Lapidary tinkering

A couple of years ago my father gave me a big container of stones that he and his mother had collected on the shores of Lake Superior when he was a child.  They are mostly small round agates that have great banding and after picking through the top layer I pulled out one to try to shape on the JoolTool.  I don't have templates for stone shaping so I'm just playing around with possibilities at this point but I can see some potential in my first attempt.  Maybe another pass with each wheel to make things more uniform and I'll call it done.

It's surprising how much time and grinding it takes to shape material - I never thought it was a simple job but even taking the stone down a couple millimeters is time consuming.  

I also shaped these ammonites to give them flat backs and lighten them up.  I got them several months ago thinking about earrings but they had so much material on the back that they were too heavy for that.  Now that I've taken that material down, they aren't heavy at all and I can see a hint of light coming through the segments on the front - I love that.  So I guess that means maybe these will have to be set with an open back.

   

     

Summer work

This is a catching-up entry with several projects I made over the last six weeks but didn't get around to posting.  I think Instagram has kind of killed my blogging efforts - it's so easy to just post a picture and be done with it.  

This wand shaped lepidolite sat on my workbench for a long time while I thought about how to set it. It's not very easy to work with because it has flaky layers; I ended up using a flaw in the side to split it, giving it a flat back.  I really love how this came out.

Keychains galore.

Here's how they're made:

1. Pencil drawing affixed to
sterling ready for sawing

2. Sawing results

                   

3. Soldering results

4. The final product

This set of moonstone post earrings go with a moonstone necklace I made last year.

 

And finally, lots of bottle tags for decanters, customized for the recipient.  

                   

Vegan vanilla frosting

My sister's birthday is next week so I recreated the unicorn cake I made a couple of weeks ago with some adjustments.  No dairy, eggs or gluten.

She's a fan of rice krispie treats so I made the "cake" portion out of those, formed in cake pans.  They are easy to make dairy and gluten free by replacing the butter with Earth Balance spread.

Most of the recipes I found for dairy free or vegan frosting replaced butter with shortening.  There is no way that would fly, so I just replaced the butter in my regular recipe with Earth Balance.  This is not a one to one replacement - I barely needed any of the spread. 

Vegan Vanilla Frosting

• 3 Tbsp vegan butter - I used Earth Balance Soy Free
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 4 Tbsp almond milk

I put everything in the mixer at once; there is so little vegan butter that it wasn't something I could cream like I would with regular butter.  This makes a nice, smooth frosting.

Then I recreated the unicorn cake the best I could.  The frosting consistency is very different and didn't get as fluffy as the regular buttercream, but it was still pretty good.

Happy (almost) Birthday, Sara!

Ben at the workbench

Over the weekend Ben came out to the workbench with me.  He wanted to make a pendant for himself and sketched out the design to saw from copper.  This was his first time using the saw so I gave him a quick tutorial and led the blade onto the piece for him.

He's a natural!  He followed the instructions and was able to get through most of the piece without help, even understanding how to back off at the turns and let the blade lead.  I helped with a couple of the really sharp corners and he only broke two saw blades.  My first attempt at sawing resulted in broken blades galore and a fair amount of swearing, so I was really surprised at how easily he cut out his design.  

I don't really know what the point of this calligraphy-ish letter L is...something about an Anime character.  

After the initial sawing, he filed and sanded the edges of the pendant and then added a hole for a jump ring.

We tossed it in the tumbler for a few hours and then he used the buffer to do the final polish.  I added the leather cording for him so he could wear the finished product as a necklace.  

He was so excited about the process that he wanted to make a second pendant.  This one was for him to wear for his math test this week; a good luck charm.

His new plan for the summer is to clear a spot in the workspace to add a small desk where he can sit and work with me.  I do most of my jewelry work in the early mornings and since we are both morning people, this could work!  Now I need to find a small desk at a yard sale...

Unicorn cake

Our Easter meal was just for our little family of four so we didn't need a giant dessert. But I felt like making something creative and decided on a simple, small unicorn cake.

Simple, yes.  Quick?  No.  I don't make cakes as often as I used to and I'm out of practice...but I needed a few different colors of frosting and made the ears from chocolate so those elements took some time.

I used three layers of six inch cake to make a tallish stack.

I've seen some unicorn cakes with a horn made of fondant or chocolate, but I found this swirled lollipop for $1 at Walmart and never looked back.  

I used the Wilton ColorSwirl 3 Color Coupler to add the mane (I only used two colors).  It works great once it's all set up and ready to pipe, but getting the bags of frosting situated took some patience.  Next time I will load less frosting into each bag and refill if needed - I think that would make the pieces easier to fit together and less likely to come apart.

Once it was all assembled, I dusted the cake liberally with disco dust for some added flair.  I love that stuff - it really makes a difference, especially on a cake decorated like a magical creature.

I'll do this one again at some point - it was perfect for a smaller dessert and was pretty cute if I do say so myself.

Working toward zen

I've been working toward a more relaxed state of mind.  Focus on the positive, consider my blessings, embrace optimism.  It's definitely a journey and some days are better than others for me, but if I get off track I just try to refocus and start again.

I started taking yoga classes and find myself generally more aware of my breathing and my posture.  It's been a big change for me to try to slow down and be more mindful, but I like it.  Working at the jewelry bench also helps me with relaxation - the world just melts away when I get that time to create.

Last weekend I picked up an old request to make an ohm necklace.  When I was going through my notes for that pendant, I came across some tree of life images I had pulled together several months ago and then set aside. I decided to do both symbols by sawing out the designs and layering metals to allow for raised and recessed areas.

Sawing metal can be almost mesermizing for me.  Before I knew it, I had been at the workbench for several hours. I ended up with three pendants I'm really happy with.  One went to my sister (who is also my yoga teacher) for an early birthday gift and the other two have been listed in my Etsy shop.

Etsy listing for this necklace

Etsy listing for this necklace

Fold formed copper earrings with a blue patina

The fall time change is probably something that most people look forward to.  Not me.  I already wake up really early whether I want to or not and the additional hour sometimes means I wander the house doing laundry or other semi-quiet things while I wait for the sun to come up.  I know that eventually I'll adjust to the change and won't wake up at 4am so I like to be productive if I can.

This week I've gotten some time in at the workbench during that extra early morning time and it's been a nice way to start the week days.  I worked on a group of fold formed earrings and I really love the outcome.

I started with a fairly substantial piece of copper that I annealed and folded and annealed and hammered and annealed and hammered.  

   

I'm drawn to the red of a heat patina on copper but decided to change things up a little bit after I got the earrings cut and sanded.  I put the copper pieces in a container with ammonia and salt to develop a blue patina instead.  The result is pretty rustic and a great match to the organic look of fold forming. 

Nightmare Before Christmas cake

This week we had a work gathering with Halloween themed foods so I decided it was time to break out some of my old cake decorating materials.

I haven't made a big cake in a long time, so the amount of time it took to put this together was kind of a surprise...I'm sure I was faster at most of these techniques when I was making cakes more frequently but it swallowed up my evenings and early mornings for several days. 

I made the Jack Skellington and Zero figures out of fondant and set them aside to dry almost a week before I needed the cake in order to let everything dry and solidify.

                                               

Jack was a challenge; his body is so long and thin and the head is so heavy that I really didn't know if he would make it to the destination in one piece. It was a horrible ten minutes of driving, parking and carrying the cake into the building (also some swearing and muttering) but I made it with no major incidents! There is no better feeling when it comes to making these things than dropping the cake off intact and then simply walking away.

Horror movie charm necklace

Ok, so I know I should knock it off.  But I couldn't stop thinking about those horror movie charms I made last weekend, and when I wake up uber early thinking about metal projects I know if I don't just get it out of my system the thoughts won't leave my mind.

This morning I went straight to the workbench and made three more charms: a Freddy K inspired glove, a meat hook and an axe.  I put all five on an adjustable chain for a horror movie themed necklace.  This is probably it - I won't be making more because they aren't exactly items I can probably sell at my holiday show in November and I need to focus my efforts!

My favorite charm is the glove...I'm not sure I could duplicate that one if I tried.

I've listed the necklace for sale in my Etsy shop here...maybe there is a horror movie buff out there who would love this one of a kind of jewelry.

Thinking about Halloween

Last weekend I had some time to just play around at the workbench.  Early in the day, the weather feels like fall and I couldn't pass up the opportunity to make a few Halloween inspired things.  These are all still in need of a final polish/clean up but I like how they've started out!

I started with a sugar(ish) skull and sacred heart pendants.

'Tis the season for scary movies so I googled "horror movie weapons" from my phone.  The first image result was a cartoon drawing of a chainsaw, a butcher knife, a machete, and various other weapons.  I started these two horror movie charms....I have no idea what I'll do with them but I kind of love them. 

I finally reprogrammed my kiln controller and made a couple of test beads.  I haven't touched glass in a very long time and I know that the learning curve is always steep to get started again. These little guys are far from perfect but actually turned out better than I thought.