Here are some earrings I have been working on...they are similar in size and are both fairly substantial--I wanted a pair of big silver earrings with a different kind of look, so I think the first pair might be a gift to myself!
Sterling silver earrings with a satin finish and sterling wires:
...and a pair of copper earrings with sterling wires. I drew the resist, etched the metal, and used a patina to finish them. 
Classes are finally over. Graduation is this weekend, so it is probably time for me to get back to work at the jewelry bench. I worked on a pair of copper earrings this morning, but still have so much to do it would be silly to post a picture of them. I am relieved to have done some actual work because I had pushed the jewelry aside for several months and was starting to wonder if I had lost interest. So a new pair of giant copper earrings is in the works. In the meantime...
One thing I have been able to do no matter what the weather is like and that my kids can do with me is make and decorate cakes. I have been trying some of the techniques I read about in books and even got a couple of tutorials online to learn how to make 3D figures. So here is what I came up with:
The black jack cake has cards on top of it made out of chocolate--I drew the image of the jack backwards and piped dark chocolate over the drawing, then flooded it with white chocolate. The poker chips are sugar cookies with royal icing decoration. Just a white cake with buttercream frosting..no fondant.
The next cake is a birthday cake for Sara. Ben picked the picnic in the park theme and a lot of it was trial and error. The figures are made from fondant, gumpaste, and marzipan. The cake itself is a white cake with buttercream frosting covered in fondant. The food items are all made from marzipan, the blanket is gumpaste, and the grass is buttercream frosting.
And finally, a cake for my Dad's birthday. He paints really beautiful pictures, and Ben thought a scene of Grandpa painting in his work area was in order. (This is when I went online searching for a better way to make 3D figures.) It's a white cake with buttercream frosting, covered in fondant (although the picture doesn't show much of the actual cake!). Dad and all of the painting supplies are made out of fondant and gumpaste. I made an easel out of fondant/gumpaste, but was not confident it would stand. In the interest of time, I ended up using wooden dowels for the easel. The glasses are made from sterling silver...it's what I had lying around. I learned a lot about making figures from this cake, so hopefully the next one won't take so long or have so many little issues.
