My Hammer and I have been very, very busy

I have not worked with metals for a long while; I have been blissfully wrapped up in seed beads, beadweaving away, when not tending to a sick puppy.... but more about Tigger later...

I taught a cold connections workshop a couple of weeks ago, and made a few things while I was teaching:

Mixed Metals and Kyanite Necklace, available on Etsy

This contemporary, geometric necklace combines sterling silver and copper, my own enameled headpins, and a beautiful piece of kyanite - I love this necklace!

Also during that workshop I made a pair of long copper and sterling earrings, very similar to this pair:

Long hammered copper earrings, wrapped with sterling silver; available on Etsy

The pair I made during the workshop sold in my B&M shop within 10 minutes of the time I listed them on Etsy, so I sat down last week and made another pair (seen above), plus some other stuff - I hadn't forgotten how much I loved working with metal, but it was hard to pull myself away from the siren call of the seed beads!

Here are some other creations from last week:

Three different chevron necklaces:

Copper, Aluminum, and Brass Chevron necklace, on Vintaj Natural Brass chain; available on Etsy

This one combines copper, aluminum, and brass chevrons, hanging from dark Vintaj Natural brass chain - I really love the contrast of all these metals combined!

Hammered copper double chevron necklace, available on Etsy

For this one, I simply stuck to copper, and I think the result is very nice!

Hammered copper and brass chevron necklace, available on Etsy

This chevron necklace combines hammered copper with a thin brass chevron. I used Vintaj Natural brass jumprings to connect the two, and hung the chevrons from copper rolo chain.


Lastly, these hammered copper earrings, wrapped with artistic wire, available in 3 colors:

 Hammered copper earrings with silver wire wrap

 Hammered copper earrings with aqua wire wrap

 Hammered copper earrings with royal blue wire wrap

The last pair isn't on Etsy yet, because I forgot to take photos of them hanging - I'll get that done, probably tomorrow.

I noticed, while creating all these listings, that my camera has something foggy going on - I hope it is fingerprints or dog slobber on the lens; something I can fix, because I cannot afford to get this camera serviced AGAIN. It was MIA for over 3 months the last time I needed repairs! The flash has quit working on it, so I need to get it fixed, but there's no money!

Can someone with a critical eye take a look at a couple of these listings on Etsy, and let me know in the comments below whether you think I need to retake THESE pictures? I really don't want to, and the blurry spots in them really bug me, but I think the photos are clear enough for the product listings, but I'd love a second, and third, and 4th opinion!

I'm going back to the seed beads this week (I've missed them!), but I have an idea for a series of metalwork pieces, so I'll be starting with that soon - I'm still in the sketching phase right now.

So, back to Tigger. He is doing much better now. He's healed and recovered from his surgery, but his diarrhea never resolved, so he is now being evaluated for inflammatory bowel disease (little guy just never gets a break!). He is on an extremely restrictive diet (no treats!), and the diarrhea is much better, but still there. The intestinal gas is finally gone, and I can tell he feels better. He is SO active and energetic! He has started obedience classes, and is doing well, although he can be very stubborn and uncooperative (much like his mom). If he doesn't feel like coming when called, he is Just. Not. Gonna.

We see the doctor day after tomorrow, to see what the next step is after these 2 weeks of extreme dietary restriction. I'm hoping we can start to add back some dietary elements, trying to find which ones really upset his tummy and which ones are OK. School is very hard with no treats for reward! Plus, he is going nuts watching me eat Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, and not share with him - it bugs me, too! He's so cute!

There are still tutorials and kits available in my Etsy shop, where all proceeds go to help with Tigger's ever-mounting medical expenses. And, of course, all jewelry purchases from my shop also go to help with the bills!

Thanks for taking the time to read this long post, and have a great week! If you have a minute, leave me a comment, and tell me what you think about the blurry photos!

Thanks!

Custom Earrings

I finally got my camera back (Yay!), and just finished creating these custom earrings for a friend I met on Facebook:

Sterling Silver and Copper Earrings by Sweet Freedom Designs

I cut and pierced the sterling silver squares, then hammered and oxidized them. I added copper wire accents, and a champagne-colored Czech glass bead at the top.

I think she'll love them!

It's Science, Baby!

Let's switch it up a little - here's what's going on in my backyard:

I know it is technically autumn now, but my South Carolina backyard still thinks it is summer.

I planted a sprig of Passiflora incarnata (Passionflower) in my backyard over 15 years ago, not knowing that it was highly invasive, and you know what? I'm glad I didn't know (although I quickly learned!) - because I probably never would have planted it, and I would have missed out on a lot.

 Passiflora incarnata blooms (Passionflower)

These are a couple of the passionflower blooms, a few weeks ago - surrounded by their pretty, abundant, 5-lobed leaves and their graspy, grabby tendrils. The tendrils will grab anything, and wind around them tightly - so fast, you can actually see it happen if you settle down with a good book, and hold out a finger (not that I've ever done that).

I've blogged about my passion for passionflower before; but what's going on now is new! Let me lay a little groundwork for you, first.

At the time I purchased my little sprig of Passionflower, I was told that it was the only natural food source for the caterpillar of the Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae) butterfly:

Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae)

Sure enough; the year after I planted it, I started seeing these pretty orange and black butterflies; more and more of them each year - but nothing like this year! There are hundreds and hundreds of them! Just gorgeous!

And where there are hundreds of butterflies, you can bet their are hundreds of caterpillars. And did I mention - their offspring are voraciously hungry?

The passionflower vines are covering at least 50% of the other foliage in my yard, as well as my entire deck - so pretty! But within a few days of hatching, the caterpillars start to decimated the vine's foliage, leaving it pretty "moth-eaten."

Compare the picture of the passionflower foliage above, with one I took yesterday:

Decimated foliage of Passiflora incarnata

The leaves you see to the right are from the obviously non-tasty forsythia - a hardy shrub with pretty yellow blooms in the Spring. This particular portion of the passionflower is covering my deck, and the forsythia, and a couple of hydrangeas - and all the passionflower blooms are gone. In this area.

And look what I found when I inspected a little closer:

caterpillar of the Gulf Fritillary

This hungry varmint is trying to hide behind a forsythia leaf.

caterpillar of the Gulf Fritillary

Mere inches away from the first caterpillar, another one tries to find a few molecules of sustenance. And these caterpillars aren't hard to find - the vine is covered in them.

The new thing that is happening now is that these caterpillars have decided to use my HOUSE for the next phase in their life cycle.

Starting a few weeks ago, every time I'd open the back door to let Bailey out, I see 2 or 3 of the caterpillars dangling upside down in the door jamb. Weird. And the next day, there'd be what looked to be a dried-up leaf in their place, but in actuality it was their chrysalis.

So I took the camera home from the shop with me yesterday, hoping to catch this process. And as I quickly discovered, it's not just the door jamb - it's the whole back of the house!

Here is one of the caterpillars soon after attaching to the house (they apparently have some way to drill into the house (or tree, or whatever) with their back end, and then they hang upside down like a bat. These are 2 different caterpillars:

 early stage of pupation, Gulf Fritillary

early stage of pupation, Gulf Fritillary

Within less than 18 hours, they start to visibly change:

Early pupation, Gulf Fritillary

See the white areas near the head of the caterpillar? If not, allow me to point them out:

Chrysalis formation, Gulf Fritillary

[BTW - pay NO attention to the mold growing on my house - I certainly don't.]

Within another 24 hours, the chrysalis has completely formed - here are 2 of the hundreds attached to my house:

Gulf Fritillary chrysalis

Gulf Fritillary chrysalis

I don't know how long they stay like this - I assume until next spring, since there is no foliage for hungry newly-hatched caterpillars to eat in the late fall and winter. And I wonder what creatures find these chrysalises good eating?

Over to the far right of my deck, I have a Chaste tree (Vitex sp.) that the passionflower vine just discovered this year - yesterday I saw that the tree is partially covered in passionflower, with some gorgeous blooms, and none of the foliage has been eaten. I guess it takes  a year or so for the butterflies to lay their eggs, and for the eggs to then hatch, before the caterpillars can start eating the new portions of the vine. According to the Internet (motto: "We'd never lie to you."), Passiflora incarnata can grow 15 or more feet in one season. I am going with "more," since it discovered and completely took over this tall tree just since this Spring.

Passiflora incarnata blooming on Chaste tree

This was a difficult shot for me to get; the blooms are about 20 feet away from me, and about 20 feet off the ground, so I used the telephoto lens. The arrow is pointing to the large 5-lobed leaves of the vine, completely untouched by hungry caterpillars. To the right of the arrow, and a little below it, is one of the purple passionflower blossoms. There are a few more blooms in there, but they are lost in the setting sun coming in from behind the tree.

 Butterfly life cycle

So, there's today's science lesson!

And on a more jewelry-related note: After 1 full day and 2 half days of steel wooling, here is my pile of polished oxidized copper components (following the Liver of Sulfur treatment a few days ago), ready to go into the tumbler. I was surprised at how heavy this little pile is - I had to split in in 2 for the tumbler runs. The first half is in now, and the rest will go in tomorrow. Now that this chore is basically done, I can set up the torch for enameling (on a different batch of components)! After I teach a beadweaving class tomorrow, though.

ready for the tumbler, finally!

It stinks in here!

I have fallen a little behind on my production schedule; I just took this batch of copper pieces through the Liver of Sulfur, and boy, did I stink up the bead shop!

I need to take the stuff outside and dump it, now that I'm done, but the shop has been steadily busy all day, so no chance to sneak outside. Yet. My customers are too nice to tell me how bad it stinks in here, but I popped out quickly to close the car windows (fixin' to rain again!) - and my eyes and nose started burning from the stench when I came back in!

Next up: I get to take steel wool to these pieces, and polish them up, and then I'll tumble them.

I still need to drill holes in some of the pieces I plan to enamel - that's a whole 'nother pile.

I had really hoped to already be enameling by this time, but it wasn't to be - and I'm teaching classes on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, so it looks like maybe Thursday for the torch, depending on how quickly I can get the drilling done.

In production mode

As I said earlier this week, I am putting down the beadwork for awhile to work with metal.

One of my goals is to re-open my supply shop on Etsy, and stock it with handmade etched and/or enameled metal components and findings. Towards that end, I have been busy all week hammering, cutting, drilling, etching, pickling, sanding, etc....

Here is the temporary workstation I improvised in the middle of the bead shop so that I could get more work done without having to constantly get up to get what I need:

After 4 days, I have finally finished (for this run, anyway) all the etching and cutting.

I still need to drill a lot of holes, and sand some pieces. And I also have some hammering yet to do.

Also yet to come: Liver of Sulfur for the etched pieces.

And also, enameling - I will try to get to this by the middle of next week. There is still much to do before I can even think of firing up the torch! Plus, I am teaching a beadweaving class next Wednesday, so that whole day is shot as far as this endeavor is concerned! But at least I will get to squeeze in a little beading!

And after all this metal drudgery fun, comes the worst part: photos, descriptions, and listing on Etsy. I hope to get the  Etsy shop back open by the last week in September, even if I only have a few items listed!

More from the Cold Connections Workshop

Here are the last 2 pairs of earrings I made at the Cold Connections Workshop I taught 2 weeks ago:

Zentangle-inspired domed oval copper earrings

This (above) is another pair of Zentangle-inspired earrings - these are long ovals, which I domed.

textured copper dagger earrings

I like these simple little textured dagger earrings!

I made a few other things you haven't seen yet during the Workshop: a heart charm, a Zentangle-inspired heart pendant, and 2 seashell-themed pieces - a scallop shell and a sand dollar:

copper sand dollar

copper scallop
These 2 pieces are deeply etched, and would make terrific pendants just as they are (well, the sand dollar needs a hole or 2 before it will hang...), but I'm not sure yet if that's the way I want to go. So they have gone back into my "To Do" box for the next time I haul out all the metal working stuff.

It would be so fantastic to have enough space to leave all my workstations set up ALL THE TIME! And what a time-saver, too. Maybe when I win the lottery....

Tomorrow: my adventures in aluminum etching!

Domed Floral Copper Pendant

I love this little piece - it was an experiment/teaching piece during the Cold Connections Workshop weekend, and it turned out really well:

Domed floral copper pendant

I cut the copper circle out with the disc cutter, then cut 3 very small "flower" shapes out of the sheet copper. My intention was to color the flowers, somehow, and attach them to the domed copper circle.

The circle itself is less than an inch in diameter, so these little flowers are really small. I puzzled over the patination and the flower attachment. I had several options for getting colored flowers: alcohol ink (quick), Gilder's paste (unreliable and messy), perfect pearls (often gives me the best result), and colored pencils over gesso (takes longer than I intended to wait!).

My issues were:

• I feared the attachment process (I intended to rivet the flowers onto the copper) would destroy any patination I apply before riveting
• But if I waited and tried to color the flowers after the riveting, I knew in my heart that no matter which method I chose (except, maybe, the colored pencils) - I wouldn't have enough control, and the color would go everywhere: onto the other flowers, onto the copper disc.

So, what's a girl to do? I sat and pondered, and worked on other stuff.

I finally decided to suck it up and proceed. 

I alcohol inked the flowers, and got beautiful, vibrant colors (I surprised myself). I sealed them with 2 coats of Krylon. (lots of time here, waiting for the Krylon to dry - I forgot about that part in my estimation of how much time each patination method would take.)

I inserted copper rivets (one at a time) into the center of each flower, turned the piece upside down, and placed it on top of a stack of about 10 paper towels on top of the bench block. One by one, I riveted them, and no color came off. (I surprised myself, again.)

I put a sock inside my metal dapping block's cups, and domed the disc, flower side down. The disc domed almost perfectly - no flower damage at all (surprise, again!). At the bottom of the pendant, one of the flowers caused a slight dent in the copper dome (under the purple flower). No biggie. Hardly shows.

I used chain nose pliers to slightly bend out each petal of each flower.

I drilled a hole in the top for hanging.

 Multicolored floral copper pendant

Inside of the pendant, showing the rivets

I decided not to push my luck by tumbling the pendant: what if THAT was what finally removed the color? So the inside of the disc is splotchy looking, but I polished the front, and that's what shows!

It's available on Etsy!

Woven Mixed Metals Pendant

Mixed Metals Woven Wire Pendant

This is my favorite piece out of everything I made during the Cold Connections Workshop I taught last weekend.

It started with sheet copper, which I cut and sanded, and then fold-formed. This is how the copper looked when the folding was finished, after multiple annealings with the torch, a soak in the pickle to remove all the fire scale, and after I drilled all the attachment holes. (compare the finish on the copper below with how it looks after tumbling (above).

fold-formed and drilled copper

Next, I cut 4 pieces of 16g sterling silver wire, and hammered them into "paddles." Then I attached them to the folded copper rectangle, one at a time, by coiling and weaving 26g sterling silver wire around the paddles and through the holes in the copper. It would have been very handy (no pun intended) to have had 3 hands during this step - the pieces wanted to do everything, and go everywhere, except where I wanted them to be.

Mixed metal woven pendant

I drilled holes through the tops of the side paddles, and added silver jump rings, so this piece is ready to hang from leather, ribbon, chain, etc. - or to be incorporated into a fabulous jewelry design of your own!

Here is the back of the pendant, showing a bit of magenta heat patination from all the annealing:

Back of the pendant, with magenta heat patination.

It's available in my Etsy shop!

I Upcycled the Lid from my Felted Vessel to make this Pendant

Shiny aluminum pendant with upcycled felt in the window. Peek-a-boo!

Remember my felted vessel?

 embellished felted vessel

I had a 4 inch circle of felt leftover after I cut the lid in the vessel, and I've been hoarding it. I had no idea what to do with it, but I worked VERY hard to make it, and I couldn't just throw it away!

Finally, while teaching the Cold Connections Workshop last week, it hit me: work it into a piece of metal jewelry, somehow. That's about as fully formed as the inspiration was when it occurred to me, but after playing around for awhile, this is what I came up with.

Shiny aluminum pendant with upcycled felt window

I loved the blues and reds in the felt, and I just really thought they looked better with silver than with copper. Using silver metal creates a couple of problems I'm still trying to overcome - sterling is awfully expensive, so I'd rather not use it. Aluminum is fairly inexpensive, but it won't etch (more on that later this week), and it won't take liver of sulfur patina. So, while I could easily texture the aluminum with hammers, or stamp on it, I still couldn't accentuate the texturing/stamping with LOS, so it really wouldn't show up very well.

So, if I was going to use aluminum, it was going to untextured - and I decided if it was going to be shiny, it was going to be REALLY shiny, so I tumbled it (before the felt was added), and after the whole pendant was finished it, I polished it with the Dremel and the radial discs, so this pendant has a brilliant mirror finish. So shiny that my camera lens is visible in almost every single pic. How do professional photographers get around obstacles like this? Beats me.

After cutting and prepping the aluminum, I used my disc cutter to cut the circle in the front piece of aluminum. I put the 2 pieces together, with the felt in the middle, and grommeted the stack together with matching blue grommets.

The back of the shiny aluminum pendant, reflecting my camera lens nicely! :(

 It's available in my Etsy shop!

I have more blue felt leftover, so I plan to make more jewelry with it - just need to figure out some more ways to incorporate the felt. After all, this window design is so last week, literally (LOL!)

2 New Resin Pendants

Happy Memorial Day!

These are 2 more of the pieces that I created during our marathon Cold Connections Workshop last week:

Metal dragonfly and blue flower resin pendant

• A gold striped metal dragonfly (with gold rhinestone head and thorax!) -  (scrapbooking dept, naturally)
• An iron flower, which I enameled bright blue
• A paper branch with leaves (more from the scrapbooking section)
• A bright red 6/0 seed bead for the flower's center

After cutting and prepping the copper, I placed all these objects where I wanted them, and added embossing powder. I tried to get fancy, and added a little green glittery embossing powder around the edges, but it all disappeared.  I love the mirror finish I got on this one - it is incredibly shiny (so shiny that I couldn't even get decent pics: every pic shows the reflection of my camera lens. Boo.)

This dragonfly pendant has 2 holes (and 18g copper jump rings) for hanging, and is available on Etsy.

Green quilled paper butterfly resin pendant

I chose a green quilled paper butterfly for this copper pendant, and I think it's really cute. It also has 2 holes (and 18g jumprings) for hanging, and is available on Etsy.

I still have lots more pieces to show from the Cold Connections workshop - stay tuned!

Copper and Dichroic Glass Bracelet

It's finished!

I really intended to sell this one until I put it on - now I think it's a ME bracelet! LOL. Not really - it's gorgeous, and I love the colors, but it's available in my Etsy shop.

Here is one pic:

and here is another:

As usual, I decided it needed a little ... pizazz!

This is a side-by-side comparison:

Which do you like better? A (unembellished) OR B (embellished with Swarovski crystals)? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Here are a few more photos:

Copper and Dichroic Glass Bracelet

Copper and Dichroic Glass Bracelet

Copper and Dichroic Glass Bracelet

Copper Bracelet Update

The copper bracelet I've been working on all week is done - basically. It's in the tumbler, and I'd like it to tumble for 4 or 5 hours before it's really, truly, shiny and done, done, DONE. So no peeking yet!

Here's my process for setting the glass cabochon in the copper:

1st, of course, I created a mock-up on paper. The one below is actually either the 2nd or 3rd paper model I created, because I ran into some design problems on the first few (thank goodness they were on paper!), plus, I was stubbornly insisting on drawing on the paper with Sharpie, instead of pencil, so I kept having to get fresh paper. You can even see some of my Sharpie missteps in the model below - the rectangular markings across the middle of the "cabochon" had to be relocated, because they ended up interfering with the hole placement.

paper model of copper bezel (with errant blue thread from who-knows-where)

I take my paper models to the extreme - for this one, I cut out all the bezel tabs, and actually "set" the cab in the paper model, to make sure all the cuts were in the right places before I took saw to copper.

Here is the copper bezel, with the tabs sawn out and bent, and the connection holes drilled:

 copper bezel (no solder)

Next, I shortened and shaped the 4 tabs, so that as much of my pretty Picasso-style dichroic glass cabochon shows as possible - no point in covering up the pretty with excess copper!

copper bezel with dichroic glass cabochon

I'll be back to show you the finished bracelet tomorrow!