Got My Metal Smithing Table Back!

I have not had access to my meta smithing space for about 9 months.  I had an unexpected "guest" take over my work space. ( My work spaces are divided into separate areas, so there isn't any cross contamination).  My son (who's room is very small) decided he needed to move the cage to the basement.  Unfortunately, my work table was the only flat surface that was big enough and stable enough to put the cage on.  I finally got enough space cleared that I could move the cage and reclaim my space.  I am very excited to be getting back into the metal smithing!

Here is the culprit. Pretty, isn't he?

New Pendants Listed

Today is voting day in my area, I went and voted before I headed in to work today. This is my daughters first year to be able to vote and she was so excited. We sat down yesterday and went over all the issues on our particular ballot. I am so glad that she realizes that her vote DOES matter!

What does this have to do with pendants? Absolutely nothing lol. I listed four different kinds of pendants in the past couple of weeks, some lampwork pendants, a fused glass pendant,an Ohio Flint pendant, (which would make a perfect man's gift for Christmas by the way), and a couple of pretty pink quartz pendants. I will do a post on Ohio Flint here very soon, its only found in one part of the world and one area of Ohio.
Here's some pictures of some of the most recent pendants listings. If you see one you like, you can go take my poll on facebook and get 25% off of one too!

Work in Progress

Just a quickie post to show you a work in progress. Its kind of evolving as I go, so I am not entirely sure what the finished piece is going to look like! Its already quite different than I imagined it when I started. This is the centerpiece for a necklace, and my first attempt at this type of bead work. I am having a great deal of fun with it and its turning out rather well for a prototype lol!

Jewelry Item of the Week December 9th 2010

Hmmm the way things have been going lately, perhaps I should do an item of the month instead! Been crazy here since Thanksgiving! I have to say, coming down with the stomach flu the evening of Thanksgiving day (after feeding our entire extended family) was not my idea of a terribly successful day! I missed out on most of the left overs too, since I was sick for over a week. I did manage to keep down a couple pieces of apple and pecan pie though!

I did learn a new beading stitch in November and this in one of the bracelets that I made with it. I really like this stitch, I like the contrast in bead sizes and the way its woven together. You can find this in my Artifre shop.

Added A Section to My Jewelry Shop

I have added a sale section to my jewelry shop on Artfire. Everything in this section is 20% off and the discount has already been applied. Easy peasy lol. I need to clear out some of my inventory, I am moving in a somewhat different direction with my work. The more I make jewelry the more I feel that I am moving toward a style that is more mine than previously. Being able to use my own lampwork beads, cabochons and metal work makes my new work very much more *mine*. And of course my skills are expanding and my work is getting better. I am going to be phasing out the plated items and moving more toward the sterling silver and gold plated. However I will still be doing pieces in copper as I am very drawn to the warmth of it and the wonderful patinas that can be achieved with fire and LOS. I also may keep using the brass as it does have a lovely color on its own and turns a wonderful pinky gold in the fire. My work is beginning to develop some depth and be a bit more complicated in the making. Any way, if you are looking for a good price on some nice jewelry come visit my sale section. I will be adding items to the sale section over the next several weeks.
Keep an eye out on my shop for new pieces also!

Beading Challenge

Well I was browsing through the Etsy forums ( which is extremely addicting, if you haven 't checked it out I highly recommend it, it is open to both sellers and buyers) the other day and there it was, another thread about "someone copied my stuff." Which of course started a debate on people coming up with the same design independently. Which happens all over the world all the time no matter what category of product you are hand producing. I am not saying that people don't copy, plenty of them do. I am also not saying that no one ever has an original idea because they do. However there are really only so many ways to make a circle out of metal, put bead on a string and make a tote. It's all in what you do with it as far as color, materials and that little something that is you and no one else. So I ran into a friend of mine on Etsy who happened to be chatting in the same thread (http://DesignedByLucinda.etsy.com) and I after some friendly banter I said something like "wouldn't it be neat if a group of us got together and using the same beads each came up with a design so that we could see how similar or different each persons design would be?!" Cindy said yes that would be so cool and then Kira (http://SantiamDesigns.etsy.com) said "Hey I would be willing to provide the beads and ship them to everyone". (Like anyone is going to turn down free beads to play with haha!). A couple of other people chimed in and said that they would be interested in joining us so the three of us decided that we would go ahead and give it a try. Not only would it be an interesting and fun thing to do but it would also be a good way to promote our shops. (We are really hoping for a storque article out of this). So Kira is providing the beads, Cindy is organizing and in touch with Rob from Etsy on the appropriate way to do this, and I am going to be updating our progress as we go. I will also post pictures of the finished products. I believe we will have a couple of judges although there is no prize in this challenge other than the satisfaction of seeing the outcome. (And free beads to play with). If this is successful we may decide to do it two or three times a year with a different person contributing the beads each time. So we will be posting our challenge in the Business and Marketing portion of the forums with Rob's permission and I will keep you updated on what happens next.