Good Bye to Kisa Rowena

We lost one of the fur babies in my household this week, Kisa Rowena. She was our inside -outside ( her choice, not mine) half Persian cat of 12 + years. Despite her ornery nature and an insidious ability to teleport food off your plate (earning her the nickname of "land piranha" by the Hubby) she was a good cat and will be missed. I hope you rest well in your own private spot of sunshine, with lots of squinties to chase and self-opening cans of tuna, where ever your spirit lands, that it lands on it's feet. Good bye Kisa.

I'm soooooo excited........

I had my first Art Museum class tonight.. It's called "colorization of Titanium, Niobium, and Copper Surfaces" I'm going to have so much fun, I can't hardly wait!! First thing tomorrow I"ll be ordering a small stash of Titanium and Niobium to play with in the class.. Later in the class we will work with copper. The Teacher is Rob Sunderman ( http://www.robertsunderman.com/portfolio.html ) and he seems very kewl. His style is laid back, which I really appreciate, cause I've taken some classes that weren't. Nothing squelches creativity and learning like being afraid of doing something "wrong". He's all for experimentation. For example, he demonstrated how anodizing is done, and discussed resistance for doing special color effects. The typical resistance material is a sticky tape substance. However we started making other suggestions (like fingernail polish or glues) and he was all for trying them, as long as they wouldn't cause a harmful reaction or contaminate the dipping solution. Did I mention how much fun I"m gonna have in this class??

I originally took this class because it hi-lights cold connections, something I'm really trying to explore right now. I looked at the colors as sort of a secondary thing, despite it's what the class is about. Since Titanium and Niobium are hard/impossible to solder ( the melting temps are insanely high, 3038 f and 4474 f respectively) cold connections are the way to go. I've already sketched several ideas, and some might even be possible! Man, I'm gonna have fun in this class!!!!

Hopefully in a few weeks I"ll be showing off some of my new skills... til then, I'll keep working on my other projects.

One of those is making more of my own findings. Some designs just work better with custom findings, but I like the "plug and play" nature of purchased findings. So I'm trying to make some every week so I'll have stash for show season in May. I'm also selling these on Etsy (you can see them here http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5543133&section_id=5871174 ). Below is a few pics showing some of my styles. My favorites so far is the leaf earwires. I'll be making more of those!

I'm also working on my South Dakota Challenge for 2009-- here is a sneak peek... yes these are soldered. More to come!

Reorganizing my studio part II......

I started to reorganize my studio area in the attic in Dec ( you can see "before" pictures here: http://mkpbeadart.blogspot.com/2008/11/my-current-activity.html#links ) The before shots show my main bead area, the front area that I used mostly for storage, and the spare bedroom/storage for everything in the house. I'm not done exactly, but I'm getting there. The idea is that I would utilize all the attic instead of part of it. I want to create 3 areas for jewelry making instead of the 1 spot I have now, to reflect my growth as an artist and crafts person... I've picked up skills that have different space requirements. As I still do some seed beading and such, I wanted to retain my regular station also. So the day bed has been moved to the front of the area. I think of it as a couch for potential customers that might stop by. This front area has always been sort of "dead" space, as it's narrow and you can't block off access to the other 2 "rooms". I looked at moving one of my "stations" to this area, but it would make it soooo crowded to have to walk by it.. I want my Studio to be airy and open, as least as much as possible. My Attic is sort of like a fat, squat "T". Opposite the bed is the counter built over the stairway... if a potential customer is coming over I can spread out jewelry on the counter.

I've left my primary jewelry making area mostly alone, the biggest change is I moved the books to the other room where the bed used to be. This gives me more room for beads and material's, as my space was getting crowded. The picture below shows that space. I added a back table as one of the things I needed more of is just surface space to lay things/projects out. Notice my little oil heater.. the studio while I love it dearly, is cold, there isn't any heat up here. Notice my overflowing garage can, I need to clean my space like always! LOL

Here is leading into the "new" space, where the day bead used to be. (see my rolling mill on my counter... I love that thing!!!) The table is temporary, My dad is going to help us build a proper bench that will go here. Where the brown chair is will be my metal area, it's not completely set up yet. On the other side of the bench will be the lampworking area. Below is most of my lampworking stuff, including the glass organized and ready to go just as soon as the bench is set up! I've moved all of my lampworking books to this area also.

The last picture is the opposite side... this is where most of the books and magazines have moved to, and some general storage.

Once I get the bench set up proper I'll post that also!

More resolutions

Yep, as promised I'm going to share a few more resolutions, but first, take a look at these star earrings I made for a Christmas gift this year. I used 21GA sterling square wire, and soldered them together as a chain. I'm very pleased how they turned out, it's hard to tell on some of the stars were I soldered them! I've come to the conclusion that soldering isn't really hard, it's all the prep work and post work that is! To make these I first cut the wire, bent it into shape, and filed the ends of the wire so they closed well. If you do not have the ends butted properly, it's not going to solder well at all. That's probably the hardest part.. getting the ends to match well. I soldered all the bigger stars first, and then soldered the smaller star.. after I threaded the 2 big ones in it.. you have to be careful not to melt all the pieces together in a ball! After soldering, I pickled them for an hour or so, to clean them up. Then wash them with regular dish water detergent and a scrub pad, Then my least favorite chore. filing and sandpaper-ing at the solder joints to remove the excess solder. After a gentle reshape with pliers, I used my chasing hammer to flatten them.. then a quick polish and tumble. They were a great deal of work, but I'm very pleased they turned out as well as they did, especially as I used a smaller gauge. I was really afraid I'd melt them together in a ball, but I got them right the first time!

This bracelet's been sitting in my picture file for awhile, so I'd thought I would show it now.. it's Botswana agate and sterling silver wire. I love the pinks of this peculiar strand of agate, that's why I bought them in the first place!

Ok, now to the resolutions!! I really need to update my website. (http://www.beadfix.com/) Now I've made this resolution every year.. but this time I mean it!!! LOL I have time issues ( no, really Kat?) (yes that is sarcasm!) so as much as I would love to have a website with all the bells, with a shopping cart and links to interesting sites and updated well, hourly, it's not going to happen. It's taken me 2 years to understand that... the only way I could have a website like that is if I quit my day job, hire someone to revamp and maintain my website, or stop sleeping. Or possibly all three. I can't quit my day job yet, and I can't afford the costs of hiring someone to maintain the site, but I'll probably get help to revamp it. I don't get enough sleep now.. but that leads into the main issue, what is my website for??

To sell jewelry? I did try a shopping cart once before, about 3 years ago, but it looked clunky and I found it hard to maintain, so I took it off. I joined Etsy last year, and I've been pleased with it. It does all the hard parts of having a shopping cart, and since it has it's own traffic source more people will see my jewelry than just on my website.

To communicate with my customers? I started this blog a couple of years ago.. I like blogging. The format encourages frequent posting, and so far I've maintained more or less weekly updates. I can even do updates when I'm not home, if I have access to a computer.

So I'm not really sure what I want to do with my website. This month I'm going to be exploring that... I've even considered dropping it.. but then I do have customers that check it periodically, and it's only printed on about 5000 business cards right now... so that's my big question --what do I want? and then I'd deal with what it should look like.

My other main business resolution is taking better pictures. If I'm going to maintain my website this year, the key is better pictures. And for selling on etsy, the better the pictures, the better my sales will be. The mookite pendant shows my first stabs at better pictures. I've been doing some research and one of the suggestions is using scrapbooking paper for backgrounds. Picture 1 shows sort of a parchment background and picture #2 shows a picture of sandy stone.. I like how that one looks. I've taken pictures for the Internet for years now, but I've not been systematic about it... so now when I take pictures for the blog or Etsy I'll be taking notes each time, until I get the settings that work best for my camera. I'll be playing with different backgrounds and lighting set ups. Honestly I think my biggest issue is lighting. Lighting to date is whatever I have in the house. The miracle that any of my pictures turn out at all! (and that I use ott's in the studio probably helps!) I am planing on buying some professional lights just as soon as a figure out which ones I want. And more paper backgrounds I think. That could get fun! And learn to use the timer on my camera in tandem with the tripod, and I bet my pictures will improve drastically! See ya in a few days!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!! 2009.............

Happy New Years everyone!!

I don't know about anyone else, but I"m glad 2008 is over!

Business-wise and artistically it was fine, but on a personal level it sort of sucked. Something I realized after hitting the deer though, is I've been so overwhelmed by the bad things, I've sort of overlooked the good things. I've forgotten to celebrate the good in life. So one of my resolutions this year is to feel gratitude for the positive; to look for the the little things that are good and stop focusing on the major bad stuff I can't control anyway. Back in August I made a pendant called "God's Tear" (http://mkpbeadart.blogspot.com/2008/08/week-32-gods-tear.html#links) that was about finding the beauty amidst the sadness, but things kept happening and I lost the thought.... well I refuse to do that again! Have you ever heard of comic artist Keith Knight? I love his artwork, it's very expressive, and he started a strip within his strip that he calls Life's Little Victories. You can see one of his strips here: http://www.salon.com/comics/knig/2008/12/31/knig/index.html . I've decided this is an excellent way to accentuate the positive in my life.. so everyday I'm going to be looking for that victory... and stop worrying about the next shoe to drop. Today's ( #6 for me, I started this on Monday) was grand... being able to sleep in as late as I wanted, and still wake up before my daughter did! YES! (it's very important to say YES! with the exclamation point after you find your victory.. so repeat after me... YEESSS! )

I have a few other goals this year, and I'll share them all I'm sure in the next few weeks, but a big for me me is I'll be posting at least weekly on this blog. I've actually quite proud that I've managed to post mostly on a weekly basis for almost 2 years now. In fact, this will be my 100th blog! However I did so because I was doing YOJ weekly jewelry challenge, but I'm taking a break right now, at least for this quarter... so my posting will be on my own. I've got some exciting plans for my art this year, and I want to save my limited time for them right now.

What about the pendants in this entry? Each one is in a different style, so you know I've had fun making them! This year I'll continue exploring wireworking and metal techniques. I'm taking a class on cold connections starting in a few weeks, I'm very excited about that! I'm hoping to take more classes this year, even perhaps trying other mediums. Learning is one of the steady joys in life, and I am ready to embrace happiness again!

I"m BAAACK! online.....

Yeah! my Internet access got cut off on 12/7/08, and I got it back yesterday!!! Turns out when I got my phone line fixed, the guy switched phone pairs on me, which doesn't hurt phone quality , but kills DSL. Here are a few earrings of recent history... The green beads are vintage glass and brass wire, the 2 sterling earrings were really fun to make, I am planning a few more in this series. I hope everyone had a great Christmas Season, and I hope everyone is going to have a great new year!!! I'm looking forward to it...

Oh, Dragon Tree, oh Dragon Tree.....

A couple of weeks ago I passed along one of those email lists that you fill out and send to your friends, so they learn interesting and fun facts about you. This one was Christmas themed, and it asked, "Do you have a star or an angel as your tree topper?" I put in Dragons, and well, a few folks are like huh? So I promised I'd post a picture or 2. My Christmas tree has several dragons on it, both wooden and cloth. The wooden ones are handmade and we bought at a science fiction convention years and years ago. The cloth ones are also handmade, and I had them special ordered.. that's where the tree topper came also. I had just birthed my little girl ( She's twelve now, and as you can see in the pic, she's getting pretty big!) so when we ordered the cloth dragons, we got half a dozen small ones, one alittle bit bigger especially for Jesscera and 2 reg/large ones, one for me and one for Jerry. We started using them as a tree topper about 7 years ago.. We had this weird plastic star thingie that got broken and one of us had the brainstorm.. why not use the large dragons as the topper? Jerry twisted them together, and we liked it so much, we now do it every year. A couple of years ago Jesscera wanted hers added to the topper, and so now we have a family of 3 dragons on top of the tree.

We have all sorts of fun things on the tree.. cartoon characters, unicorns, Pegasus, griffins, nightmare before Christmas, flying cats and hippos, etc. And more mundane stuff like mini-stockings and "baby's first Christmas" stuff. Still it's a fun fun tree....

Ode to Thanksgiving, or Oh, my poor poor new car!!

I have alot to be thankful for in this holiday season... on the way home Friday night from thanksgiving celebrations with relatives, we hit a deer. We are all safe and unharmed, except for some soreness. My Car as you can see, is not in good shape, but we are safe. It could have been sooooo much worse! Jerry could have lost control of the car, and we could have flipped in the ditch. The deer could have come through the windshield, inside of sliding off to the side. I am safe, my Husband is safe, my daughter is safe, my mom is safe, so yeah, lots to be thankful for. So be thankful eh? maybe with out hitting a deer.....

my current activity............

OK this is my studio in my home. these are pre photos.. I"m working on rearranging it, and we are going to move the basement tools up, so it's all in one spot. No more running up or down stairs! (well unless i need a sink, unfortunately Cannot move one of those upstairs) As you can see in photo 1, we have a bed.. that part of the studio has sort of been storage and a spare bedroom. No more! The torches are going in this area. Considering I've been making jewelry exclusively for 11 years now, I'm also getting rid of my other craft stuff. I've got fabrics, yarns etc down to just 1 crate, and I'm keeping my sewing machine, because sometimes that comes in handy, but the rest is going. I'm really happy about this, and cannot wait to get it finished, but it's likely to take me a few weeks to sort, clean and build a bench upstairs.

Happy Turkey Day everyone!!!!!

YOJ Week 48: The ring's the thing....

OK, so I'm not following the themes real well, but I"m having so much fun playing with the torch! Both of these rings started out as 14GA half round wire, which I cut, filed, soldered, reshaped and polished. Ring 1 I left as half round shape, so it's slightly domed on the outside edge. Ring 2 was 2 small, so I decided to add texture with my hammer. Wow! I love how that looks, and it's hands down my favorite of the 2 rings. I will be making more of these!

YOJ Week 47: I heart Silver-smithing!

I made this heart out of 16GA square sterling. I'm so very pleased with myself! you can't tell where I soldered it. I soldered it in the most natural spot.. at the tip of the heart. I shaped the 16GA in a heart shape, then soldered, then filed and sanded down the rough edges and the line from the soldering, then hammered for texture, then polished and tumbled it. These are bad pictures, but it's gorgeous, it just shines and looks so good! The last picture shows the back. 2ND item is experimenting with copper tubing. I cut about a 1 inch chunk of the tube, filed and sanded the edges, then wound 18GA half-round wire round it, and then soldered them together. My technique isn't perfect, the sterling and/or the solder "leaked" on the copper parts, which I tried to clean up with my dremel, but this shows huge promise and I"m going to try again. I think next time I'll just tack the ends with solder, less likely then to leach sterling everywhere. I want to make enough tubes to make a necklace. And I want to get my hands on larger tubing. I've been playing around with fusing also... This stuff is so much darn dang fun!!!!!!!!!

YOJ Week 46: Star and Moon and finally... Week 9!!

Two weekends ago, I got a good session of metalsmithing in. yeah!!! The star and moon are courtesy of my Sister's home business.. she sells scrapebooking and paper art supplies. She's very good at it, her link is to the left in my links section. Anyway she's got die cutting gizmo's (it's called the big shot) for paper, so we experimented with using it to cut thin metal. We experimented with sterling silver in 24GA and 30GA, and copper in 24GA & 28GA. The 24Ga was a real reach, I want to try it with 26GA, I think that will be the perfect compromise between thin enough to cut properly and thick enough to do things with... Below is the first piece I've finished using the cutouts we made. The sterling moon is 30Ga which cut very well but I had trouble making this piece.. it's so thin one of the corners got clipped off, so I trimmed the bottom edge to match. Also using 30GA silver on 24GA copper is tricky, as the sterling wants to melt much faster than the solder did.. still I'm very pleased with this piece, and I think I"ll have to buy a die cutter or something, at least it's on my wish list. Anyway, I soldered the sterling moon on the 24GA copper star, polished the front to a mirror finish, and textured the back of the star, mostly cause I felt like it. The loop is 16GA half-round wire. Overall I'm very pleased how it turned out. I know some folks will think using a die cutter is "cheating" but honestly, I still had to do all the steps for making this a professional piece: filing, sanding, cleaning, soldering, sanding again, polishing and sometimes repeating all of that more than once to get the results you want. So the only short cut involved is the cutting/sawing of the piece. I really want to buy a gizmo!

I also made a heart pendant, a couple of rings, some headpins and .... .........................................................................................................................................................................................

I finally finished week 9!! Week 9 is the only week I've skipped, and that's because I started this project back in march, and then the show season started and I just never got back to it. Originally I had a very kewl concept for the theme " The hidden meaning", and I wanted to do it no matter what, so I skipped week 9 thinking I would get back to it alittle faster than November! First I love the stone in this pendant, and all along I wanted to keep it for myself. I was going to make a locket with this stone in front and have a picture on the inside, and have dangles coming down in front. The picture would be the hidden meaning. I had the stone oriented with the flat side down... anyway, when I picked it up anew 2 weeks ago, I realized how great this stone cab was, and it didn't need all that extra stuff to be mysterious... the stone itself has "hidden depths" especially if I flip it around and had the curve side down.. it makes me think of a cave with stalactite's and a creek in it and maybe goblins are going to pop out from behind a rook any second.... This stone is so pretty it didn't need any "gimmick " to make it sing. Now, I still fully intend to do a locket like that sometime, but not with this stone. So I went for a simple bezel... but I did do a tube for the bail and that turned out really well, I'm very pleased about that! Anyway, I'm now completely up to date with YOJ!