MOVING

I'm moving my blog to 
http://barbara-beamiss.squarespace.com 
If you're following me, that's where I'll be.
:)

Branding and a Bracelet

It's been suggested to me that I 'brand' my jewelry. Too bad I had to buy the whole alphabet stamp set to use just one letter. But don't expect bangles and tags containing words like 'dream' or 'love' or 'honesty' or whatever. I hate all that crap. Oh well, here's the BB tag. 

And here's the beginnings of that bracelet I was telling you about...stay tuned to see if the ugly duckling turns into a swan :)

Amethyst and Jinx

It's getting to be Autumn all of a sudden; rainy and cool. There's still some patches of blue sky fighting against masses of clouds but if you blink they're gone. I'm still working on this wretched ring and still refuse to use glue to keep the stone in the bezel cup so I'll need to burnish the edges of the cup some more. I went to my silver shop this morning and learned something new - that jewellers in Arizona working with turquoise sometimes lay the stone on a bed of sawdust in the bezel to make it sit flat. Makes sense.  I'm starting work on another bracelet and have several of the links cut waiting to be smashed up with a hammer :) and then the soldering.

Meanwhile...Jinx has no concerns about petty things like stone setting. His day is all about catching the fleeting moments of sunshine.

Frustration and Failure

Frustration and failure have been the name of the game this weekend. I hate to have to share these things with you but as we all know they are a part of life. Firstly, I had a flashback and I don't mean of the memory kind. I was working with the propane flame trying to solder the ring in the bottom 2 images when all of a sudden the normally blue jet burst from the nozzle and grew into a huge flash right in my face. It was just for an instant, but it was enough to singe my bangs. I was wearing a mask and safety glasses but didn't think I'd need to protect my hair! Oh well, at least it'll grow back :)  Anyway, here's a simple ring I made at the end of the day after a frustrating few hours trying to make the raw amethyst ring below.

I'm going to pull out what's left of my hair trying to get this thing made. This is the 2nd bezel cup I've forged and I've  ground down the base and lower edges of the amethyst but it's still not sitting properly in the cup. I'm at the point where I'm going to saw it apart again and start again :(  By the way, these photos were taken by my son and you can see how much better they are than the ones I take. Thanks Simon!!!

Bangles & Jinx

I'm trying to make use of some of the bits and pieces I've had lying around on my desk, namely these 3 silver bangles that I made months ago. The bales (the rings attaching the tags to bangles) were also scraps from some other project as were 2 of the tags. It's hard to see but one of the tags is made of brass and that's the only part I had to cut out today.

And I had to take a quick photo of our cat Jinx who happened to be nearby while I was taking these pics.

A Necklace For My Sister

I'm 95 % done here. What remains is for me to go over the silver with more fine sandpaper and a buffer to give it a satin finish as opposed to a high gloss finish which is what my sister wanted. I also need to polish it. And I'll probably hammer the toggle a bit more.

Solder & Sand...repeat...

I've put roughly 5 hours of work into this so far; sawing, annealing, forming, pickling, soldering, repeat...and repeat. Next step is sanding. I've also started a bezel cup for a raw amethyst that I'm thinking will be added to a ring.

Notes to self...

I picked up a new polishing product yesterday and was trying it out today on the ol' drop earrings I'd finished the other day. The polish is great but I've got some new notes to myself 1) DON'T photograph shiny jewelry with a big red sticker stuck to the back of your iphone and 2) Kick your son's butt to start taking photos with his real camera like he promised

The not-so-pretty side of making jewelry

I've snapped 5 saw blades, burned and jabbed my fingers a couple times and I'm not even 1/4 of the way through making this. Can't wait to finish it :)

Wait for it...

A pile of junk I hear you saying. But it's pretty junk right? Silver wire and brass sheet and some links. I've been asked by one of my sisters to make her a necklace so I'll be starting it shortly and will show you when it's done which might take a couple days (wait for it...)