05.20.19 Gold Rush! Kinetic Jewelry 2.0, Part 3

With the hollow forms completed - including making sure the tubing and wires for hanging were the proper length - it was time to start thinking about embellishing the silver teardrops with granules of 18K gold.

At $1,300 an ounce, I didn't just snip off some of my gold wire and fire up the torch...no...I started by getting some comparably sized (20 gauge) copper wire, and experimenting.





I cut pieces of copper wire to different lengths and started playing around with the placement of granules on each side of the form.

I settled on an arrangement that corresponded to my original sketches; a larger, flattened single granule on one side, and three smaller ones along the bottom curve of the opposite side.


I wanted to use the gold granules on both sides of the earrings, so that when the forms spun on the interior rivet wires (the kinetic part) the details on each side might - or might not - match at any given moment.

Once I was happy with the placement, I cut up my gold wire, balled it up into granules, and with De looking over my shoulder, I lit my torch and fused the granules to both sides of each hollow form.



As luck would have it - Melissa, from the Creative Side staff, was in the studio taking photos and video - so I have a short clip of the forms spinning on their rivets, with the gold on both sides.

I was thrilled with the finished earrings, still had some gold - and time - left before the class ended...so I decided to make a simple pendant and add gold granules.

Photo credit: CSJA

I bought a small, oval turquoise from the stone case at Creative Side - I didn't want to invest a lot, in the event it didn't turn out well - and got started.

I built the setting with argentium silver, just like every other pendant I make, and under De's patient supervision, fused the gold granules down to front of the bezel.

The order of assembling a piece of jewelry is always important, because when both fusing and soldering, the fusing has to be done first (because it is as a higher temperature); adding gold simply means that there is another set of metal temperatures to consider.

In keeping with the spirit of the class I put a riveted bail with - gold wire - on the top of the pendant, and was left with just enough gold for one more small granule. I couldn't NOT use that last bit of gold, so I flipped the pendant over, and gave the cactus cut out a flower.

The granule on the back had to be soldered - so as not to melt the joints on the rest of the piece - and gave me the opportunity to work with gold solder in addition to fusing.

In case it's not obvious - I love taking classes at Creative Side...I love making shiny new things, I love learning new techniques, and I really love spending time with the fabulous people - instructors and other students - that make it such a special place.

I'm going to take a break from making and blogging in June, but will be back in early July.

Until then...have fun, stay hydrated and wear sunscreen.

05.06.19 A little precision goes a long way. Kinetic Jewelry 2.0, Part 2

It had been a minute (ok, more like three years) since my last attempt at making hollow form pieces, and those were in sterling silver, not argentium. 

This might not sound like a big deal, but it is; if you want to understand the difference between the two metals, you can read my post on the magic of argentium (which is 93.5% pure silver, and 6.5% germanium - not copper).

Making hollow forms with argentium silver is great - because there is no solder required - the metal can be fused together...but...this requires precision both in the fabrication of the parts and in the application of heat and flame.

I measured (twice) and cut (once) my frame pieces, formed them into teardrop shapes and drilled them before I fused them down onto sheet metal on the first side.

Fusing the first side is relatively straightforward - you have to be careful about directing your torch, so you don't melt the frames, but it's not unlike putting down a bezel for a pendant.  

The first fuse went beautifully, and once it was done I was ready to cut away the excess metal, clean up the exteriors, and fuse the second side...which is the part of the process that's really tricky.

If you over heat the metal during the process of fusing the second side to the form, it will slump, and instead of having a "hollow" form, you will end up with a "sunken" form...definitely not the look I was going for.

It was fine to fuse both the frames down to the first side at the same time, but to finish the hollow forms, I did them separately.  The more metal you are working with, the more difficult it becomes to control your heat - so the trick is to have enough back plate that it won't shrink away from the sides, but not so much that it makes heating difficult, or that you waste metal.

With De at my side, I successfully fused both forms together! 

The next task was to repeat the process of trimming away the excess metal, then sanding and polishing the forms to a finished state.  This wasn't the last step - because there was still gold to add to the pieces, but the surfaces had to be completely finished before I went any further.

Come back in a couple of weeks for the third installment in this series of posts - and learn about the excitement of fusing gold!

Until next time.

04.22.19 Ellipsis... Kinetic Jewelry 2.0, Part 1

Three dots, why on earth would I write a blog post based on ...?

I promise, it will make sense, bear with me.

This is six inches of 18 karat gold wire (24 karat gold is 99%, 18 is 75% - alloyed with other metals) - I paid almost $60 for it. Now, that may not sound like a lot of money - but for $60 I can buy ALMOST 100 FEET of the same size argentium silver wire.

That's because the price of an ounce of pure silver hovers around $15-16 right now, and an ounce of pure gold will set you back around $1,300.

So, why did I buy six inches of gold wire, and what does it have to do with dots?

Well - I bought it because I signed up to take another advanced concepts and mechanisms (kinetic jewelry) class with one of my favorite teachers, De Pastel, and I told her I wanted to try using gold...making small granules (essentially dots) to fuse on to pieces of silver jewelry.

However, before I start describing this year's class, I feel like I need to review a little history.

De and Hannah Wilson were my instructors for Fabrication 201 at Creative Side, which I took three years ago! One of the projects was making hollow form jewelry, and I made what are maybe my favorite pair of class earrings (it's a tough call, but I wear these a lot) - teardrops with tube set black spinels.

Then, last year for my birthday I took De's kinetic jewelry class. I learned a lot...including that there was so much more to learn, so when signed up for the class again this year, I approached it a little differently.

Previously, I made a pair of gyroscope-like earrings that had a rivet through a tube that allowed them to spin.  This year - I wanted to put a tube inside of a hollow form, so the whole thing would spin...and I wanted to embellish the pieces with gold granules.



I started sketching my ideas, which included making fused hollow forms with argentium (something I had not done before) and putting a group of three dots on the earrings. I sent my sketches to De, and was delighted when I received an enthusiastic response!

So...

I ordered six inches of gold wire from Rio and got ready to start class, which I will write about in detail in upcoming posts.

Until next time.

06.27.16 Out and About

At the end of last year, I said I hoped that 2016 would be the year that I sold my first piece of jewelry - and I am pleased to report that I've actually sold more than one!  It's one thing to wear my own work, or even to have my daughter or sister in law wearing it...but the idea that other people want me to make jewelry for them is really a dream come true!

Chem Lab 2.0

I wasn't at all surprised when my daughter - who inspired my very first tab set pendant, dubbed the "chem lab" - said she wanted one of her own.  So, I made a second one - and learned (although I should have realized) - that you can never replicate a handmade piece exactly!  She's very pleased with it - and likes telling folks her mom made it for her.  I've now made versions 3.0 and 4.0 - it is far and away my most popular design (to date)!

Lapis and Sterling

Not too long after I finished my Fabrication 101 class and started working in open studio, I was out with one of my dearest friends, wearing my first non-class project, this Lapis pendant. She admired it and asked, could I make one for her.  I said of course, and set about finding a blue stone for my very first commissioned piece!

It didn't take too long to find a lovely sodalite. Because I had continued to work every week in open studio, my skills had  improved, so her piece is a little more refined than my original.  Done in argentium rather than sterling, with a smaller backplate and more embellished bail.

Sodalite and Argentium

Around the same time I was finishing the sodalite piece, I was contacted on Facebook by a friend who had been following the blog - and she said she wanted to buy my amethyst pendant as a birthday present to herself!  I was delighted - and realized that my jewelry was really going to be out there - being seen by people outside my circle of family and friends.

Amethyst and Sterling

Since then I have delivered three commissioned pieces - and have more in the queue!

Labradorite and Argentium.

For this beautiful labradorite, I sat down with the buyer and talked about what she wanted.  I had a selection of stones, and she chose one, then I drew sketches for her.  After a discussion about bezel styles and embellishments, she decided that sometimes less is more, and the result is this simple pendant.

Sterling and Citrine hollow form

Most recently I completed and delivered this pair of earrings.  After seeing photos of the hollow form earrings I made in my Fabrication 201 class - a friend asked if I could make them with a different colored stone.  We discussed what she wanted - she chose yellow citrine - so that's what I did.  It was fun to revisit the skills I learned in that class - I made these earrings in sterling, but my plan is to move to argentium, so my next pair will be a somewhat new experience.

I'm so excited - and humbled - that people have asked me to make jewelry for them, or someone important to them. I look forward to putting more of my work, and myself, out there one piece at a time.

Until next time.

04.25.16 Surprise! I like hollow forms (Intermediate Fabrication - part 2)

When I signed up for 201 - the intermediate fabrication class at Creative Side - I was skeptical about the hollow form project.  It was described as a ring - since the only rings I wear are my wedding and anniversary bands, I wasn't sure what I was going to do.  But I talked to our fabulous instructor, De, and she suggested I look online for ideas. She was right, because when I did - I found lots of inspiration, and landed on earrings.

Our first project - the bezel with corners - was really designed to get us ready for hollow forms, and the process of creating a shape, and maintaining it.


With rounded bezels, you can reshape them around the stone before soldering - but with corners, or a hollow form shape - that's not an option...and it's harder than it sounds.

I decided to make a pair of drop earrings, so I used an oval mandrel to shape my metal before soldering the forms closed.  It took three attempts to get the soldering right - but when I did, I had a pair of nicely matched ovals ready to solder on to a backplate.

Once the ovals were soldered down, I sawed off the excess metal and filed down the edges.  The next step was to drill small holes in both the front and top of each piece.  A hollow form has to have a hole to let the expanding hot air out as you solder on the backplate - or your piece will explode.  I drew a grid on the front and top of my ovals before I drilled to make sure the holes would be properly placed..  The hole on the front will end up under my small tube set stone, the one on the top is where leverback earwires will be attached.  That was where I finished on the first of three nights devoted to this project.

In the second class it was time to make the open parts into hollow forms.  With the holes drilled to let the heat escape, I soldered my ovals to another set of backplates.  Honestly I was surprised how easily and well that went.  The rest of the evening, not so easy.  It took a lot of work to make them look like earrings...sawing off the excess metal from the backplates, filing the edges, and lots of polishing. However, at the end of the second class - I had a pair of hollow oval beads!

The third and final night was devoted to finishing and stone setting.  Once the beads were complete, I soldered the wires with jumprings into the top, and small pieces of tubing on to the fronts (to hold 4 mm blue zircons). You would think soldering a couple of little 4.5 mm tubes would be pretty straightforward.  The first one went on like a piece of cake, but  the second one gave me fits! Finally - after multiple attempts (and a move from medium to easy solder) both beads were ready for stones.



Not only am I very pleased with how this project turned out - I realize that I like hollow forms a lot, and the possibilities for future projects are almost endless!  In fact...I've started another pair - teardrops - already.


I've learned my lesson - always go into a new project or experience with an open mind - even if you're soldering the whole piece closed.

I've learned my lesson - always go into a new project or experience with an open mind - even if you're soldering the whole piece closed.



Until next time.