy Sawing! Lucky I enjoy filing :) Tweak the lid to fit!

That looks better - after filing & some sanding.

Aaargh! Never noticed that before - back to re solder that bit!

Working on the lid now- soldering the top on.

After sawing. You knew I'd textured the lid in the rolling mill, right?

Ready for more and more filing fun....and some sanding.

More clean up ...then.......All done - Here 'Tis

The Lid comes off...but it fits back on....phew - wipes brow! :)

Yep - I even cleaned up the inside.

This is just a brief summary but if you have a any questions just leave a comment and I'll be happy to give more details if I can.

Works in progess.

2011-10-04T09:00:00.000+08:00

On a week's break from class so here's a snippet of some other projects I'm working on.

I pulled apart our broken toaster to salvedge the Stainless Steel outer casing. Hope to saw & pierce out some simple shapes in the not too distant future from the sheet. It's 0.5mm.

I'm also working on making a little round pill box/trinket box. The sort with a friction fit lid. Had no idea how but just jumped in anyway.

That's the lid on the left - I sweat soldered the outer piece to the inner piece when they were just flat strips. Bit like a stepped bezel really, but inside out ;) On the right is the base piece which when soldered will fit over the inner part perfectly....well in a perfect world! In reality it didn't. I thought I'd measured and cut correctly but darn - obviously I didn't!

Earlier in class the lecturer saw the lid and suggested an easier method to get a matching top & base: Start with one piece of tube and saw it to make two parts exactly the same diameter. So I put the lid to one side and reused the base piece to try it out. Funnily enough I'd thought of this earlier and abandoned the idea as too difficult, which was why I did it the other way. Well I got that arse about eh! LOL

I scribed a mark around the tube with my calipers and clamped the tube in the vice, just sawing a little at a time along the line on the top of the tube then repositioning the tube to continue sawing the next bit of the line. This went suprisingly smoothly and Voila! in no time: 2 pieces!

Next step is to fit in the inner lip in the lid (or the base - don't think it matters which one?) Then solder on a top and bottom plate.

I'll let you know how i get on ;) ......................

2011-10-01T14:48:00.003+08:00

Tafe -Weeks 29 & 30.

Last two weeks of term and we had a chance to use tools again that weren't pencils or related to wax!Oh how I've missed you torch, saw and files!
Our final assessable project for the completion of our certificate was to make a ring from scratch. This was the project:

Calculate and weigh out how much copper to add to 10 grams of fine silver casting grain.
Melt the grains and pour an ingot.
Roll the (round) ingot into a square bar of 4x4mm.
Roll the square bar into flat stock, measure up bearing in mind that the finished ring must be exactly 4.1mm wide and 1.7mm thick
Form into a ring band and solder.
Then it's to be finished to a 600 grit finish ready for marking. When it's finished our solder seam must not be visable, have no pits etc and the ring must be a perfect size L.


Work in progress with the left over strip in the background. Still some cleaning up to do.

Yay! Right width! You'll have to take my word on it that the other measurements were right too!

The vernier calipers have been in demand these past two weeks, that's for sure!We did make a ring earlier in the year but we made it to fit ourselves and were assessed on the finish rather than measurements, so this was more of a challenge, especially when we were told that if it didn't meet the requirements we'd be melting it down and starting again! The idea behind this project is that for students seeking industry jobs, they can be sent off to their new apprenticeships and have the skills to make a wedding band to the exact standards and size as required by a client/boss. Apparently making ring bands is the most common practise in the industry! I'd never really given it much thought, but it figures!

Anyway - all done - no remelt required! :) And a bonus - the Size L fits me.............

Why it pays to save your Silver scraps!

2011-10-01T14:33:00.000+08:00

Last TAFE lesson I melted down some of my sterling silver scraps. The years of collecting excess headpin and wire offcuts and other silver scraps has paid off. I ended up with a rather hefty ingot of sterling weighing 102 grams (just over 3.2 troy oz). I've more scraps to take in next term too. Here's a pic taken after a few turns through the rolling machine.

It's got a way to go yet before I can use it - lots of annealing and rolling to do!

Out Cast!

2011-09-16T14:34:00.003+08:00

Tafe - Weeks 24 -28

I haven't blogged lately so here's a rundown on the last month or so of Tafe lessons.
Our project was to design and carve a piece in wax, ready to cast.

First up - research & inspiration :) After many hours of web browsing and looking through books, inspiration was eluding me! Who'd have thought that it would be while flicking through ~~a Store catalogue~~ junk mail that I spotted a dinner set and inspiration finally hit. The contrast of the plain square shaped plates with their lovely fluid curved profile appealed to me. Then on the next page I spotted a set of bathroom scales and loved the dots! Finally I had a starting point.....

The next step was to sketch out some designs, so the drawing lessons we did earlier in term had come in handy already. I'd come up with a couple of designs but in the end I abandoned the triangular idea (Swiss Cheese anyone!) in favour of the curved square with some dots and texture.

Next step was the tech drawings which had to be to scale. Drawing comes naturally to many people - unfortunately I'm not one of them..

Then on to the wax carving. I started with a block of Green wax and the fun began. Sawing and shaping first then carving out the shape. My shape was much easier to form than the knot I carved out in an earlier lesson, so this step went pleasantly quickly. Once the front surface was shaped and sanded smooth I applied the surface texture - I used a bur to make the little concave depressions and a scribe to make the scratched lines.
The thing with casting is to get the wax as light weight as possible, so the back had to be carved out so it wouldn't use more metal than necessary when casting. Also, the piece can't be too heavy to wear - the weight of a piece in sterling silver would be about 10.5 times the weight of the wax. So I set to work with a bur in a pin vise to hollow out my wax.

The wax block is a dark bottle green - the aim is to have it looking a consistant pale translucent green when it's held up to the light.

Later I did lots more tidying, carving and sanding and the final wax weight was about 3 grams. I was really happy with the finish and so was the teacher! The better the finished wax model is- the less work needs to be done on the cast metal piece. I didn't take a final pic though as we sprung into action in the afternoon getting our pieces sprued up and into the flasks to pour in the investment, which is like a super, super fine plaster of paris.

For those not familiar with casting: the metal flask contains the wax model with the hardened investment around it, and is placed in a kiln to heat up - the wax melts out leaving a void in the investment. About 6 to 8 hours later the flask is removed from the kiln and the molten metal is poured into the hot investment and fills the void so the shape can be replicated in the metal! There's a bit more involved but you get the idea.

Which brings us to this week's lesson - The flasks were in the kiln and we busied ourselves drawing colour renderings of our designs..... these had to be a standard suitable as if to present to a client. Now mine doesn't look too colourful really but that's what happens when you are drawing silver! I used 4 shades of grey and an indigo!

Still with me? A bit long winded I know, but this is the condensed version of about 5 class days! I suspect that you will be dissatisfied with the ending of this story though!

After being removed from the kiln, a little piece of investment chipped away from inside the flask. Not sure what happened as I was busy melting my silver at the time, but it chipped in a crucial location and any silver poured in at the top would have gone straight through to come right out the bottom!
There was lots of speculation about what caused the investment to chip off - possibly my positioning of the wax in the flask (not enough clearance - don't think it was this) or my prep of the investment (hmmm - quite possibly) or it could have been no fault of mine - the flask could have been knocked going in or out of the kiln or any number of other mystery reasons.
The lecturer tried a last ditch attempt to cast anyway by plugging up the chipped investment with wet paper towells but by the time we got the silver remelted the flask had cooled down too much and the silver just spat back up out of the flask during the pour. My casting had failed!
My piece went from "one of a kind" to "none of a kind" in the space of a few minutes (insert sad face here)
Here's the remnants of my silver which I reclaimed from the investment and the work bench.

Teachers and fellow students were mortified for me but on the upside, (there's always a silver lining eh? oops - excuse the pun - sorry!) I won't have to spend next week's lesson removing my sprues and cleaning up my casting!

Drawn Out!

2011-08-10T17:34:00.002+08:00

TAFE: Weeks 21, 22 & 23.

Back at Tafe for Semester 2, we're 3 weeks in and for the first 2 weeks didn't touch a tool or a torch! Well that's unless you consider a pencil a tool!

We've been learning the practical aspects of design, particularly rendering jewellery designs with a little bit of tech drawing thrown in.

This may seem basic but it's been many years since my high school art, so it was new to me - first the basics of shading, light source etc

Then with coloured pencils

Later we learnt how to draw twisted wire and a chain

More drawing practise, this time learning the best colours to use for rendering in gold & silver then learning the tech methods of drawing a ring to scale.

Then the pencils were put away and at last some tools came out - hmmm, wax carving tools. And now for the piece that took a day and a half out of my life!!
The cord piece was the model and we had to carve a 3D model of the knot from a block of wax. I found this incredibly difficult and it was a great relief to finally finish it, having confirmed my suspicion that I'll never make the cut as a sculptor!

Halfway There!

2011-06-29T20:04:00.000+08:00

Week 20 Tafe:

I can't believe we are halfway through the year and the first semester is over already at TAFE. This week we were free to finish things off or do our own projects.

I did an anticlastic bangle. I don't have the right stakes or the right hammers to do this at home but wanted to have a go. It involved lots of noise & hammering for most of the day and I went home with an aching arm....but I also went home with this - a brass cuff. It's about 3.5 cm wide.The colour is from the constant annealing but I rather liked it so I just sanded and buffed up the edges for contrast and I'll just leave the oxidisation.

Towards the end of the day I made this open brass bangle. This was quick and simple as I cut it out with the guillotine. Now that would be a luxury to have one at home *dream*, then I drilled the holes quickly with the flex shaft. I got to use an oval steel mandrel which was a change - at home I just have a very basic round wooden mandrel.

Now - 3 weeks break before the second semester. Hope to get a little bench time at home while we're on break.

Lost Claws

2011-06-26T10:43:00.002+08:00

Week 18 and 19 TAFE:

Sunday I attempted to re solder my bail to my claw setting. I did everything right and made a successful solder join........except the bail was a little crooked.......aargh - after I'd spent ages fiddling around to set it up, it had looked pretty straight to me pre flame! So, I reheated to unsolder to start again, which worked fine........until I put it in the pickle and that's when things started to go downhill - the CZ went cloudy! Damn!
With nothing more to lose I set up to re solder it all again (maybe I could pretend my CZ was supposed to be frosted!) and that's when things went totally pear shaped! My poor little claw setting said "enough is enough" and melted.....right before my flame! (Actually it just popped apart - like a mini explosion)

This kind of wrecked my weekend. I sulked, I whinged about nothing going right - In short I transformed into a drama queen - but the upside is the family gave me a wide berth and my husband cooked a nice roast dinner that night! (there's always a silver lining - right?)

I dragged my sorry arse to class and told my sad tale to the sympathetic teacher with some embarrassment. She gave me the choice of remaking, working on some other exercises or working on my own projects for the day.***. Initially, I was all keen to remake but gave up on that idea after a few more frustrating hours. Instead I played with brass and the sandblaster. Now that was more fun!

*** Wondering why the teacher didn't make me complete another claw setting? Well, this is a pre apprenticeship level course and completing a claw setting was an extra project the teacher gave a few of us to stretch our skills - so it's not actually a requirement of the course, although it will be a personal challenge for me in the distant future :)
Despite the occasional frustrations above - I'm still enjoying the course..... really :)

Brassed Off!

2011-06-18T21:45:00.000+08:00

Week 17 TAFE:

No photos - Suffice to say, all was going well with setting the CZ in the claw setting, until the end of the day when doing the final clean up....the bail parted company with the setting....what can I say?....I did a shoddy soldering job! :( Hopefully I'll be able to re solder carefully to fix it.....we'll see.......to be continued.

Moving on....at home this week I made some oversized earrings from huge brass discs on Sterling Ear wires. They're 5cm (2 inches) in diameter but they're not too heavy to wear as they're in a thinner gauge of metal. I had fun texturing the metal.

'Landscape' Convex discs - Roll printed with Aluminum mesh.

'Portrait' Convex' Discs - Roll printed with textured paper.

'Portrait' Concave Discs. Hammered Finish.

Finish Clasp - check!

2011-06-08T14:34:00.000+08:00

Week 16 Tafe:

Yesterday in class, I made a little bail for my soon to be CZ Pendant. It was gonna be a little rabbit ear bail but while annealing, the edges started to melt, so by the time I filed it back it didn't leave me with much room to saw out a triangle from the middle, (plus I was sort of over it) Now it's just going to stay the traditional bail shape. It's only about 6mm in width.

This modest little finding took me about an hour to make - it was a process of measuring, marking, sawing, annealing, bending, annealing again, nearly melting, bending again and filing.
This gave me a new appreciation for the Sterling Silver bails that I already had at home. They were handmade by Balinese Silversmiths...and were extremely good value at $1.16 each! :)

Then I moved on to finish the padlock clasp. Technically, it's not perfect but it looks OK and it works! I'm happy - I'd prefer that it was perfect(he he!)but I remind myself frequently that I'm a Cert 2 student (pre apprenticeship level)I'm not doing an apprenticeship or the diploma course, and at least I now know in theory how it should be done perfectly! Maybe if there's a next time.........

Moving on!

2011-06-06T18:13:00.000+08:00

Week 15 TAFE:

Our teacher has moved us on to a new project. So this week we started a prong setting.
The padlock clasp hasn't been abandoned - just put aside. I quite like working on a couple of projects at once. While one project is in the pickle, I can be filing the other item or whatever. It mixes it up a bit so things don't get boring....and I'm happy to have a little break from the padlock clasp.

It was left up to us whether we wanted to do a 6 or 4 prong setting for our 6mm cubic zircona and I opted for a 4 prong setting. Yes, it was ~~a cop out~~ the easier option but I want to walk before I run ;)
What I find the most challenging is working on such a small scale. I realize that a 6mm stone is a decent size stone (especially if it was a diamond!) but even so, working on the setting is still very fiddly work, and I'm full of admiration for those that set teensy 1mm stones.

Progress report on the clasp from hell.... ;)

2011-06-02T20:01:00.026+08:00

Week 13 & 14 at TAFE:

Both TAFE days I've been working on the padlock clasp which is proving to be a challenge. I did some work at home on the weekend and soldered the chain links of the bracelet, and while I was at it, I thought I'd just solder the top plate to the base of the padlock clasp while I was at the bench: easy peasy - a five minute job...after all it's just a variation of a hollow form and I've churned a couple out with not too many issues since I learnt the technique ......Aha! - what naive optimism - It was actually A PITA that took 4 attempts!

The top is very gently domed and there was one little section where the top just wouldn't solder to the wall of the piece, although when it was all bound up pre soldering it looked like it was all flush and connected OK. Despite me trying the troubleshooting tips from the teacher(filing & gentle hammering of the edges) I still had a tiny hairline section that just wouldn't connect!

Stick soldering saved the day - something I don't usually do because I'm not too good at this and I find that I flood too much solder on the piece when I solder this way. Anyway this time that was a good thing (yay!) and it filled the 'gap'! Now there's just this small matter of extensive firescale to address LOL!
Many jewellers will tell you that solder will not fill a gap. Bearing this in mind it's quite possible that my problem wasn't so much a gap. It may have been that the section was dirty or perhaps contaminated by pickle, which prevented the solder from flowing in that spot. Who knows? Anyway it's all fixed now!

In class I prepared the arm which I soldered on to a little hand formed tube, it had to be hardened, filed, annealed and turned up and soldered. I had to "fit" it to the body, working out the placement of the holes in the wall,which I drilled, burred & filed out ready to take the arm and be riveted in place......which is what I'll be doing next week in class!

Rain drop Pendant

2011-05-27T10:15:00.001+08:00

I've entered my latest creation in an online exhibition which will be hosted on the ganoksin Orchid forum. The pieces must be made with non precious metals, so that suited me as I've been making my hollow form pieces in Brass.
The exhibition's not juried, so I know my piece will make the cut, what's tricky is the photo - it must be of "jury quality"
Here's the picture I've submitted.

Hopefully it meets the standard required. Photographing jewellery is quite painful for me, anything polished has reflection - usually reflecting features I don't want included, like my hand or what I'm wearing (the pink pyjama syndrome) Aargh! then there's the "evil" white balance that makes the purest snow driven whites a dirty blue gray tone despite my hours messing around with my camera settings.
That's why I shot my pic on a gray background this time - I decided to save my self the white balance angst :)

There are numerous online articles showing how to make light boxes and to take great photos of jewellery, maybe I'll check out the resources and have a go at making a light box.

Update: Got the news that my photo was Ok and up to standard - Yay!

New Tools - jury is out.........

2011-05-20T20:44:00.000+08:00

First up Week 12 at Tafe: I still have to solder last week's jumprings into a bracelet but this week we started working on the clasp. A hollow form padlock clasp - it's still a work in progress. Once again we rolled our silver sheet down from a little section of bar ingot.

It's satisfying learning to fabricate materials on the spot as needed instead of keeping all the different gauges of sheet and wire on hand. Although if I was doing it this way at home I'd definitely need to get quicker at it...oh and I'd need a better rolling mill, oh and draw plates etc etc -He He :)

In other happenings - The Aussie dollar is pretty healthy and the silver price dropped back from it's near $50 high so it was time for a bit of internet shopping.
Apart from materials that I actually needed, I also splurged $20(aud)on a new tool.
~~Rocket~~ wire twisting pliers :)

They held a lot of promise but alas, I was a tad disappointed after giving them a test run! Check out the video instructions on how they work.
I tested them on 16 gauge square copper wire but I found it impossible to close the handles to secure the wire. I had to squeeze the handles in my vice, as I didn't have the wrist strength, hmm - what a weakling! Anyway I did twist a few 13cm (about 5 inch) lengths of wire. They twisted evenly and I soldered them into rings to make this pendant.

Next up - some square silver 18 gauge. A 60 cm (2 feet)length just didn't twist evenly. You can see a couple of the pieces in the photo above next to the pliers. I ended up cutting it into shorter bits to try and salvage it. That did the trick (sort of) and I made this:

My conclusion: I should have googled a bit more before I bought these. Apparently the pliers are good for wire up to 18 gauge (1mm), so it was no wonder I had trouble with the 16 gauge copper. I haven't tried twisting 2 strands of round wire to make twisted wire yet but the video makes it look easy.
I think I'll use them occasionally in the future but honestly a hand or power drill and a vice will do the same job, so I probably could have lived without these and saved my 20 bucks. However these pliers do get a 10 out of 10 for their good looks.
They look pretty damn cool in the tool drawer.

I don't think I've experienced "tool remorse" before - LOL ....What tools have you purchased that have underwhelmed you?

New Term, New Design Books!

2011-05-11T14:53:00.001+08:00

Week 11 - Back to Class yesterday after a two week break. This term we'll do more on design and also learn various findings. To really get us comfortable with soldering we will be making a chain bracelet and fabricating a locket style clasp.
We started today with a 6mm ingot of silver and rolled it down in the rolling mill, then used the draw plates to get it down to 1.5mm wire. Then we formed and sawed our jumprings ready for lots of soldering!
Not really a lot to show for the days work - we were hanging around a bit, waiting for a free Rolling mill and draw plate - there was a bit of a traffic jam!

Waiting at home after class were some books I'd ordered from Dover Publications. Got to love those copyright free images they sell! One of the books is full of vector border and frame designs. I'd thought they'd be some good metal etching designs in them. Happily there is but a few of the designs are suitable for saw piercing too.

So, this morning I got some sawing and piercing practise in using one of the frame designs. I'm kicking myself now for not doing it in a thicker gauge of sheet. It turned out OK, I still have a bit of tidying up to do on it, but it's a bit flimsy (22gauge) to use in jewellery unless I attach it to a back plate or something. I do like it though so will have another go later in 1mm (18gauge) sheet.

More Stationery - no I'm not standing still........

2011-05-06T19:11:00.000+08:00

.....because then I'd be Stationary!

Seems I got my "Stationery" and "Stationary" mixed up in my last post! The first sentence (not sentance) of my last post I effectively said "standing still is very hot right now" ooops... never mind - it probably is ...but you knew what I meant right?

Back to stationery of the ~~paper~~ metal kind. I've had two weeks off from TAFE as we follow the school terms, so with the extra days at home I found time to make more notebook pendants - this time in silver.

Here they are:

A little note from me................

2011-04-17T17:23:00.001+08:00

Stationary is very hot right now! They have cute trendy stores devoted to all that is papery goodness and I'm not talking about Officeworks. Mum will confirm that as a kid, when we went shopping, my sisters would head for the toy department and I'd nag Mum until we visited the stationary dept. I used to covet little notebooks, cute rubber erasers and pencil sharpeners.
Many years have passed and I still love stationary, so it was only a matter of time before that influence showed up in my jewellery.
This little notebook pendant is a mere 2cm by 3 cm. It's a copper prototype but I'm definitely going to make some more of these in Sterling Silver very soon. Not to be worn while swimming, showering or singing in the rain!

How do you pronounce Chenier?

2011-04-17T16:43:00.002+08:00

Never mind - I'll just call it tube!

Week 9

I've pretty much finished my Nature assignment - ready to hand in next week. It's all assembled now. Here's a couple of pics:


Front View


Side view showing layers

Reverse with leaf texture

I'm going to clean up the edges a bit and leave it at that I think.
The family have critiqued it and think that I should've put a leaf texture on the top frame layer to match the back of the bottom layer, otherwise they like my efforts. I agree - I'd thought of texturing the top frame, a little too late mind you as I'd already finished it, so to go back and texture it in the rolling mill would have distorted the frame shape and size. Much as I love filing I didn't want to have to rework it all.... so it is what it is!

Tuesday in class, I had a hankering to make a hinge! I'd used manufactured tube in my assignment but this time the lecturer showed me how to make some Chenier from scratch for hinges. What fun! I started with a bit of silver ingot about 1 cm thick and about 4 cm long. Rolled it down in the rolling mill until it was .7mm thick. Then forged it in a swage block and on the bench to form a 'sort of half tube'. When it was curled over enough, I started drawing it down until it formed a 'real' tube. The Lecturer showed me stick soldering to join the seam and hey presto I had Chenier! (even tho' I can't pronounce it!)

Top: The rolled out Ingot. Bottom: Finished Tube

I cut the tube into small lengths to make a hinge but as I was shown a couple of different methods of doing this I might make a separate post later on with all the details.

Unfinished hinge experiments.

Hollow form Fun.

2011-04-14T22:04:00.004+08:00

I ordered some1 mm brass sheet so I could try out some more hollow form shapes, similar to my week 4 efforts. It arrived this week.
Couldn't wait to get started on Wednesday. Pretty much the wall is constructed first then it is soldered to a slightly larger textured bottom plate. Then the excess is sawn and filed off, so the join doesn't show.
There must be a hole in it somewhere before the top plate is soldered on to allow the heat and gases to escape and avoid a hot metal explosion! So I measured out and drilled my holes for the chain at this point then soldered on the top. After more sawing, filing and sanding and it was all finished! Easy peasy :) Well, it's sounds easy but in real life it took me the best part of the day to do! Hopefully after I've done a few more of these I'll get my production time down a bit!

I'm loving the texture too. It's from a fibrous scrapbooking paper. Reminds me of Leather ;)

Still going on that Nature Theme!

2011-04-13T19:33:00.000+08:00

Week 7 & 8 !
I'm a bit tardy with these blog posts and the Tuesdays at TAFE are just slipping by so quickly.

I've still been working on the Nature theme assignment these past weeks. I've lined up and drilled all the holes and measured and cut the tubing to separate my metal layers and in the process was introduced to a new little tool - a tube cutting jig. Very handy little tool that is now on my wish list (Ahem, note to my kids - Mother's Day coming up if you're reading this!)
Here's a pic of all the bits ready to be riveted together:

In between working on this we've done other tasks including an exercises in measuring and drilling and another sawing and piercing exercise. Funnily enough - I'm not finding these exercises tedious - they really are building up my skills so that these basic techniques become second nature. Hey, I even enjoy filing and sanding now!

Silver owl.

2011-03-27T14:06:00.000+08:00

At the beginning of the month I made a copper and silver owl pendant, and I promised myself I'd make another using just Sterling Silver.
Here he is in his Rosemary Bush "tree".........

Design is evolving...

2011-03-26T19:06:00.011+08:00

Week 6 - Etching has been a pain - tried to do it at home but the photocopy was 6 days old by then and it just wouldn't transfer the ink to the metal. I think a fresh photocopy is the go - then the toner should transfer all OK. For those that don't know - the transferred toner then acts as a resist. The raw metal will etch but anything covered by the toner is protected from the acid.
I wasted my day in class last Tuesday a bit, ~~My middle aged brain~~ I forgot to take my master pattern along - I could have made a fresh photocopy there if I had been prepared. Note to self: I will pack my school bag the night before, I will pack my school bag the night before..... It did give me time to finish my hollow form project from week 4 though, so all was not lost.
Today I played catch up at home. I successfully transferred my pattern and etched the text to the metal. Next up, I spent ages trying to work out how I'd add another layer to the design as the lecturer suggested, but finally settled on an off centre tree. This fits in with my original design as the reverse of the backplate (text layer) is textured with a skeleton leaf imprint.

Bit more work to do on it yet, but I'm confidant that all will end well when it's all riveted together:)

Did you know I can't draw?

2011-03-25T19:06:00.001+08:00

Week 5 - We got the written brief for our assignment. Luckily, the ideas I'd had fitted in all OK. The issue is drawing them - we're expected to present ideas and drawings in a visual diary. I had drawn a very rough sketch but I think I'll have to work on this side of things. Maybe that's why I gravitate to simple clean lines in my work - because give me a ruler and I can draw them! Not so easy for me if curves etc are involved.
Anyway here's my rather lame visual diary entry - definitely something to be improved upon in the coming weeks:

I was going to etch some text in my design (the dictionary definition of "Nature") and I'd drawn it all up in Publisher and printed it out.
Then I photocopied it on Acetate and reversed the design and copied it again to PNP transfer paper so the text was mirror image. This way when transferred to the metal the writing would read correctly. Bit of a rigmarole but I'd done this at home.

I spent time in class sawing out my metal, and although I didn't get around to etching my piece, we did see an etching demo. We were shown foldforming too so I had a little play around with that in the afternoon.
Our lecturer talked to each of us about our designs and while she said my idea was good, she suggested adding another layer, perhaps partially covering the text to draw the viewer in and add more dimension.
Well this left me with lots to think about (and draw up!)during the following week.

Tafe on Tuesdays.

2011-03-25T18:27:00.000+08:00

I love everything about Tuesdays now (oh, Ok with the exception of the Parking Ticket Machine at the Train Station that refuses to recognise my Smartrider card - but now is not the time for whinging about Transperth!)

I enjoy the train ride into the city even though I never get a seat and I enjoy the walk to TAFE through the city station, then up past the Museum & Art Gallery. But best of all I love 8.45am till 4pm when I'm in class.
Being a student after all these years is so much fun!

Week 4 - in the morning we were shown how to file a strip of metal to mitre nice sharp corners in metal and form a square. Then we got busy on our own little square hollow form. I didn't finish, but did manage to get back to it and finished it in week six. Later we were shown cold connections and rivets and given a few practise exercises.

I added holes to add a chain and it will hang as a diamond shape. Hope to do another in silver with horizontal holes to hang as a square.

Our homework was to think about a design project for an upcoming assignment - The theme was "Nature" and the project was to design (yes, on paper - aargh help!) a piece using the skills we'd been practicing, such as sawing, filing, texturing, and cold connections..... but no soldering!

Mixed Metal Challenge

2011-03-03T19:34:00.000+08:00

In the Metalwork Section at the Beading Forum we've just had a mixed metal challenge.

I spent a month procrastinating about a design and finally on the second last day, I posted in the forum that I was dropping out of the challenge because I'd run out of time. Hmmm...weird, but dropping out took the pressure off me (as it does!) and kick started me into action with a brand new idea!
I finished this little fella that evening (within the deadline!) and I'm really chuffed with the result - the sawing, filing and soldering exercises we're doing at my TAFE course have given me a bit more confidence and all the steps went smoothly :)

Oh and here's my inspiration for this little fella. A greeting card that I bought for an friend's birthday last week. Cute huh?

My next task - I'm going to make a slightly smaller all Sterling version....stay tuned :)

JAW Finished - TAFE Started instead :)

2011-03-02T08:40:00.004+08:00

You may have noticed I haven't posted up any new creations for my Jewellery A Week Project (JAW). That's because I've abandoned it.
I started it to encourage myself to create to get out of a slump. Well now I don't feel the need to do that..... and the reason is.......I've gone back to Study :)

My friend Jane from Planet Lime encouraged me to join her in a course this year. So each Tuesday this year I will spend the day at TAFE completing a Certificate 2 in Jewellery Manufacture. I've had three days at class so far, and we have started with the basics. (There are complete beginners in the course, as well as some with more experience and it's designed to prepare for apprenticeship or to go on to the Diploma Course).
I've spent the last three lessons, sawing, piercing and filing and I'm loving it. Even though I've been doing these things for several years, it's a very hands on course and some of the piercing and filing exercises are a lot more intricate than I'd normally do in my own pieces. I'm feeling challenged and loving it! I'm learning lots of new tips and techniques too, which is great.

Week one, we spent the morning sawing and piercing the whale from Brass sheet..

Afternoon, we spent filing 4 x 4mm square copper wire to form different shapes. All I'd ever done with a file over the years is to smooth edges of hand sawn work, never anything like this! Definately felt like a beginner with this exercise.

Week two, Morning - Sawed Brass, measured up and formed into a wide band and soldered and shaped into a ring, then filed, sanded etc.
Afternoon - Started with a 4 x 4mm square copper wire, formed, soldered and shaped into a ring and then filed this into triangular type profile.

Week 3 - Were introduced to the rolling mills, we'll be making out own wire and sheet for class projects. We practised on copper first, then we were given an approx 25mm x 6mm rod of sterling which we milled into a long rectangle, taking the piece to 5mm x 1.5mm thick. We measured and made up a plain ring band from the result. The workshop has about 5 (yes 5!) rolling mills. So, the second project was to work on while we were waiting for a mill, as there's 12 in the class. We cut brass, domed it, soldered it to sheet, sawed around the shape to remove the excess backing sheet, the aim being to not see the join when we've finished our clean up.
The picture below is of my Works in Progress. I still have finishing up to do on these.

This is giving everyone good grounding in sawing, piercing, filing & soldering as well as introduction to the various workshop tools and equipment.
Next week we'll be starting on some design work - Really look forward to Tuesdays these days :)

JAW - Week 4

2011-01-28T19:49:00.000+08:00

Busy week with other things so to make up for the lack of creativity - I've gone for multiples!

Some simple single bead earrings with square & rectangle beads and Rectangular ear wires.

JAW Week 3

2011-01-23T00:05:00.033+08:00

This week I tackled an unfinished object. I have very many UFO's and I look at them periodically to see if they move me to finish them! Mostly they don't - but this week I saw this disc that I'd "bumped" texture wise and decided to make a pendant with it.

I'd textured the metal previously with my Automatic Centre Punch - a neat tool that is designed for making a mark in metal where you want to drill a hole - it stops the drill bit from slipping. I had more fun with my less boring use for it though. I loved the bumpy texture it made which I discovered when I was doing the holes in my button pendants.

Even though this is my personal challenge and I make the rules, I thought I'd better not cheat, so I made another piece of jewellery from scratch as well: the "(less)Bumpy" Earrings!

JAW Week 2

2011-01-16T15:27:00.002+08:00

Aargh, I'm only into week two of my personal challenge to make a piece of jewellery a week and I really thought it was going to go pear shaped this week - I've been very productive in other things around the house and at work this week but the week slipped by and I hadn't looked at my jewellery tools at all. (Except for my vice which is still attached to the meals area table from my last project -so it's hard to avoid, in fact I even dusted it!)

Last chance today for week 2 so I knuckled down and made this little Pendant. It may seem like I have a haberdashery obsession but really I don't - it's just a phase I'm going through, but I do like all the bits and pieces when they're replicated in Silver :)

My pendant ~~will be~~ is up for sale ~~soon~~ here in This Etsy shop which has been set up by volunteer members of the Etsy Community to help raise funds for The Queensland Premier's Disaster Relief Appeal.
The shop is full of great stock, so check it all out, as proceeds (less Etsy & Paypal Fees) from your purchases will help the Victims from the recent tragic flooding in Queensland.

JAW Week 1 - New Personal Challenge

2011-01-09T14:14:00.000+08:00

I notice many bloggers set themselves challenges. The one that springs to mind is the photo a day challenge. One friend Amanda has just finished her year of photos and another Feli has just started for the year.

Last year many jewellery artists took on the challenge to make a Ring a Day (RAD) and this year there's a Ring A Week (RAW) challenge going on. I sat on the sidelines and watched in awe at the creations and the commitment.

Inspired by this, I've set myself my own little personal challenge this year - My Jewellery a week (JAW) project - It'll be a personal little motivational tool just for me to get me moving: off the computer (hopefully) and into production. And at the end of it all I hope to have at least 52 pieces of jewellery to show for it.
No other rules or conditions apply, I'm just setting myself a goal to make at least one piece of jewellery a week.

Week 1: Handsawn and Textured Sterling Heart Pendant with Single Crystal drop.

Happy New Year

2011-01-03T12:07:00.000+08:00

Happy New Year to all.

Years ago when the kids were younger we got a few little cacti and popped them in a terracotta bowl. It was something for the kids to grow. They lost interest in their little 'garden' about a week later but the cacti have continued to grow over the years, surviving on the water I give them sporadically but mostly thriving on neglect. I've often thought to rehouse them in a bigger pot but if I get too close they warn me off with their spikes. That and the redback spiders that reside there ensure I keep my distance- they don't seem to mind the prickles.

The biggest cactus thanked me for the rations of water I've provided by coming out in this beautiful white flower on the last day of 2010 - it wasn't over thankful though because by the end of the first day of 2011 the flower had drooped and wilted and no amount of talking, attention or water was going to bring it back!

What great timing - that it's short 24 hour lifespan saw the old year out and welcomed the New Year in!

A time for reflection - where the heck did 2010 go??

2010-12-31T10:59:00.001+08:00

As 2010 comes to an end and I reflect on the year - all I can think of is - heck - that went fast! It may have dragged for others but I'll bet they are young - Pretty much for anyone my age ( I'll be coy!) I expect that it flew by!
Creatively 2010 has been a 'so so' year for me. I've had many great ideas for designs but in reality many pieces have bombed - Firescale - how I hate thee! I've unintentionally melted a few great ideas and I somehow wonder how I managed to solder anything successfully sometimes. My enameling has been a bit hit and miss but I loved the class I took earlier this year and am looking forward to experimenting more with powdered glass!

On a positive note, I redid my button pendant in 2 sizes. It's evolved very subtlety - but I think they work as well as the original which is currently with my daughter on her backpacking adventures around Europe and the UK and is apparently collecting the occasional compliment when she wears it. .

I was chuffed when, after sending some work to my retail stockist the other week that these pieces and another piece sold immediately :) So, all in all maybe 2010 wasn't too bad after all :)

Anyway, I've decided that for 2011 that I'm going back to basics. I'm going to revisit the techniques I learned as a beginner - piercing, hammering, riveting and yes even soldering, maybe re do a few pieces that were successful, maybe reinvent them a little, but generally hone in on technique. I might even do a few step by step projects from the magazines I subscribe to consolidate the re learning process.

And to finish off the year creatively I made these two pendants. The simple clean lines that I love - no soldering just simple metal forming. I was playing around to see if I could make a mobius ring inspired by my friend Annie's love of all things mobius. The ring bit didn't work for me but I loved twisting the metal and these were the happy result.

I'm feeling very positive about it all.........Roll on 2011 ...Happy New Year to you all........

Merry Christmas Everyone!

2010-12-23T19:47:00.000+08:00

I should be so Lucky - Lucky , Lucky, Lucky!

2010-12-22T20:12:00.000+08:00

Yep, not Kylie Minogue but me! (Aussie reference for my US readers!)
Today the postie delivered a package - I won a prize on a blog giveaway and today it arrived! Thanks so much Jacquie :)

Jacquie makes the most wonderfully luscious Body Products. My prize was the 'Energy' Body Butter from her Empire of Delight collection. And receiving this was a delight. First, the cool Art work on the Post Pak - I'll bet that made the postie smile, then the wrapping which made me smile, then the product packaging which was so classy and stylish and finally the Body Butter which smelt divine. I put some on my hands right away and now several hours later I'm in awe of how soft & smooth my usually wrinkled housewife hands feel.

Jacquie has an Etsy Shop and a web site which she is currently revamping, so check out her blog for updates.
Empire Of Delight sell at selected markets around Perth too so make sure you keep an eye out for her - she has a huge following locally for her awesome bath bombs too.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree............

2010-12-19T11:35:00.001+08:00

Each year when I unpack the tree, I look at the box and silently wonder why my tree looks nothing like the picture on the box. The photo on the box is a lush Canadian faux Pine with dense branches full of greenery. On my tree the branches are not dense or lush and I can see the wall behind through all the gaps.

I muse on which family got the got the lovely Canadian Pine that was supposed to be packed in my box ;)

I was thinking about getting a real tree this year instead and found this article online about real versus fake trees. Real trees come out way in front despite the longevity of a fake tree - apparently fake trees are replaced every 6 to 9 years. Using that logic then, if I keep my tree out of landfill for longer than the average 9 years then I'm reducing it's carbon footprint a bit more to try and even up the score.
So for the sake of the planet it's here to oversee many more Christmases with us. It's already done it's 9 years of duty as I have photos of the kids sitting in front of it in 2001 when we got our first digital camera.

Besides it brushes up pretty well when it's all dressed up.....and it doesn't drop pine needles either...

Pickle Break out!

2010-11-19T14:15:00.000+08:00

The other day I made up some pickle with a mix of vinegar & salt in a little container. I had a copper piece to pickle and I didn't want to use the same solution that I use for my silver jewellery.

I used the satay stick to stir the solution and the plastic forks to get my jewellery piece in and out and when I'd finished I just rested them across the container and walked away. Today I walked past and noticed this rather disturbing but none the less pretty scene.

Little did I know the pickle had aspirations to be a science experiment and would use these implements to transform and attempt an escape :)

PS: for non jewellery makers - I'm not talking about the yummy crunchy green things we eat but a solution to remove fire scale after soldering!

Quirky Earring Displays

2010-11-17T13:40:00.000+08:00

The tardy blogger is back to show how I've been spending some of my time lately :)

I made a couple of pairs of Stud earrings and it occurred to me how hard it is to display such tiny pieces of jewellery so they aren't overlooked.
I accidentally came across The Graphics Fairy and loved all the vintage images there, I'm a big fan of the old fashioned black and white line drawings and lucked out to find this Phrenology head Image.

After playing with it in Photoshop and Publisher, this is the result. I'm no expert in photoshop, but luckily my son was at hand to help me when I got "stuck".

The cards are two layers so one earring goes on the front and the other on the reverse side. The second photo shows the cards at an angle so you can see the mechanics of it all. They're about 8cm tall.

And just for fun, on the reverse side of the card, I substituted my own words. (Click on the first pic to enlarge.)

Not actually sure if I'll ever use these, maybe one day at an indoor craft show (they're not windproof!) Either way they were fun to make and I learnt a few new Photoshop skills.

Button It Up!

2010-08-29T13:17:00.000+08:00

I've had rather a constructive Sunday Morning today. I got up early with the intention of wasting it reading the Sunday Papers. But alas, it was not to be. The delivery people had thrown the paper under my son's car and there was no way I could reach it without getting on my hands and knees and crawling under the car. Given that I've got a dodgy knee at the moment that wasn't going to happen, so I retreated back into the house for a sulk and a cuppa.
Instead of sulking though, after my cuppa, I got started on an idea I had been toying with for a jewellery piece. A few hours later this was the result - A Sterling Silver Faux Button Pendant! Hand fabricated and Hand sewn!

Of course, now i have lots of other ideas for haberdashery related jewellery items, but they'll have to wait as Murray retrieved the paper and I've been catching up on all the non news instead.
Don't know about any one else, but in our house we spend a couple of hours reading the Sunday Paper and when we're finished we announce "There's nothing in this Paper - I don't know why we get it!!

All Fired Up!

2010-08-15T16:42:00.000+08:00

Happy to finally put up a blog post to show something I've made. Creatively this year has been a bit of a non event for me, so it's great to be back into it again.
This term I enrolled at an enamelling class down at my favourite place of learning The Fremantle Arts Centre.
I've done 3 classes so far and I'm just loving it. Great teacher (Jacquie Sprogoe), great classmates and a relaxed, informative and enjoyable class.
I've nothing to show off from the class just yet - I'm doing a cloisonne piece at the moment and it's a work in progress but today, inspired by my lessons, I fired up my kiln at home, (yes that poor neglected piece of equipment I purchased last year!) and had a play.
Just did a couple of simple sifted pieces but it gave me a bit of a feel for the firing times, how thick to put the layers on etc, so all in all a good afternoons work and I realized I don't have to be scared of my kiln - it's actually quite user friendly! Using the kiln in class has given me a bit of confidence I think.

Here's the results - first one opaque white over copper and the second one was an unintentional but pleasant surprise with opaque white over opaque black. I've oxidised the edges of the copper too as I love the look of the blackish border around the pieces.

Bali

2010-08-06T23:05:00.000+08:00

In July we had the pleasure of a week's holiday in Bali.
Aussies, particularly those of us from the West are very spoiled in that it's a mere 3.5 hours flying time to Bali. We can be in a tropical paradise in the same travel time that that it would take to drive down to our State's beautiful South West Wine Region. That and the fact that there are in excess of 60 Perth/Bali flights per week make it a popular international travel destination when we're not travelling locally.

Jewellery making readers of this blog know Bali as the place that those intricate Granulated and Filigree Sterling Silver Beads come from. And while Bali is the home to many talented Silversmiths it is so much more.

It's a place of contrasts - it's a place where you can trip over the uneven pavements and jump over the open drainage holes while making your way into the latest designer stores, or you can find yourself bargaining vigorously for a pair of "faux" designer sunglasses that end up costing a mere $3 in the markets.

Left: Gridlock Bali Style Right: Kuta Roadside Temple

It's a place where you can pay $10 for a glass of wine in the hotel or opt for a cool Bintang Beer straight from an Esky for under $2 from a local beach bar while sitting under the shade of a tree on Kuta beach.

Left: Under the Shade At Kuta Beach Right: Legian Beach

I looked out from my 4th floor balcony of the hotel and looked over thatched rooftops of people's homes. But it's not all shopping, eating and drinking. Away from the shops, and the motor bikes and scooters, Bali has beautiful countryside and culture to explore - Kintamani & Ubud and lots more.

View from our 4th Floor Hotel Balcony - The Haven, Seminyak

We took a day trip to the Ubud Area, renowned for it's Art Markets. I bought this beaded Wicker Basket. The bead weaving is done in 2 drop peyote stitch. This was a stitch I enjoyed in my Bead weaving days.Having bought this, I was thrilled and horrified at the same time. Thrilled to own a piece of this work (I got it as a pressie for my daughter) but sad at the low price we paid for the hours of work that this would have taken. We paid 100,000 rupiahs which is about $12AUD. Having said that, our driver said we paid an OK price (as in weren't ripped off) but 80,000 rups would have been better!

Bali's a great holiday with lots to see & do and lovely countryside and culture to explore but by far, the greatest asset Bali has is the Balinese people :)

What's Black & White & Read all Over?

2010-06-01T15:18:00.006+08:00

During the last few years, within the extended family we agreed to give money instead of buying Birthday Presents.
It's Dad's Birthday this month and he'll get money too. He's really good and when he spends the money he makes a point of telling us what he's bought. He never lets it be absorbed or just disappear into the household budget.
There's good and bad to this system. Good because it's so easy for the giver.......no trawling the shops wondering what to buy and will he/they like it etc etc...but it's bad because I always feel a little guilty at the lack of effort required on my part and maybe it's a tad boring for the receiver.
To ease my guilt I always try and wrap the money nicely, so it looks gift like rather than money just shoved in a card!
Dad follows the stock market so I based my wrapping on the share price page from the newspaper. I made a gift bag from an A4 copy of the page (the actual newspaper was a bit flimsy to use), and copied a second page to make the gift card and Heart. Trimmed with red card and sealed with a red paperclip, it's all set to go....as soon as I put the money in it, that is!

I've really enjoyed looking through all the paper craft blogs to get gift wrap ideas. I'm going to try not to use any commercial gift wraps this year.
I found two versions of the Gift Bag Tutorial, here where the sample is a music score/page and here where they've used pages from discarded children's books. And while I'm throwing links around, here's a Paper and Craft Paradise where I've dropped quite a few hours - enjoy!

Gunna!

2010-05-31T12:44:00.000+08:00

I've looked back through my posts so far this year which have been few and far between and I can't help noticing that I was Gunna Do this or Gunna Do that.
Well I'm reporting back and to tell the truth not a lot of it has been done.
For instance I haven't touched the negative scanner that I blogged about in January, it is sitting here mocking me as it gathers dust. In fact it's dropped of the To Do List indefinitely now!
In that same post I mentioned Decluttering and Healthier eating etc. The Decluttering is an ongoing thing - sort of one step forward and two steps back. The more I get rid of, it seems the more other "stuff" comes into the house -usually via the other family members! It's like the universe is saying to every piece of stuff "Hey come over here - we've got some free space to fill now - you'll fit right in!"
The good news from that blog post is I've decluttered a couple of kilos, I'm exercising fairly regularly and I'm generally healthier than I was then!

My blog post in March I was gunna create wonders with my new dies and the hyraulic press - well I did manage to create a mess!

My hydraulic press is manual and I obviously gave it one too many cranks as I broke the die and the metal cut through in places - that was not meant to happen! Shame because that was my favourite shape but I do still have the large size and the small size die left to play with later....probably a lot later.........

It's not all negative though, I've had sporadic bursts of creativity and made myself a ring with an enamel dome I made when I first got my kiln last June, when the kiln was my hot blogging topic and I was gunna do lots of enamelling.
Here it is:

I really want to fire up the kiln again and start experimenting with more enamel work but well.........I'm not gunna make any promises about when!!

Six of The Best........................

2010-05-23T15:36:00.006+08:00

Western Australia is full of talented Artisans and today I'm promoting some of my friends that I have met and befriended via the online crafting community. I hope to feature other Artisans from time to time in Future posts too.
As we all need to do our bit for the environment by shopping locally where possible, I hope you'll support them too :)

In no particular order I present:

Modern Homewares Beautiful Fabrics transformed to brighten up your Ironing Board or cover and carry your Casserole Dish or keep that Tea Pot warm and cosy.

Empire Of Delight Luxury luscious Bath Products. Spoil yourself or someone special with Strawberry Surprise Bath Bombs, Secret Devilry poppyseed Soap, Exfoliating Scrubs, Silky Lip Balms and much more.

Letters For Lilly Made to Order Bespoke Bridal Design - Featuring a delightful and modern version of a bridal bouquet, beautiful, whimsical and everlasting - a memorable keepsake that can be handed down as heirlooms.

Polyclarific Beads, Buttons, Magnets, Jewellery expertly made from Polymer Clay. A diverse collection including beautiful organic Necklaces and the Cool Retro 1950's collection. Sign up to their newsletter for offers and discounts.

Tea For Bini Fun painted 'paper' Airplanes swoop across canvas skies.
Painted Mixtapes, Typewriters and Videos live on to adorn our walls, or keep your notes and secret writings in a cute decorated Moleskin journal.

I Heart Charlie Wonderful textile creations from our Beautiful South West. Find one of a kind or limited edition Journals and Tote Bags and pouches. Pleated and Pin tucked goodness.

When snow turns to sludge!

2010-04-24T08:44:00.007+08:00

I bought some fabulous Agate Drusy cabs and decided to set one in a ring. I didn't want anything fancy - just a nice simple bezel type setting.
As you can see below, that's what I made - all went well with the metal work, making the bezel setting and all that - here's the finished ring.......

Actually though, it all went pear shaped at the last minute.
The stone started off as a lovely snow white, frosty, sugary WHITE stone. By the time I finished it was a GRAY! My snow had turned to sludge!

Here's what happened - The stone was straight sided so I couldn't set the bezel in the traditional way of pushing it over the stone. I decided to use 2 part epoxy. I had done some research (um, web surfing) and discovered that the use of glue to set stones is frowned upon in many jewellery circles -Warning: please turn away now if that's you ;) - but as I didn't want to do other fancy settings, it was my only option.
So, I carefully selected a top of the range Ultra clear epoxy - (8 mls for $9.40 - hey, that's only the equivalent of $1175 a litre - it should do the job - argh!!)

Meanwhile, the white stone against the polished silver looked a little bland, so I oxidised the ring with Liver of Sulfur to get a bit of contrast. I did this before setting the stone so I wouldn't discolour it (Ha Ha - that's ironic!). I gave the inside of the setting a quick sand to remove the oxidisation there and later on I glued the stone in and set it aside.
On checking it later, I was shocked to find my white stone had turned gray.

I'm thinking that I mustn't have removed all the oxidisation properly inside the setting and a chemical reaction of some kind occurred that caused the remaining oxidisation & the epoxy to be absorbed into the porous stone. Any metalworkers or lapidary people out there who can shed some light on it? All suggestions and theories welcome as I still want to make myself one of these rings with my remaining stones and I'd like the stone to stay white next time!

The story does have a happy ending though. My stockist liked the monochromatic purple/gray shades of the finished ring anyway and happily took it to put in her shop.

Dieing to Press

2010-03-26T12:52:00.007+08:00

Last year we bought home a hydraulic press that my late Dad in Law made. It's a heavy, rusty, oil leaking contraption that looks like it's more suited to a torture chamber but I'm excited that it's going to help create some things of beauty...!

At the time, I managed to get a small Acrylic offcut from a Shop fitting Laser Place and sawed out my own die. My piercing went a bit wonky - I don't think I had the right saw blade for Acrylic - yes I know - Excuses Excuses, but it did the job and I managed to Die Press this elongated oval shape. You pretty much sandwich the metal between the acrylic die and a piece of polyurethane and press away. The pressure pushes the flexible polyurethane into the metal which in turn pushes the metal into the void of the die to make a domed shape. Very cool!
Here's my first attempt...you can see that my die isn't symmetrical or smooth but I was happy enough with the resulting metal piece.

Today the postie bought me these super duper laser cut dies below. I couldn't decide which shape to get, so I got the lot. Designed by Nanz Aalund, see how smooth and symmetrical they are...and in asst sizes and great shapes too!

I hope to introduce my new dies to the hydraulic press and give them a workout this weekend! I'll report back.........

2010 - Happy New Year!!

2010-01-15T09:30:00.010+08:00

The Tardy Blogger is dropping in to say Happy New Year!

I haven't made any resolutions for this year. The pressure of keeping them is too hard. Instead I have my "Perpetual To Do List" to work my way through.

I'm going to mention a couple of things on the list publicly because somehow I feel that makes me accountable and they may actually get done!

First, Personally - Just the usual one - keep fit, eat healthily etc etc. (Ho Hum - I hear you say!) So far so good,my first mini goal is to lose the Xmas weight, We (Murray & I) are actually calorie counting and exercising and I'm spending way too much time on this website. It's a mine of info - did you know that a mini candy cane has 16 calories/67kilojoules? Armed with this vital info, I've been able to eat many a day and still stay within my daily calorie allowance ;)
Hopefully they'll be finished soon.......

Second is to organise the photos (yes, I can hear you rolling around the floor laughing at this one) I have 25 years worth, since we madly started snapping when the firstborn came along - not doing anything fancy - no scrap-booking - just going to get them in date order and scan them - if I can identify the dates that is.
Murray heard this one and bought me this handy little gadget above for scanning in negatives. Looks promising but we're still experimenting with it.

I won't bore you with the details of the other personal goals, they generally involve, cupboards/cleaning/de cluttering. All words that strike fear into the hearts of my family members.

Creatively though - I've already completed one task I set my self which was to list some stock on Etsy.
I went one better and listed the items on Made It too for those who prefer to shop in our local currency. Tick!

Secondly, I also intend to do some more enamelling. After the fuss I made waiting for my kiln, I'm ashamed to say I've done nothing much with it since the initial rush of enthusiasm some 6 months ago. I plan to rectify that this year.....so stay tuned....

PS: a Ferrero Roche chocolate has a mere 72 calories!

Where does the time go?

2009-11-11T14:29:00.006+08:00

Well, I know it's a cliche but today I'm reflecting on where the last 31 years have gone!!
They've certainly gone quickly. Today is our wedding anniversary and there's no excuses for either Murray or I to ever forget the date, given that we were married on Remembrance Day.
As I look back, I certainly hope Murray's been as happy as I've been. We have two gorgeous kids to show for it and lots to look forward to together in the future.

Here's a pic of two younger, slimmer, less wrinkled people who have yet to acquire double chins, on their happy day. Oh, hang on - that's us! Note Murray's beard, well I actually liked it at the time but it didn't last that long after the wedding. Mind you, I have never seen my husband with out his moustache and I'm not sure I want to! Who knows, maybe that's one of the things I have to look forward as our journey continues - seeing my husbands top lip for the first time ever!

The Results

2009-10-26T06:59:00.006+08:00

Well, all the stock was prepared and the display all organised - here's how it looked on the coffee table the night before:

Here's how it looked on the day:

And here's the lovely (but shy) Miss Dot in front of her display :)

I ended up with a trestle table to my self which we arranged in an L shape with Planet Lime's awesome resin creations on the the other table. It was a lovely day, in a gorgeous setting with good company topped off with good sales. Lotta, and her husband, Warwick were on the stall next door and Annie was across from us, Ali J & Renee from Cocoapod were a few stalls down. These are all people I've met via the on line Etsy community.
It was also great to catch up with my Friend Jane (a different Jane!) who I haven't seen all year, we'd done 3 Fremantle Bazaars together, the last one being in 2007.

While, I don't have plans for any more Craft Fairs at the moment, all of the above lovely people can be found locally at various shows around Perth in the Christmas Lead up, particularly the Made On The Left Fair at The Hyde Park Hotel on 14th & 15th November. Perth Locals - please check it out :)

Knowing when to stop!!

2009-10-23T21:32:00.004+08:00

OK, enough's enough! Yes, I know it seems like I'm overdoing it with this pattern but I do like it. Even so, I realize that my display is going to get a bit busy looking if I don't show some restraint, so I promise these are the last thing I'll make with the damask patterned paper roll.

These are empty straight sided tin cans (baked beans & beetroot!), covered with the paper and topped with black felt. I wanted a few risers to add a bit of interest to break up the flatness of table surface.

I've pretty much got most things organised with my display,packaging and pricing now. Going to spend tomorrow making a few more pieces. I've got my mock up display on the coffee table and when all my pieces are finished I'll take a pic and you can judge for yourselves if I've overdone the pattern or stopped in time :)

Display Directions 2 or can you tell I love Double Sided Tape?

2009-10-16T16:49:00.006+08:00

I'm still working on my display for the Craft fair I'm doing that I mentioned in my last post, - my friend is giving me a corner of her table to sell my work.
Because Jane's done many craft shows, her table always looks marvellous, with eye catching, innovative displays to attract people to her wonderful wares. So I thought I'd better make an effort to have a half decent display myself so as not to drag down the high standard on the day!

I've always loved double sided tape - it is just so useful on so many occasions, and in so many crafts and activities, not to mention gift wrapping!
Well despite this, even I thought I was going a bit overboard when I picked up about 12 rolls of the stuff for about two bucks at one of those discount stores, pretty sure I'd never have to buy any again in this lifetime!

Today I used a whole roll, I cut a piece of gift wrap that fits in with my theme to A4 size. I completely covered the back with the double sided tape and applied a piece of white card stock to it. I punched out heart shapes with a paper punch I had and hey presto - 36 heart tags. Only took about 20 minutes.

These hearts are going to do double duty. I'm going to have a little bowl of earrings all going out at the same cheap price. I'll attach each pair to one heart so they stay together and on the back on the white card side I can write what stone I've used. Then I thought I'd use the rest as seals for my paper bags. Of course to make them into seals, I'll have to put more D/S tape on the back - gosh that stuff is so handy ;)

Display Directions

2009-09-21T19:40:00.013+08:00

As most of my creations go down to Behind the Monkey I haven't done any craft fairs since the FAC bazaars. My friend Jane is doing the Subiaco Rotary Fair late October and has generously offered a corner of her stall to display and sell my work.
This has got me thinking about displays etc. Sometimes I think more time is spent on this sort of thing rather than actually producing the work!
I bought this vendor apron a few months ago from Yoopers, just the thing for stall holders, with nifty pockets for pens, keys etc and a hidden pocket for takings (hopefully that'll get some use!) and I really love the black and white damask design:

With this as a starting point to my "theme", I spent today messing around in Publisher and Photoshop and made these custom earring cards to fit a second hand rotating stand that I picked up a while back.

I was able to fit 3 earring cards onto a 17.5 x 12.5cm print (5x7")size template and had a couple printed out at Big W as test prints to see if it all worked.
Well, I declare it a success :)

I have no idea of commercial printing costs for a limited short run but at 12cents each these cards will do the job just fine. I was thrilled with the glossy professional finish.
I still need to tweak the design (the text is a bit pixilated) but hopefully a quick ( I wish!) play in Photoshop when I get the chance and I'll get that sorted. I'll also try out a matte finish too as although the glossy finish looks great - it's attracting fingerprints and dust.

Now I just have to make some earrings to put on them!

When good rings go bad.....

2009-08-26T14:44:00.008+08:00

I like to make rings but getting the sizing right seems to be a hit & miss affair most of the time. Occasionally I manage to finish one that actually fits me!
When I started this one, the three wires were to form the ring shape and pass over each other at the top in the same way as when you first link your fingers if you're going to pray.........Did you just try that?
That idea came to an abrupt halt when I was joining the wires at the base of the ring and the solder ran all along the seam lines and joined the wires together at the point where they should have been separate and intersecting. Darn!
After playing with the pliers I formed the ends into little scroll shapes instead and salvaged my disaster.
The ring reminds me of a water spout but I'll call it my "fountain" ring 'because that sounds so much more elegant. And it fits me - Yay!

Meanderings in wire.....

2009-08-09T10:52:00.007+08:00

Not sure why, but I had an urge to play with wire yesterday, and that urge was a lot stronger than the urge to vacuum dust etc. which is what I should have been doing!

Fortunately it was a productive day creatively and I made these pendants. I used a heavy gauge Sterling Silver wire which I hand formed with pliers free form style and finished with a hammered texture. Soldered in places to give structural strength.

I did end up wasting a lot of wire in designs that didn't work though so I've plenty of silver scraps to melt down later.
These are the ones that I was happy with, and they're quite large, the triangle is about 8 cm (3inches) long. The Rose is the smallest with a diameter of about 4.5cm (1 1/4 inches)

While I was playing around I got a nice idea for a ring which I hope to attempt this week too.

Thinking like an artist........

2009-08-03T09:16:00.005+08:00

I'm trying my best to do this in future and push myself out of my comfort zones.
Thanks to a workshop I attended at The Art Gallery Of WA last weekend I'll be making a start.

David Walker facilitated a Design Workshop which I attended on Saturday. First up, we we're privileged to be shown his exhibition - Anatomy of the object, by the man himself, who generously shared his inspiration, design and thought processes behind many of the works in his exhibition. Later we were shown a slide presentation which included his recent large scale installation works here in WA.

When we got to the part of actually creating, I suffered a little from "Workshop Block", even so, I had fun experimenting with wood and plastic, and I came away with lots of ideas, but the knowledge that David shared with the class was invaluable.

It was a challenging but inspirational day, and I am in awe of David's body of work - contemporary jewellery, and silversmith works which spans from 1961 to present day.

The exhibition is running at the Art Gallery until 18th October 2009.

Space frame 12 (three ring bead pendant) 2001
This is a scan of the front cover of my exhibition catalogue.
The exhibition runs until 18th October at The Art Gallery Of WA

I attended the workshop in good company with friends. Here's my friend Lotta's blog about the day.

Shameless Plug for Talented West Aussies

2009-07-20T20:26:00.006+08:00

I know I've mentioned the upcoming Made on The Left Markets before but that was last month and I don't want any Perth people to miss out on this fabulous indie shopping experience at the Hyde Park Hotel next weekend - 25th & 26th July.
Perth obviously has lots of talented artisans and crafters because the market will run both days with different vendors each day.

Come along both days - check out this page for a look at the stall holders. Don't let the wintery weather deter you - it's in the hotel premises, all warm and cosy and there's plenty of parking and even an ATM machine! .... And yes, the bars are open - this may well be the only craft fair in Perth that the fellas are happy to attend ;) They can prop up the bar while you shop till you drop.

I'll be there on Sunday, I'm not selling my own work (I'd have to actually get productive & make something to do that!) instead I'll be helping out Jane from Planet Lime on her stall, so stop by to check out her fabulous resin work and say Hi!

Here's a little sample from a few of Sunday's Stallholders.

Top Row: Polyclarific, Cocoapod, Planet Lime
Middle Row: Princess Lotta, Annie Rawle, Tea For Bini
Bottom Row: Odd Girl Out, Ali J, Little Mo

Fresh out of the kiln.

2009-06-27T17:21:00.006+08:00

The New Kiln Firing Up.

Since the kiln arrived I've been reading up on the instructions, and to be honest I found it all a bit scary! That and reading my enamel book, and researching the internet and magazines and I think I'm suffering from information overload.

So, this morning I decided that today was the day! With all my safety gear on the ready and my supplies and equipment nearby I wheeled the kiln to a spot by a window where I couldn't burn the house down.

Big Red Leather Welder's Gloves not shown!

Four or five hours later and I've made one small pair of earrings - yes that's all but I have learnt a lot. I've learnt:

If my glasses steam up it means my dust mask isn't tight enough!
Until I get some more practise -Stick to making pendants - it's hard to get two things exactly the same for earrings.
Don't counter enamel with the same colour as the front. A few layers down the track I couldn't remember which side was which or how many layer's I'd done.
Even though the books say don't apply a layer too thick - I think I can be a little more generous!
Practise on larger items - I thought if I messed up I'd waste less materials with little copper components but the truth is they are fiddly - I'd be better off with larger pieces until I'm a bit more experienced.
Find a better spot to use the kiln - preferably near the sink and near another power point where I can plug in the pickle pot - still hopefully where I won't burn the place down.
Try and get a production line thing happening - it was very stop start today. I seemed to be forever taking the leather gloves, goggles and mask on and off, depending on what bit I was doing.

Anyway, I had fun, I didn't get hat hair but did get goggle & mask hair instead - glad there were no unexpected visitors! And...........Ta Dah! Here's the results of the day's efforts :)

Where Oh where is the fedex man?

2009-06-24T13:13:00.007+08:00

,I recently purchased a kiln to use in my jewellery making and it's due to arrive today. It's being shipped direct from the manufacturer and I've been tracking it's progress on it's journey.

It's taken a rather long way around to get here, it's on Aussie soil now, in fact it's in the delivery truck now as I type, but first it went from Texas, to Tennessee and then to Anchorage Alaska. That bit surprised me - I wouldn't have thought Alaska was the most direct route from Texas to Perth but (?) ..... It then had a short stopover in Singapore before hitting our shores.

I had to rearrange the delivery, as it was initially due to arrive yesterday and I was at work all day. Then at midnight when I checked it's status before bed (as you do!) it said it was ready to be picked up at the depot. I was on the phone at 7am today as I was pretty sure I didn't organise to pick the thing up myself on the other side of the city. The call centre chap said to check the status again after 9am to see if it was still at the depot or on the truck as he couldn't tell either!

It's now 2 pm and it's been on the truck since 9 am. I'm anxious, although I know I shouldn't be, but the anticipation is killing me, will I hear the door knock? (very likely as the dogs will go ballistic so pretty much pointless worrying there!)

This morning the people across the road missed a delivery - I watched from the window as a delivery man took out his trolley, went to the front door, returned his trolley to the truck and left a card in their letterbox. I spent the next hour worrying it was really my kiln in that truck and they'd attempted delivery at the wrong house. Actually I haven't stopped worrying about that yet!

It's very wet and cold today but I've got the front door wide open, so that I'll hear the sound of the truck - I've got a security screen by the way! I have to move fast when I hear the truck to lock the dogs in the bedroom - that way I can open the screen door and allow my kiln - all 18.6 kgs - to be wheeled in on the delivery trolley without the dogs making their usual bid for freedom or jumping up on the poor fedex man.

Ha Ha, the stress of it all ;) - wonder what people did before online tracking?

Update: 3.24pm The Fedex Lady delivered my Kiln - All my worrying was for nothing :)

Made on The Left

2009-06-15T08:17:00.005+08:00

Image by Helena Tay, courtesy of Made on the left.

Back in 2007 a group of Perth Crafters & Artists found each other in the Etsy Forums.
Excited to find like minded, local people on an international site, social meet ups were arranged in "real life".
It was from these meet ups and the online discussions in the forums that the seeds were planted and in 2008 "Made on the Left" was founded with a view to supporting Local Western Australian Independent Designers.
And support it has, in this past year or so, The hard working Made on The Left committee has organised two successful Art/Craft Markets; one here in Perth and the second in Bunbury.

They are now organising their third market at The Hyde Park Hotel, running over two days on the 25th & 26th July. Showcasing different work each day, this will give more artisans the opportunity to offer their work and promises to be bigger and better than ever.

Applications are being taken for stallholders now until 20th June, so get in quick - More details here and if you're one of the many Perth "Indie Handmade" lovers, then mark those dates in your diary.

Visit the Made On The Left Website
Visit the Made On The Left Blog

Up, Up and away .........again..........

2009-05-23T17:33:00.011+08:00

Sterling Cast Ring - plane cast from son's old Micro Machine Toy

Barely a month home from our holiday in Broome and I was back in the skies again flying to Singapore!

This time my daughter choose me as her travelling companion for her very first overseas trip and treated me to my ticket to Singapore for Mother's Day. It was a quick trip of just 4 1/2 days away, to fit in with her R and R from her job in Port Hedland.

It was great to spend time with her and we had a fantastic holiday, saw as many sights as we could cram into the time there, and when we weren't sightseeing we were shopping...well I'll rephrase that - she was shopping and I was keeping her company while she parted with her hard earned cash although I did pick up a pair of shoes or two for myself :)

Planes and airports play a big part in my life it seems, Husband and daughter are both "Fly in, Fly out" workers, so I'm doing the airport runs on a regular basis, I could pretty much put the car on "auto pilot" and it'd find it's own way there.
Early June - back out at the airport - International this time, to see my son off to London.
He's doing the backpacking thing around Europe for the rest of the year.

Texture Time!

2009-05-09T16:52:00.008+08:00

I took some jewellery down to the shop last week. I had Mother's Day in mind when I made these. I'd been playing with my rolling mill and loved the effect that glass paper made on the silver. Very glitzy I thought, and I added a simple freshwater pearl to most of the designs, because, well.... Mums like pearls :)

The first corrugated design made me think of crinkle cut potato chips, not in real life but I couldn't help noticing it when I was resizing the photo. Maybe it's because I'm obsessing with food right now as I've cut out junk food and every time I walk past the pantry I see the chips in there calling out for me to eat them! No doubt about it - I'm tempted :(

Beautiful Broome!.

2009-05-06T11:12:00.011+08:00

In April we went up to Broome for a five day break. It's a couple of hours or so on the plane North of Perth.
Broome is just magic and has everything I love about our State's Northwest, I just love the colour of the ocean, the colour of the rocks and the pindan (red sand) and the fascinating plants! Here's some pics.......

From the plane as we crossed over the coast descending into Broome.

and the view from the veranda of our room at The Cable Beach Club - our own personal rainbow!

A neat twisted tree - have no idea what it is...

At Gantheaume Point - my favourite spot at Broome - loved this cool rock!

The beautiful Cable Beach

and finally can't go with out a Broome Sunset - taken from the Sunset Bar while enjoying a glass of wine!

No stopping him now!

2009-04-08T08:46:00.003+08:00

While I was at work yesterday, Murray did more foldforming, he made a few more leaves and this cuff from nickel silver.
and............he made dinner too.... I'm happy - I didn't have to cook and got a new bracelet. (LOL)

Darn, Now I'm going to have to share my tools!

2009-04-07T07:50:00.004+08:00

Murray works away and when he's home he's here for 6 days in a row. Yesterday, he decided that cooking meals for his loving family was not enough to occupy his time at home and he needed a hobby!
Armed with my metalwork book Foldforming by Charles Lewton-Brain and some of my sheet copper and brass he took off into the shed. He emerged triumphant with these two leaves :)

First one in copper - the oxidisation is from the torch and he left it as it was to add to the rustic appeal:

Second one in brass, again heat oxidised - I made a Sterling Neckwire for it:

I'm a winner!

2009-04-03T20:33:00.010+08:00

No longer will I be able to say "but I never win anything" Why?.................
Well, I just won this cool Heart Brooch from ReRead Design.

I'm now the proud owner of two pieces of ReRead's designs. I purchased the little bird brooch pictured below back in January and now I've won the cute heart to add to my collection!

ReRead upcycles old vintage books to construct her brooches in cute silhouette shapes, covering them with the intriguing images & Text, then it's all protected with a smooth glossy finish.

A great touch is the packaging. My brooches were carefully wrapped in a page from an old book, then another page was used to make the handmade envelope.
Not often that I experience such a visual treat when collecting the mail from the letter box - certainly makes a pleasant change from window envelopes!

Check out more of ReRead's cute brooches at her Etsy Shop

In the Press!

2009-03-27T12:44:00.005+09:00

I was very excited when my rubber and Sterling Silver earrings were featured in the current issue of Local Lifestyle magazineScoop.

Here's the cover- click on the images for larger versions of the pics:

and here's the feature - I love the styling:

And a close up...

The earrings are currently in stock at Behind The Monkey

In the middle photo you can also see a Rose Necklace which is also available at Behind the Monkey and was designed by talented Perth Local, Sarah Gazia.

A Ghostly forrest?

2009-03-20T19:23:00.010+09:00

Well that's how I see it......

These are actually the results of my last casting class at Fremantle Arts Centre. I was only able to stay at class half an hour before I had to dash to an unavoidable commitment, so luckily my friends Jane & Lotta stepped in and melted my silver and poured the castings I'd prepared the week earlier...Thanks girls :)

The "snow" on my trees is the remains of the investment (heat proof plaster) that forms the moulds. As Jane put it "their love for me did not extend to cleaning up my castings" Ha Ha - they only wanted to do the fun bits, like playing with fire and molten metal!

Tempting as it is to keep these ghostly little trees as they are, they are destined to become "branch necklaces" similar to the one I posted last week.

Branching out......

2009-03-04T11:27:00.005+09:00

In casting class I've had the most success with my twigs that I turned into little bird necklaces.

Last week instead of the single twig, I cast a twig with multiple little branches. I was really happy with how it turned out and I've made it into another necklace. I've attached it to a long chain which just slips over my head with no clasp. I've resisted the temptation to add a bird or other forest creatures -I did contemplate a squirrel, but decided the tree shape was impressive enough on its own.
Soldering the rings on for the chain was a pain that's taken the best part of the morning and I did a bit of a dodgy job on it, but undeterred I'm going to try casting another "tree" at next week's class and incorporate the jump rings into the casting. Hopefully that will work better :)

I don't always cast twigs though. I've also got a little aeroplane and a dinosaur head which turned out well enough to make into something......watch this space.........

Oz Bush Fire Appeal

2009-02-13T09:07:00.004+09:00

The Etsy Community have pulled together to support The Oz Bush Fire Appeal, following the recent and ongoing tragedy of the fires in Victoria Australia - news that has shocked and saddened us all here in Australia and touched people all around the world.

The DUST Team led by Emma have opened up a shop (with Etsy's permission & support), and proceeds are being donated to the Red Cross Bush Fire Appeal.

Check out the shop here - lots of wonderful items have been donated and are available for sale by talented artisans from all over the world. Free international shipping is offered on all items which will be shipped from the individual artisans.

Productive Few Days

2009-01-31T10:39:00.005+09:00

It's been pretty hot and humid here but I did manage to drag myself out into the shed and do some soldering. I finished another one of the cast twigs that I made at my casting class a few weeks back. I made it into another necklace but this time I've laid it out vertically instead of horizontally like my first twig necklace.

Also, played with a heavy gauge wire to make these swirl earrings. No soldering involved - just forming, hammering & polishing.

I have to be a little considerate these days with my hammering. Our house is surrounded on 3 sides by houses that have babies. I shut my self in the spare room and close the doors, hoping it's not too loud for the neighbours! I haven't had any complaints so far!

Turning a negative into a positive!

2009-01-28T17:23:00.005+09:00

First I pierced (hand sawed) a rabbit design from a sterling disc to make this pendant:

Then I soldered the little cut out rabbit onto another Sterling disc to make a second pendant here:

The negative space in the first pendant makes the rabbit look slightly fatter than the actual cut out on the second, that's because I domed the first pendant which enlarged the space.

Possibilities in Metal

2009-01-19T13:46:00.007+09:00

Over the last 2 Sundays I've attended the "Possibilities in Metal Casting" Workshop at The Fremantle Arts Centre
It was lots of fun, I went with my talented friends Lotta & Jane and the teacher was renowned Local Artist Sarah Elson. We enjoyed it so much we have signed up for Sarah's class for Term one to explore some more of the possibilities!
We cast all sorts of things, I tried a wax model of a lego brick, some twigs, a resin mini plane (that Jane made a mould of from a little toy plane I had lying around).

My most succesful casts were the twigs which I cast in Sterling Silver, the other things require quite a bit of clean up so I'll save them for another time. This morning I spent some time polishing up one of the silver twigs and soldering the jumprings on - I had sawn out the little sterling silver bird earlier in the week so he got soldered on too.

It's not really an original idea as I've seen lots of similar sorts of things done with cast twigs, I imagine because the obvious thing to do is to pop a bird on a branch! The beauty is of course, that no two twigs are alike. Anyway, I'm very happy to have a cute necklace to wear as a result of the course.

2009's looking good.

2009-01-09T21:54:00.004+09:00

I'm pretty happy at the moment. I actually have all the family home at one time!

My husband works "fly in-fly out", my daughter has been off living her life away from home doing the back packing thing, and it's just been me & Adam (when he's home) and the two dogs!

Murray's contract finished and the new job doesn't start until the end of January so he's been home for a 6 week stint working out of head office locally. Then Lauren decided she couldn't save up for her next lot of adventures by living in Melbourne and surprised us by turning up at 5 to 12 on New Years eve.

The downside - well, the amount of washing actually. The positives...too numerous and they outweigh the negatives :)

Here's the younger half of the family:

Post Christmas - pre New Year........

2008-12-28T10:30:00.005+09:00

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We did, it was only a small gathering at my sister's but great company and wonderful food. I did miss my daughter though who has flown the nest to live in Melbourne - it was our first Christmas that our little family of four was only three! The phone companies did well out of us though!

Now the left over ham is dwindling and I'm starting to think about the New Year and all the self - improvement that is about to happen.....Ha Ha! ;)

I'm on holidays from work until the 6th so I've spent some of my downtime playing with my chainmaille. This time using the rubber rings with sterling, I've gone oversized - much like I feel after the Christmas feast!
These earrings are pretty huge but the good thing is they are super lightweight.

Just added a couple of photos here, but there's more on my Flicker Photostream.

Happy New Year everyone :)

Where's the day gone........

2008-12-15T14:55:00.004+09:00

Day off today and this morning I felt a sudden urge to get creative. Anything to avoid doing the house work and washing!
I've had it in the back of my mind to make a ring for myself and simply never got around to it so today it happened!

It wasn't all smooth sailing though - the silver got the dreaded fire scale when I soldered it which meant lots of extra filing and sanding - for a pretty simple design I've spent the best part of the day on it! It's not perfect but I'm not going to point out the other faults - can't see 'em when I'm wearing it anyway, so I'm happy with the day's efforts.

Magpie

2008-12-14T16:49:00.002+09:00

We have a lot of magpies around here - most often I notice them when they come up the street in the early morning in a pack - looking over everyone's lawns for some tasty bugs and worms.
I noticed this little one this afternoon from the bedroom window, sitting in the shade on a fallen palm frond in our front garden. He didn't appear to be injured but didn't have very long tail feathers. He let me get about 2 feet away from him and stared right at me when I took this picture.
He flew away a little later when one of our dogs chased him away - luckily he could fly although not very high and we grabbed the dog before he could hurt the Magpie. My husband had let the dogs out with him, not realising the bird was there.
When the dog chased him - we suddenly noticed all the other magpies, they didn't actually swoop us but they all flew in close.
It's been about half an hour and he's now sitting on a neighbours fence in the shade - the adult birds are still milling around him keeping an eye out for him.

I guess they'll have to look after him until he can fly up a little higher than he can now.

Crossed the first thing off my To Do List!!

2008-11-17T20:39:00.007+09:00

I only had one thing on my list and I've crossed it off, so now I can start on a new list. It's taken a day or so and I still have a drawer or two to sort out but at least it's tidy!! YAY!!

Before Shots: (hmmm - I'm ashamed of these - It's pretty messy, but I could shut the door on it and pretend it wasn't there!)

and after shots: I intend to keep it like this ;)

Time to do the things on the "To Do" List

2008-11-16T11:35:00.004+09:00

Had a good day yesterday. My sister and I headed down to the Made On The Left Designer Market followed by lunch later at Tarts,
a great little place hidden in Lake Street. Yum.
The Market was bigger than the first one with more great stalls and a bit more space than before. Lots of fabulous wares on sale but this Fridge Magnet by the very talented Amanda from Polyclarific called out to me.

Now of course I need to write an extensive list and put it on the fridge with my new magnet where I can't ignore it.
My office/work room is a mess and I really have to tidy it. It's gonna be a such big job that at the moment it's the only thing on my list.
I fully intended to start yesterday evening and I started sorting through some of my supplies but got sidetracked with this instead!

More pics on my Flickr photostream.

I shall publish this post, turn the computer off and have another attempt at crossing off the only thing on my "To Do" list!

Windows on William

2008-11-01T07:54:00.025+09:00

Yesterday, my daughter, Lauren and I took off to Northbridge to soak up a bit of Culture!

The Windows On William Street Exhibition is on and local artists install their artwork in the windows of the local shops/businesses. As you go around each place you are encouraged to collect a limited edition print of each artist's work - These are inside the shops, which of course gives exposure (and I guess hopefully some sales!) to the businesses that support the artists.

We visited each venue and collected 13 of the 14 prints. (One place was closed).

We got off to a bad start - first stop when we surfaced from the car park was the Blue Room Theatre & Bar and as we stood in front of the window we couldn't see any Art, but the sliding door opened. We stepped through to the foyer but still couldn't see any art! In our confused state, we felt a little sheepish when a staff person pointed out that we'd walked past the art - it was outside on the top panel above the sliding doors - Duh!!

Lesson learnt, and we made a point of looking above eye level at all the other exhibitions just in case we missed something!

The highlights were the installation by the Made on the Left collaboration featuring the work of my local online Etsy friends. Great job girls!

Another stand out was Subgang at William Topp.
This is a real find of a shop too, interesting and friendly and definitely worth another visit. Bought this for Lauren here - sums her up rather well ;)

And check out their cool cards we were given showing their business hours.

If you're a local it's a great way to lose a couple of hours browsing around Northbridge. I got to see some great artwork, find new shops and go into places I'd not normally venture into, I'm thinking specifically here of the Piercing & Tattoo parlour (I'm not really their target demographic) but none the less they were very welcoming. Also, Red Stripe Clothing, where Lauren bought a dress but my presence in the shop probably diminished their reputation as a "cool arsed clothing store" a little (LOL).
It's on until November 23rd.

Industrial Floral - Is that an Oxymoron?

2008-10-26T13:40:00.005+09:00

I've been playing with rubber rings in my chainmaille for a while. I love the industrial look of the rubber contrasting against the sterling silver.
But these are a departure for me - I'm not usually the flowery type, but I liked how these turned out.

I'm going to give these a quick tumble polish and they are heading down to Behind The Monkey

My favourite is the cross - it's a whopping 8.5cm long, not for the faint hearted :)

More pictures on my flickr photostream.

Etsy Street Teams

2008-10-19T08:01:00.004+08:00

I opened my Etsy store in 2006 and one of the things we do to promote ourselves and others on Etsy is to join Street teams.

I'm a member of several teams - Here they are:

The most recent one I joined is the Metal Smiths in Action Street team. It's members are talented silver and metal smiths - check them out here
http://metalsmithsinaction.webs.com/index.htm

Because of my love of Chainmaille, I'm also a member of the Chainmaillers Guild - Here's their blog

The others I'm part of don't promote a specific Craft or Art but more a location.
The DUST Team stands for The Down Under Street Team and is open to all Etsy Sellers in Australia. Lots of Aussie talent right here

Last but not least is my local Perth team - Made on The Left - they've formed a committee and are not only promoting Etsy but are supporting all things Art & Craft in Perth. They have run a successful Craft Market and the second one is coming up very soon. If you are a Perth Local, be sure to get along to the Hyde Park Hotel on November 15th. See their blog or website for more info.

Spinach & Potato Frittata

2008-10-15T11:52:00.004+08:00

This is usually a jewellery blog but I was asked for this recipe so today it's a recipe blog!
No picture because we ate it before it could be photographed but I make this old stand by pretty regularly so I'll add a pic later. It's vegetarian but not vegan!

Measurements are approximate - you can pretty much add more or less of any of the ingredients - or substitute low fat products if you like.

*250g box frozen chopped spinach - thawed and drained - press through a strainer to get all the moisture out.
* About 3 small or 2 large potatoes - peeled & cubed and at least part cooked. I nuke 'em.
* 250g tub of cottage cheese
* about 1 cup (125g) of Tasty cheese grated
* About 1/2 cup cream - I use sour cream sometimes or ordinary cream other times
* About 1/2 cup of milk - soy is fine too.
* 4 Eggs - beaten.
* Salt & Pepper to taste

Mix together and pour into a greased pie or medium baking dish. Cook about 35 - 40 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.
Cut into slices to serve - great hot, cold or at room temp! Yum with a salad - good lunch dish.

New Blog - Behind The Monkey

2008-10-06T19:59:00.008+08:00

I've been busy today setting up a new blog.
It's not for me - it's for my sister's shop in Highgate here in the Perth - Behind The Monkey.

If you're a Perth local and haven't seen the shop it's definitely worth a trip down to Highgate to have a look. If you're not from Perth have a look at the blog to see what you're missing :)

Behind The Monkey sells Jewellery (including mine!) and a Fabulous selection of Homewares and Novelty Items. It has a wonderful Gallery room - "The Cracked Gallery" which has been host to exhibitions of many talented local artists
including Seng Mah, and
Ali J, just to name a couple.

Check the blog or better yet, get down there ;)

Not a bad afternoon's work

2008-09-27T16:39:00.006+08:00

Well the Australian Rules Football Grand Final was on this afternoon.

I'm only vaguely interested in footy but I did watch it while I made some jewellery. Nothing like multi-tasking. I was happy with the afternoon's result.

Here's a brand new design I created using rubber rings with Sterling Silver ....

New Stickers

2008-09-26T17:43:00.003+08:00

Well my blog block is over and I'm back!!
Just had to show off these cool new stickers I got
from Max and Bella

I'm going to use them to seal my gift bags which I've yet to buy. I'm thinking black bags for a nice crisp look.

The Perfect Present!

2008-08-17T19:22:00.013+08:00

I'm doing a lot of metal work these days and not using beads and stones so much lately, but my most favourite of the semi precious stones is Mookaite. The colours speak to me and ...well, it's a Western Australian Stone, so that makes it extra cool.

So, yesterday a few friends & I went out to breakfast to celebrate a couple of August Birthdays (mine included). My friend Pam bought me some real mookaite rocks - direct from the earth. She put them in a lovely arrangement with a candle on a dish.

She's recently been on a 4 wheel drive camping tour which took in in the Kennedy Ranges, which is here in Western Australia. While there she collected rocks herself from Mooka Creek.

I am so lucky that she chose to give me a hand picked selection of these beautiful stones - and that I have a friend that is so in tune with me that she would just pick out the "Perfect Present"! So thank you Pam :)

The picture is of my present with the "raw" rocks and the candle and in front of that are some of the beautiful Mookite beads I have in my bead stash. Ha Ha! Some that were prepared earlier - so to speak!

Broome Holiday

2008-08-09T22:06:00.011+08:00

First of all - here's the reason we went to Broome - to celebrate our daughter's 21st with her - she went off backpacking in April and got a job there and hasn't moved on....yet....
Here she is with her new best friend Dom............!!!!

Our baby has grown into a delightful, independent, young lady whom we are so very proud of :)

Words can't describe the beauty of the coastline in the Kimberley - this pic was at Gantheaume Point, not far from Broome.

Apart from seeing our lovely daughter, the lure of the ocean was a bonus for Mr GetSilvered.......here he is showing off his spoils from a day on the beautiful azure ocean

But it wasn't all blue skies and Azure oceans - we had fun at ladies day for the Broome Racing Carnival - nothing like the combo of alcohol, horses, designer labels and red dust! I won $45 on my first bet.....and promptly lost it all on subsequent bets, but it was better than losing my own money!

The hat was too big I might add (I'm the short person!), and is a little worse for wear after being shoved in the suitcase for the trip home!

Finally I'll finish this post with another shot taken from Gantheaume point - I honestly think this is God's own country and my little holiday snaps no way do it justice :)

Etsy DUST Review

2008-08-09T11:19:00.006+08:00

Just got back from a week in Broome where we visited for my daughter's 21st!
More about that later with some pictures........

Before I left I spent a bit of time writing a review on a talented fellow Australian Artisan - melanie from Wiccked. The Etsy Dust Team help promote each other's shops -
Here's my review.

And because I can't wait to show you pics of beautiful Broome - here's a little preview
This is at the Willie Creek Pearl Farm and yes the water really is that colour :)

www.kiva.org

2008-05-27T21:25:00.007+08:00

This article was published in our local Sunday paper and caught my attention. I usually talk about my jewellery but not today.
A micro loan was required to assist a lady expand her small jewellery business in the Dominican Republic - given my love of making jewellery too, I thought that was appropriate. Check out my side bar for a link to many more entrepreneur's from all over the world who require micro business loans and investors - the stories are inspirational.

Metal Work Challenge

2008-05-16T16:11:00.004+08:00

Over on the Beading Forum in the Metalwork section we are having a challenge to make an item using a technique we've never used before and it also must include something found or recycled.

I decided to set a cabochon in a bezel. I had all the right supplies to set a bezel but had not got around to it so I decided to bite the bullet and today was the day!
I made my own cab. by die cutting & doming a copper disc. Then I fluxed the dome and
sprinkled it with Sterling Silver Dust - that's my recycled item - I sweep it off the bench when I cut out sterling rings for my chainmaille and save it.
I had no idea how it'd turn out, some silver fused on & some stayed in it's little specks and the copper oxidised in the heat. Even a bit of fire scale adds to the effect I think!!
The bezel making wasn't as hard as I expected thanks to the excellent video instructions over at the Art Jewelry Magazine site. I still spent most of the day on it though.
This was going to be a ring but I got impatient (as you do!) and went with the easy option of drilling a hole and making it a pendant!

Featured in an Etsy Treasury

2008-04-10T22:39:00.002+08:00

I was lucky enough to be featured in an Etsy Treasury. My corrugated Sterling Pendant was included in a treasury created by DaraArt
I'm in good company with lots of other locals from Western Australia. Thanks Dara!

Birthday Pressie

2008-03-15T12:53:00.003+09:00

I've made these earrings for my niece's Birthday next week. Don't worry I'm sure I won't ruin the surprise - I'm pretty certain she doesn't read my blog!
I've been using a wooden doming block for the last couple of years and I've just upgraded to a stainless steel block and dapping punches. I love it - I can work the metal into a much deeper curve now.
These earrings have a brushed satin finish in the concave part of the dome with a contrasting high polish on the convex part on the reverse. I've nestled a freshwater pearl in each dome. When worn they'll dance around at the end of the chain so both the matte and the polished surfaces will be seen.

Not for the lonely Cuff!

2008-03-01T12:41:00.006+09:00

Really pleased how this turned out. I made a wide copper chainmaille cuff & decorated it with Swarovski TM crystals. Copper findings are a bit scarce, especially wide clasps, so I made my own closure from sheet copper. The cuff will lace up like a shoelace. I may try and look for a better colour ribbon for the tie - The brown looks fine but if I can get a copper coloured ribbon then that would be even better.
This cuff is not for the lonely - I think it will need a friend to help tie it up or failing that a third hand!
In the first photo I've lined up the crystals neatly but in reality when worn the crystals will bounce all over the place randomly.

Another 3D tri-metal pendant

2008-02-23T16:16:00.004+09:00

I had so much fun making the rectangle 3D pendant the other day, that I made another one. This time in a circle shape which I die cut... a little faster than the hand sawing. I used a silver bead instead of the pearl this time. I've got this one up in my Etsy Shop.