YOJ Week 16: Ripples, Easter Treats for the daughter or why she will never be fat & a few random pictures

This weeks' topic is Ripples, Depths and shadows, I choose Ripples. In fact, I've had this idea swirling in my head since I first saw the list of themes! However my ideas do not quite match my abilities yet. My original idea was to fuse the rings, then hammer them to look like water reflections. (I am using fine silver) Now while I hope to get into alittle metalsmithing at some point, ( metalsmithing lite? ) right now all I know how to do is make headpins. Well, after experimenting with these rings, all I know how to do is still headpins!! Now, I have a lamp working torch, I suspect part of my problem is the flame is 2 diffuse to really fuse metal, or maybe I didn't try it long enough. I don't have solder ( well I don't have solder for silver) so I thought using fine silver I could just melt the ends together. I realized it probably wasn't quite that easy, but well, hope springs eternal. So I gave up on fusing and just hammered and butted the ends together as evenly as I could. Overall the effect is nice, perhaps sometime I'll have the patience or the right torch and try again. I made 2 for earrings, with a black crystal as the "stone" that starts the ripples. I also tumbled them for about 3 hours, so while it doesn't show it in the photo, they really shine and the texture really does look like water reflections, so I'm very happy about that part.

Next is a picture of my Daughters chocolate Easter "bunny" which just happens to be a pig. She loves pigs!! anyway, this is why she will never be fat she just ate the parts that were "fun" to eat, then didn't want anymore. It took her 3 days to eat this much BTW. There is a lesson here isn't there?

I've been trying to built a picture catalog of my jewelry, mostly for my own records but also to update the website, this blog etc. As I make jewelry in the future, I hope to get photos taken before they are added to the inventory. Anyway, this pendant I made a couple of months ago, experimenting with larger wire in a simpler style. It fits the irregular features of the cab. The rock is tumbled agate from a rock show last year.

Last pics are from a commission I had to make a bail. The original bail was pot metal and fitted over all three strands of the necklace. I could have sworn I'd posted pictures of this before but I guess I didn't get around to it. It was fun to do, i just sort of made up a pattern. the only direction I was given was to make it "sparky" and match the cross. what's more sparky that crystals?? The client loved it!