Simple and Pretty ~ Silver ~

Butterfly and poetry.
Precious Metal Clay.
Garnet.

Long charm holder.
Precious Metal Clay.
Textures.

Oxidized sterling silver.
Purple Czech crystals. 

One of the funnest parts about creating jewelry is the actual crafting including pounding silver with multiple hammers on a steel block, melting silver until it balls up and firing silver clay to a bright orange glow with a hand held torch.  All therapeutic. Once I was making a collection of hammered silver necklaces and my neighbor walked by and heard all the pounding.  Later she told me she thought I was getting my kitchen remodeled (I wish!)  My kids often yell, "mom, you are too loud!"

The jewelry in these three photos are the products of what I love to do with silver.  With manipulation it transforms into something pretty to wear.  Sometimes I have a plan, but often I create as I pound, bend, and melt. 

This summer I purchased a real jewelers tool (real, as in real necessary) called a flexshaft after I nearly took off a finger with a handheld rotary tool.  Have I used it yet?  No. Waiting for a day to myself to bring out the big guns.  The kids will be in school soon enough.  The flexshaft is powered by a foot pedal, like a swing machine, and looks a lot like the machine the ladies use when you get your nails done.  My flexshaft came with a how-to DVD and beginners kit of attachments. 

I found my rotary tool kit at Costco.  It was a helpful beginners tool. One year, I held it up to my husband and said this is all I want for Christmas.  He said, "really?"  I assume he could not believe his luck.  For years I handed him the little blue Tiffany catalog and said "all I want for Christmas (birthday, Valentines Day, anniversary and Mother's Day) can be found here, and I circled my favorites."

On my blog I will also explore jewelry photography.  Jewelry photography has been a challenge for me.  As you can see I played with a brick and marble round.  This weathered marble is my favorite.  I dug it out of the garden this week and washed it off.  I've been hauling it around for 10 years.  Antiquing one day near Middleburg, Virginia, my mother saw two marble rounds and said that I should buy them because they may be useful someday.   Thanks, mom!  Both the marble and brick give the photo a nice texture and keep the jewelry from washing out.  My photographs on white turns the jewelry dull or washed out and the black shows every single piece of lint. 

Funny story:  My kids got to meet their teachers today and see their classrooms.  I put on a simple skirt and my daughters exclaimed "mom, you have not dressed up since your twenties! Let me get you some high heels!"  No thanks, flip flops will do.  

I will post my favorite tools someday and keep posting about jewelry photography as I learn more.

Have a good one!

Wendy