Jewelery Supplies-My addiction

Well I have to say that one of my favorite things to do is shop for jewelry supplies. Its one of the reasons that I make so much jewelry lol! I have a never ending fascination with beads and findings. Wether it's glass beads, silver beads, copper, gold, polymer clay and even some of the vintage lucite (plastic) beads, I love them all. And then there are the precious and semi-precious beads in all their multitude of shapes, sizes, cut and sparkle! Top drilled, side drilled, cabs half drilled I can find a use for them all. Then there are toggle clasps, chain, spacer beads in a variety of finishes and shapes. If I bought everything I liked we would be homeless lol! Any way I though I would share one of my favorite supply shops withyou and encourage you to take a look and to give her beads a try. She has excellent quality at really reasonable prices. Go check her out! But don't blame me if you end up addicted lol! Her shop is BeadAllAboutIt.

New Shop

So I have opened a new shop on etsy named Silver River Metal (silverrivermetal.etsy.com). I struggled with this a little bit since I already have two shops on etsy, silverriverjewelry.etsy.com and silverriverstitches.etsy.com. I am expanding my skills in the metal smithing area and truth be told I love it! It meshes better with my addiction to lapidary (rocks) than the wire wrapping does and broadens my horizans by leaps and bounds. The lapidary addiction comes from taking and ugly rock out of the ground and turning it into something gorgeous and wearable. It's like a treasure hunt and you never know what you are going to get when you open that rock up, slab it, trim, grind it and polish it. Plus I find the whole process very relaxing. Weird I know lol! The metal work just compliments the stone work. I don't have to stress about finding the perfect setting, I can make my own. (I haven't achieved perfection yet lol, in fact I am perfecting melting bezels into small balls of silver more than I am anything but it is improving.) Plus I really like playing with fire, at least this way I am using that for a useful purpose! While I am not giving up the wire wrapping and beading, I will be shifting my purpose more toward the metal work at this point. As you can see there is a big difference in the two styles. Should be interesting to see where it will go.

Round Four of my Favorite Etsy Artists

Okay so this week I am featuring two artists. One is a jewelry designer and one makes the most incredible bags... Anyway I chose these two not just for the items that they make (although they are well worth checking out) but also because of the way they respond to people in the forums. Always helpful and kind (and honest in a nice way when needed) they just really stand out as good people.

DesignedbyLucinda

Lucinda makes some really awesome jewelry ( I struggle with posting other jewelry designers on this blog , let's face it, it is competition for me so when I do decide to post a jewelry designer it will be someone I truly admire.) She has some really beautiful designs and quite reasonable prices. She stands out in the forums as well, always willing to help out the new people with good advice and is generally always patient and kind.

I have it on good authority that she has a ton more stuff that she hasn't gotten around to listing yet (although I know she is working hard on it lol) so if you are looking for something in particular just ask her she could very well have it. And if she doesn't I bet she can make it.

HerRoyalMajestyBags

What can I say? She has the most awesome collection of bags and I can't wait until I get some spending money. Veronica is from Maine and says that her husband is awesome! That alone gets kudos my book lol. Her bags are fabulous and very well made. They come in a wide variety of colors and styles so there really is no excuse not to buy something from this lovely shop. Vibrant colors and patterns that quite frankly make me drool.

She also has a lovely sense of humor and has posed quite a few thought provoking questions on our etsy forums, always geared at having people take a good look at how to improve their shops to get the most out of what they are selling. I always look forward to hearing what she has to say, I usually learn something that is to my benefit.

Well that 's it for this week. I really hope that you will check these two talented ladies out. You can find the link to their stores on the right under etsy artists.

How To Cut Rocks (Step Two)

The second step to making a cabochon from raw rock is to use a template and decide which portion of the rock you want to use for your finished masterpiece. This particular template is two-sided which I prefer as I like to make my mark on both sides. I then mark a "b" on the side that is the back with a magnesium wire. That way I don't make any mistakes when I am forming the stone. Sometimes the back and the front can be very similar and as much work as goes into forming these cabochons, I don't want to make a mistake on which side I am working on. Templates com in mm sizes and you can also get squares, hearts, crosses and many more. I am still a beginner so I generally use the medium sized oval. At this point it is time to fire up the trim saw. Make sure that you wear safety glasses at all times because I can guarantee small pieces of rocks are going to chip off and go flying. Basically the idea here is to trim as close to your oval (or square or whatever you choose) as possible without going over the line. There are of course rules for using this kind of equipment safely. Cut slabs only, not chunks or nodules, Cut straight lines only, let the saw do the work, forcing the saw tears out the diamonds (this is bad. The blades are expensive). If saw is running dry add oil (duh, but you'd be surprised), If the you see sparks STOP! your pushing too hard or the saw needs more oil. (see rule number three and four). Clean up after yourself. So to the right is a picture of Ohio flint (beautiful rock by the way. As you can see flint is not necessarily all grey). You can see the magnesium template mark and you can also see that I got a hair too close to the line and also managed to ship a corner off. (What can I say it was my first attempt.) I am saving this for when I have practiced a bit more so I can salvage it because this is one beautiful piece of rock. That pretty much covers step number two. I will post again next week on step number three.

My Favorite Etsy Artists

I will be writing some short notes on some of my favorite artists on etsy.com once a week. Etsy is an online marketplace for handrafted items. It is NOT and auction site and everything except for the supplies and vintage section are hand made. They have some fabulous artists on this site and I will writing about some of them regularly. I have added four to my list of links today.

CassaroCreations.

She makes some truly awesome lamp work beads.As you
can see from this example the detail work on her beads make them trueworks of art. I am looking forward to making some purchases from her shop soon!


GlitterCritter


Please check out her awesome wire work at her other shop on http://www.wireworks.etsy.com/


I know her best thru her glittercritter shop (see below) but I am totally blown away by the the creativity and the amount of time it must have taken to perfect this kind of technique. I do a little bit of wire wrapping myself but am just a beginner. Examples like this inspire me to work harder an keep practicing so that some day I too will have work that is this awesome.

She has some beautiful supplies and sells some really cool do-it-yourself tutorials for the beginning wire worker. These can be found in her glittercritter shop. I highly recommend that any one who is thinking about learning to wrap wire or just wants to see what it is like to make something with this technique, to purchase one of her tutorials. Also, she has always been very willing to help out all of the newbies on site with their questions for which I, for one, am grateful. Her prices are great on her supplies and I am hoping to snag the one in the picture when my self imposed "you can't buy any more supplies til you use some of what you have" is done.

Jadelaine Designs

Beautiful photographs and prints. She also has some outstanding

original artwork. Definately worth taking the time to check out! I look forward to seeing more from her in the future.






StonesInMotion

Ed makes the most beautiful cabachons from raw rock. This is something that I am also learning to do so I know how many hours of sawing and shaping and grinding and polishing this really takes! Each stone is unique and whether it is a subtle pattern or a bold explosion of color, it always amazes me that something as common as a rock can be turned into something so beautiful.


Well that is my list of favorites this week. Look for a new list once a week from now until whenever I run out of great artists to feature. (Don't count on that happening any time soon, last time I checked there were over 80,000 sellers on etsy, most of whom do lovely work)