Happy New Year!

Welcome to 2014! It seems like 2013 absolutely flew by! And it will probably take me three months to remember to write the correct year when I have to date things... (yes, cliche but true...)

Check out my New Year's Eve present to myself - a reward for good holiday sales!

An upgraded workspace! I found a local supplier that sells jeweler's benches, so I now have a real bench (no more crick in my neck when I try to saw things!) I also got a flex shaft - the weight of my Dremel has been giving me wrist pain when I use it for too long, so I figured it was time for an upgrade. And a new rug to save the room carpet from dropped hot metal (melting carpet smells bad!) My old desk is now a soldering station.

All I need now is a better chair. I'll probably inherit the chair that's currently in my husband's home office; we just need to pick him out a new one.

It's been a little while since my last update! Here was my table at the jewelry trunk show at Studio 54 Gallery:

And here are a few things I've made since Thanksgiving:

A psilomelane pendant that I made as a gift for my mom for Christmas.

And I got a few jewelry technique books for Christmas so I made my first completely handmade basket prong setting and put it on a ring with two tube set CZs. It's not good enough to be anything but a practice piece, but not bad for a first try!

I start out the new year a little later today with the (un)enviable task of inventory... Counting and measuring and weighing all of my metal and stones.

Updates!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We went over to our neighbors' house for Thanksgiving dinner, which was fun. Then we made a "second Thanksgiving" meal (turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans - the works!) on Black Friday because as fun as visiting someone else for Thanksgiving is, we really wanted turkey leftovers! We didn't go Black Friday shopping because crowds just push all my buttons, and the most strenuous thing we did was put of Christmas decorations. All in all, a wonderful holiday weekend!

First things first - an couple announcements! I will be at Studio 54 Furniture and Fine Art Gallery in Enumclaw, WA on December 14th from noon to 6 PM for with the gallery's two other jewelry artists for a trunk show. All of us will have our jewelry for sale and be giving demonstrations of how we create our pieces. The gallery will even wrap any jewelry purchased, perfect for Christmas!

And second announcement - the final day for U.S.-bound holiday orders from Miscellanea Etcetera is December 18th. Orders made after that date will be shipped out after Christmas.

As to what I've been up to, jewelry-wise, I've been busy making and packing up orders that came in over the holiday weekend, but I managed to finish a few new items as well.

It's not a great picture, and it needs a bit more polishing as well, but here is a Cherry Creek Jasper pendant I just finished.The stone is such a pretty pink color!

I also made a prototype spinner ring with three spinners, yellow and rose gold-fill and sterling. I think I'll probably keep it for myself for a while just to make sure I actually like the way the spinners work. I also made a very thick sterling silver ring that I am going to practice flush setting small faceted stones with.

Back to more stacking ring orders over the weekend, and hopefully a few "arty" pieces that I can take with me to the gallery trunk show!

Gift Guide: Handmade Stocking Stuffers

I also contributed to the latest Gift Guide on Team Handmade's Hand In Handmade site. Check it out for a ton of great ideas for small gifts that are all totally handmade by great Team Handmade artisans!

http://handinhandmade.com/2013/11/20/handmade-gift-guide-stocking-stuffers/

Gift Guide: Gifts for Pets (And Their Humans)

Need help finding great handmade gifts for the holidays? Check out the gift guide I created for Team Handmade over at their blog Hand in Handmade!

http://handinhandmade.com/2013/11/16/gifts-for-pets-and-their-humans/

So do you think the model had to have her hand propped up on something?

Cause that's quite a rock! It's the 59.6 carat "Pink Star" diamond, and it just sold at auction for a record breaking almost $74 million. To put that in perspective, most women's engagement rings are 1 carat or below and even with all the buzz about it, Kim Kardashian's latest big ol' hunk of rock is only 15 carats.

But as the saying goes, it's not just size that matters with diamonds. Pink is a rare color for diamonds and this diamond has an exceptionally intense color.

In any case, if you would like to see other pretty giant sparkly gems, take a look at this slideshow from MSNBC.

What's new...

I spent this past Monday making a whole rainbow of gemstone stud earrings. I just love all the different colors of stones out there! I've been restraining myself from confiscating the sky blue topaz pair for myself.

There also seems to be a lot of stuff that I made in the last few months that I haven't shared here. Part of it was that I was hoarding all of it for my November craft show and didn't get around to taking great pictures of it.

Here's a labradorite ring that just recently sold. The buyer was giving it as a gift to someone who apparently loves labradorite almost as much as me!

Here's a close-up picture the big fossil coral and viking knit necklace:

I was a bit sad when this bracelet sold at the craft fair. I kinda wanted to keep it a little longer just to admire it! I'm just going to have to make a couple more with different colored stones!

And a sort of vaguely steampunk-ish amethyst pendant. I have to confess that the gear-like overlay came about because I accidentally messed up and cut too big of a hole in the first disc I tried to use. I was originally going to decorate it with more of a filigree design made from twisted wire, but I hate wasting silver, so I cut a gear pattern in the messed up disc and domed it to fit over the (correctly cut) bottom disc. Happy accidents, right?

And just tonight, I made a prototype ring out of copper. I had an ugly goldstone (I think?) cabochon that I keep knocking off my desk and new copper solder that I wanted to try out. I like how the design turned out and it was a good color test of the new solder. (Much better than silver solder!) I think I'll make something similar in silver (with a nicer stone!)

I'm also very excited! After my last "learn all the things" post, I found an Intro to Casting class in Tacoma and decided to sign up! I probably won't be doing any casting at home in the near future because flinging molten metal around is both slightly scary and expensive. But I have always wanted to know how to do it and this is my chance!

I guess that's it for now... I have a trunk show coming up in December at the gallery I show at (hopefully I'll have info to share on it soon!) so tomorrow I'm going to go digging through my cabochon stash to make some more "arty" pieces.

Learn ALL The Things!

(And buy ALL the tools...)

No, really! I've been reading some jewelry books and magazines lately and I have a very long list of new techniques I want to try. So long that I don't even know where to start! Making my own prong settings for faceted stones? Or maybe enameling? Oooh, wait! Maybe digging out and trying the metal clay I've had in a drawer! Or chasing and repousee? Let's go back to stone setting: flush setting small stones! Or reticulation, or keum-boo, or mokume-gane! Or how about lost-wax casting?!

So when are my lotto winnings going to start rolling in? (Especially for that last dream of learning casting!) Because I think I need a bigger studio for all of the new shiny equipment I would need for all these new techniques. (Which would mean a bigger house! Ha!)

I guess I should pick just one to start... hmmmm... Maybe prong settings... Although there's a kiln online that's been calling my name, and that would be a dual purpose tool: metal clay AND enameling! So many choices!