I'm Back :)

We're back from our Far North Queensland 4 Wheel Drive Adventure. It was full of fabulous sights, scenery and people - but more on that later.

I've waited to blog this as it was a gift for my daughter, but now her Birthday has come and gone I can blog away and not ruin any surprises!

In June, my friend Jane & I enrolled for a two day workshop at Fremantle Arts Centre, one of my favourite learning places. We were fortunate enough to be taught how to make Sterling Silver Spoons by the marvellous George Lucas, a renowned and very well respected Silversmith here in Western Australia.

Here's the results of my class efforts.

 

The spoon was made in 3 parts, the top was sawn from sheet, shaped and hammered. The middle was from thick square wire and the bowl also sawn from sheet and domed to shape.
That was the easy bit - the fitting it all together and soldering was a bit trickier.  A bit of precision sawing was involved in getting that top bit to fit the mid section but we all got it in the end under George's watchful eye.
Fortunately George had a jig he'd made which we used to hold the bowl and the handle together when we came to soldering those parts together.  Jane was clever and soldered her spoon together without the jig - smart move really because if we ever want to replicate it at home we'll all be jigless and have to do that!

I made the little custom gift box because next to making jewellery I love messing around with wrapping and papercraft.
Hopefully, one day the spoon will get handed further down in the family as a little heirloom  - in the meantime,  I was pretty chuffed when my daughter (who'd seen it after day 1's class when it was in 3 pieces and not cleaned up in any way) on receiving the finished spoon said "Mum, you can't see the joins!"  WooHoo!

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Certificate 2 - Yay!

I finally applied for my certificate and now I have something to show for my time attending Tech College last year. And yes, I am going to frame it and hang it on a wall! 

This was a big deal for me, I left school the first time 40 years ago! (oops showing my age now!) so going back into a formal learning environment definately challenged me and I was often out of my comfort zone. 

I'm so glad I did it though :) 

 

We're heading off to Queensland this week for our 4 wheel Drive holiday that I wrote about earlier.

As it's a charity drive they'll be some fundraising auctions along the way. I'm donating the jewellery below - hope it gets some bids ;)

We'll be in some remote areas so I doubt I'll be blogging - I'll update when we return.

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Some earrings finished!

Hey, I actually made something! 6 pairs of Sterling Earrings :) 

These are heading down to Behind The Monkey.

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

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.

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

.....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:

 

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Button It Up!

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!!  Pin It

All Fired Up!

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.

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Meanderings in wire.....

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.



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Texture Time!

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 :(




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A Ghostly forrest?

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. Pin It

Branching out......

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.........

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