What I've Been Up To - May 12 - 18

Here's my weekly update from my jewelry desk...

Another busy week here!

I had my first craft fair this year on May 11th and a lot of this week was putting all my supplies and displays away and then catching up with online orders for that weekend. I'm still trying to catch up and I have a whole mess of stacking rings to finish on my desk right now.

I did manage to take photos and list my floral pattern wire and hammered wire bangle bracelets in my shop. Here are some pictures:

Floral Pattern Sterling Silver Bangle Bracelet - available for sale here

Hammered Sterling Silver Stacking Bangle - available in my shop

And I also took better photos and listed my Dragon's Blood Jasper and Garnet Necklace. I love this necklace! It's so dramatic looking.

I also played around with a larger cabochon cocktail ring style and made this Sterling Silver and Moonstone Cabochon Cocktail Ring. It's going to be one of a kind because it is a strange size of cabochon and I could only find one.

A wonderful box with a brand new propane torch arrived this week as well. This will replace my (highly overkill) MAPP gas torch as my larger project torch. I tried it out a little and it seems great! It has three tips for three sizes of flames and it attaches directly to a barbecue propane tank and uses ambient air. I will still probably use my little butane torch the most - it works great for the things that I make the most, like stacking rings - but this is a great addition to my tool box.

I also had my very first teaching experience yesterday with my Wire Wrapped Earrings class at Beadworld in Seattle! I only had two students in this first class, but that was a very good thing because we all learned that each earring project could be its own class. We ran more than an hour over the class time and I had to send them home with only one earring fully finished for each project. Luckily, they said that my project instructions (the ones that I had to scramble to finish last week!) were very clear and my directions in person were helpful and they would have fun finishing at home and making more earrings. 

Unfortunately the Bird's Nest Pendant class was cancelled due to low attendance. The weather has been too nice here for people to want to sign up for an indoor class! 

Still, teaching was a success. My wire wrapped donut class in June is already sold out and Beadworld has asked me to come back and teach classes for the next quarter - my two earrings projects - split into two classes, wire wrapped donuts, and a new wire wrapped cabochon class.

I'm also currently trying to transfer all of my pictures and shop documents over to a brand new laptop because my old one is becoming increasingly unpredictable. I decided I would rather spring for a new computer slightly early, rather than wake up to a Blue Screen of Death and have to scramble to recover all of my documents. I can't say I'm completely sold on the new Windows 8 yet, but I'm adapting.

That's it for my weekly update! I'm headed down to my desk to wrangle a whole bunch of stacking rings and get them ready to send out.