In my case, I’m pretty sure I did not have the bezel flush enough to the backplate. It’s a pain to get a little circle of silver to touch EVERYWHERE on a flat sheet of sterling silver. If that sheet is not perfectly flat, there’ll be a gap. If the bezel edge is not perfectly flat, there’ll be a gap.

After 3 tries of my solder not melting, not flowing at all, but just getting hotter and hotter until it STUCK on the backplate like old chewed up gum, I gave up and tried something easy.

First I annealed a piece of wire – anneal is when you heat the metal enough to realign the molecules in the metal so that it is soft and malleable. They call it “dead soft”. Annealing is a process one goes through many times in making a piece, as the more the metal is worked, the harder and more brittle it can be – without annealing, the metal may be too hard to shape and work, or so brittle it could break.

Anyway! I annealed my wire and then clamped one end in a vice and proceeded to tie a knot. Then I pulled as hard as I could to get the knot into a nice small shape. Then I wrapped it around a ring mandrel, marked the size I wanted, snipped and made the two ends as perfectly flush and close as I could get them. Then I went to solder them together – after that, a little reshaping with the ring mandrel and a hammer, and I’d have a nice little ring.

My soldering woes had not yet left me, however. That solder just did not want to flow. I think something was bubbling up from the charcoal block I was using and dirtying up my wire. Finally after several tries though, I managed to get my knot ring made and shaped.

Feeling a bit better about my soldering, I went back to my bezel, double checking everything and making sure Nick (my teacher) gave it his approval. Once again, I soldered away, and while I still had a few of my solder pieces NOT flow, instead, just SIT there fusing themselves to the backplate, enough of the solder did flow, that I finally tasted success! I cut away the excess backplate with my jeweler’s saw, and marveled that I had finally managed it.

Next I will make a ring shank to mount it on. Inside will go a pretty pink oval rhodocrosite stone.

So all in all, not a bad use of my classtime. I am very excited for next week – I’ve ordered some tubing and have a whole bunch of sweet little faceted gems to set. Nothing too expensive yet, but I got white topaz, peridot, amethyst, tourmaline. Drooled over the sapphires, but I’ll wait until I have more skill! I’m planning on making a series of skinny stacking rings with gemstones for the shop.

All in all, a great night at the bench!

-amy

It’s been busy around Casa de Panders. Monday was Columbus day, and I had it off… but no one else did. It was quite nice to lounge around the house doing nothing all day! I debated on what I would do, but with my car at the shop (it needed a new radiator, sniff) I was stuck at home and ended up cutting rings and chain mailling all day.

Here’s what I made:

Celtic Visions in copper

Jens Pind in 14 gauge (ie: HUGE) sterling silver

And here’s another Jens Pind, in 18 gauge sterling that I made last week. It’s listed in the shop now.

So, it was a pleasant enough day – unfortunately, I think I overdid it and the joints in my right forefinger and thumb are kind of aching – this is really kind of pissing me off, as I just bought new pliers that I really quite liked. I hope it wasn’t the pliers that did it.

Oh, and here’s one more picture: Any guesses as to who Jocelyn is going to be for Halloween? Someone from one of my FAVORITEST movies!

-amy

I KNOW that if I had stepped in and “helped” her with this project, they would not have turned out as AWESOME as they did.

She said, “I’m making some paper dolls, Mommy!” And make them she did.

Behold! The dolls!

#1: halloween (note the ghostie earring) #2: rocking out with headphones (note the music note) #3 ROBOTS! OMG SHE MADE ROBOTS!!! #4 normal girl

Behold! The clothing she made for the dolls!

And here are the dolls with their clothes on. I laid the clothes on the dolls and scanned them “dressed”:

#1: halloween girl now has ghostie shirt too! #3 That robot girl is lookin’ pretty boobtastic!

If you click the images, you’ll go to my flickr page where I have added a few notes to the first and second page.

Oh man. These just kill me. KILL me. I am going crazy in the best way, when I look at these! That girl. I love her.

-amy

See all banners for my blog here!

(The earrings will probably be posted for sale tonight.)

This will be listed in my shop as soon as I can get some good photos taken.

I think when I list it, I will name it, “A River Runs Through It.”

What would you name it? I’d love to hear.

If you are in the DC metro area and enjoy wearing gorgeous jewelry, you might be interested in the class I’m teaching in a few weeks!

This is a 4 hour class from 10am-2pm on Saturday, September 12th at The Soundry, a very cool artist space in Vienna, VA. I’m also all set to teach it on October 3rd. (All Saturdays!) All you have to do is bring yourself, and I supply everything else!

 

Many people hear “chain maille” and think medieval armor–not so anymore! With a pair
of pliers in each hand, you will learn the byzantine chain maille weave. It is a lovely, complex
and ornate looking weave, but surprisingly easy to learn! Students will finish an 8 inch sterling
silver bracelet with a toggle clasp that will be the envy of all your Tiffany-shopping friends!
Class Fee: $25, Supply Fee: $55 (may vary depending on cost of silver)
Ages: 12yrs + Experience: Beginner
Sign up now!

 
I am very excited! If you’d like to sign up, just click here for the sign up form. Feel free to drop me note in the comments or email if you like as well, I would be tickled to hear from you!

-amy

I know regular readers know I am a little nutty about Strawberry Shortcake dolls. What can I say. My neighbor Heidi and best friend when I was in my formative year had a beautiful case FULL, FULL I SAY, of nearly all the strawberry shortcake dolls. I had a mere pittance compared to her. Needless to say, we adored Strawberry and all her friends, and spent many a happy hour whiling away the time playing with them. So basically, I’m saying…. let’s blame Heidi!

Fast forward about a bajillion years, when I am grown with a small daughter of my own, and I saw them for sale for Target. I didn’t go nutty. But here was a doll that was bright eyed, innocent, GIRL-LOOKING (as opposed to skanky ho, (bratz) woman looking, (barbies) or related to royalty (princesses) –what’s not to love for your 3-4 year old daughter?) so yes, I was pleased, and didn’t mind purchasing this toy for my daughter.

Since then, I have gotten a little nutty. I think it started when we found this beauty at a garage sale:

How can you not love this? This is just maximum awesome! When I saw this with a $2 price tag on it, all I can say is, if Jocelyn didn’t want it, I DID. So we purchased it, and it’s seen hours of fun with Jocelyn. Our older neighbor girl even tried to buy it from Jocelyn before I put a stop to it, hee hee.

I’ve found that Strawberry and/or her friends make excellent birthday presents and we’ve tried to spread the strawberry love whenever we went a birthday-ing. When we drew names at christmastime for family present-giving, it wasn’t any surprise when Ethan got me a Strawberry doll for his present to me. Sweet

So, while I wasn’t nutty, I was a fan. The nuttiness came when suddenly, they all went on clearance at Toys R Us. It was right around christmas time, when I was shopping and looking things up online, so of course I noticed. What did this MEAN??? Would there be NO MORE STRAWBERRY?? All signs pointed to YES.

Well….. I panicked a bit. I bought some of the clearance dolls on the TRU website. After all, they were marked down to $4.98. It was a screaming deal, right?

And then before they arrived, I stopped and bought some at the store. Because there were SOME that they had IN THE STORE that they hadn’t had ONLINE! Come on, work with me here people!

OK, so this is when I think we can say, the nuttiness for all things Strawberry was signed and certified. When I was done, our “present closet” had a HUYOOGE TRU bag filled with Strawberry, Lemon Meringue, Crepes Suzette, some of the ponies, BABY Strawberry, all in Rock-a-berry, Winter-berry, or some “twist” variety.

So, if there was no more strawberry dolls in the world, at least I had a stash. There’s a very real sense of relief with that, you know!

The stash came in pretty handy. A few came out for Jocelyn’s birthday. A few more came out friend’s birthdays. What can I say, it’s very handy having a Strawberry stash! And in the back of my mind, I knew they were there, even if no more strawberry dolls would be made ever again, it was OK, because I HAD SOME IN MY STASH.

Until today.

Jocelyn’s friend Sophia has a birthday next week, and so I told Jocelyn I’d check and see if we had any Strawberry Shortcake horses in the present closet. (Sophia is having a “horses” themed party, so we thought we’d carry on the theme!) Much to my chagrin, my stash had somehow become quite depleted. Only 3 dolls and one pony left! HOW DID THIS HAPPEN??? WOE IS MEEEEEE!!

I tell you, I couldn’t have felt more shocked than someone in a bombshelter with nuclear winter overhead suddenly realizing they were out of chocolate syrup to go with their canned milk for the next 30 years.

Where had they all gone? WHAT WOULD I DOOOOO????

So, we headed out to gymnastics this morning, with the plan to hit target on the way back to pick out a present for Sophia (what, you think I was going to DEPLETE what little was left of my stash? no way buster!), and also a boy present for our neighbor, who is also having a birthday. Somehow, we decided to stop at Toys R Us, instead. On a whim, I did a search on the TRU site for Strawberry Shortcake on my phone, and imagine my shock and surprise to find a WHOLE NEW LINE of Strawberry Shortcake items.

I immediately freaked out. So excited was I, to go and check out these new items in the Strawberry brand! IT WAS LIKE CHRISTMAS IN AUGUST! We looked everything over, Jocelyn purchased some Strawberry with her hard-saved allowance (Sophia is going to get my little ponies) and I have been all a-glow all day! Strawberries in the world again! Yay!

SO! Here’s the rundown of the new line!

We have the soft Strawberry dolls:

TRU link: $9.99

These look cute, and they have included my main criteria: brushable hair. Jocelyn isn’t that interested into brushing hair yet, but I know as my neighbor and I got older, the hair was the main attraction of all our dolls, not just Strawberry.

Then, we have the slightly smaller, slightly less expensive, mini-purse strawberries:

TRU link: $6.99

Always a hit, to have a doll, AND a small plastic purse a young girl can slip onto her wrist. Comes with brush. I’m not sure I like having so many different types of dolls though — that’s just the first two!

There are completely different dolls with the different playsets! WithOUT brushable hair, I might add:

roadster TRU link: $15.99

Cafe playset TRU link: $29.99

Berry Market TRU link: $10.99

Berry Stylish Mini Dressup TRU link: $10.99

And finally, there is an oversized big doll, that looks very cute:
TRU link: $19.99

And finally, this is the one my daughter bought:

she has been playing with it all day.

While I love that there is now, once again, strawberry shortcakes out there in the land, I am a bit conflicted on the changes. I’m not sure I like how she looks now — she just doesn’t seem the same. I will probably grow to love her though.

So there you go. All your strawberry shortcake updates, right here. I aim to please.

Go forth, and have a berry nice day!

-amy

I’m just thinking over how my course of jewelry making has taken in the last year. I decided about this time last year, that I was going to make jewelry for the females in my family for Christmas. I hadn’t done any jewelry making since high school, when I would do some stringing on fishing line, and then take a lighter and melt the knot so it wouldn’t SPROING apart. In case you don’t know, this is a pretty juvenile approach to bead stringing, however, it served pretty well, and I had several necklaces for many years before they broke.

So when I first started, I bought a bead stringing book, and some beads during a trip to Michaels. The book was a great start with the introduction of some basic stringing tools – the proper kind of material to string it with, crimping pliers, crimp beads, clasps, design elements. I knew that I couldn’t keep going to Michaels – I was still uneducated, but I knew it was over priced, and cheap. The first site I stumbled on was jewelrysupply.com and while it is a decent site, it’s not one of the better jewelry supply sites that I now know are out there.

So I strung a little and read my book and looked through the site looking through the various tools they had wondering what in the world one would do what THAT. I started scouring etsy for inspiration and also, some direction. Stringing wasn’t really for me, honestly. It was too easy and too hard, all at the same time. Too easy in that all you have to do is slip a bead onto a strand over and over until you have your piece. It’s too hard in that you have to decide WHAT to string and WHERE and in what order and how long and multistrand? and does this stone look good with that one and… It’s harder than it looks.

But I did make jewelry for all the females on my list, and I think back on them and still think they looked pretty good. In the meantime, I had taken a wire working class and learned how to wrap a bead, make some figure 8 connectors, twist wire in new and fun ways. The class was actually kind of an accident, in that if I knew what it was about, I think I would have passed, but in fact, it was exactly what I needed. I took in the language, the terminology of the wire work and yearned for more. I discarded what I didn’t like about the class and honed the skills it taught me.

I found a few of the jewelry supply monoliths out there and again pored over their catalogs and built wishlists. I went to local beadstores and bought way too many beads. (And never too many!) I joined a yahoo group for wire wrapping and continued to track and absorb. I looked through galleries, I knew what I liked, I knew what I didn’t like.

Somewhere in there, I found a few chainmaille sites. This is where I think I may have gone a little haywire. I think chainmaille is fantastic for many reasons – in the right material and sizes, it almost never fails to impress. It’s so intricate and meticulous and yet one can do it while they sit on the couch watching TV. (What’s not to love?) One can adorn it with beading or leave it plain and it still looks jaw-droppingly gorgeous.

I was a smitten kitten. I bought my first (last? I know james hopes so!) jump ring cutter and my love affair with sterling silver was fully underway.

I scoured forums, chainmaille weave tutorials, added super sale dates to my calendar so I could be sure to buy my expensive sterling silver wire at the best price, cursed my jumpringer, smooched my jumpringer, wove and wove some more. I branched back out from time to time, to make some wire wrapped beaded items that I was proud to see had a unique design to it, something I could proudly point to and say, “I designed that.”

Another class, this one on soldering, light up a big compact flourescent bulb over my head. I was on the search again, this time, poring over torches, solder, flux, pickle, and let’s not forget disc cutters, doming blocks, rolling mills, flexshafts. More groups to join, more forms to explore, more words, this time on smithing, to hang on to every one.

There is a great jewelry artist community out there that has given a lot to me (whether they knew it or not) just from my careful observation. Just from my reading every word I could find on the subject. Almost just through my proximity, my hovering around to hear every morsel, every drop. almost, one could say, through osmosis.

Still, I guess there comes a time where even learning through osmosis needs actual instruction. And so I’m very excited and absolutely giddy that I am taking a class in the fall term of the Art League, on silversmithing. Nine glorious weeks of bench time with someone to watch and hang on every word. Though this time, not in virtual space, but in real space.

I start mid September. Very excited.

-amy

Featuring my new “Hooters” earrings! Aren’t they cuuuute?

Check them out in my artfire store.