Bead Show

Went to a bead show this weekend. I love going to these shows. I see things I haven’t seen before and often find one-of-kind things. This is one of those:

Green kyanite. This was the only strand in this size that they had. All the kyanite I’ve seen before is blue. I couldn’t resist this lovely, shimmering green.

I can never resist moonstones and labradorite either so. So I picked up a few strands of those, too.

I also pickup up a few strands of rose quartz, for reasons I don’t fully understand. I don’t work in pink very often, but I just had to have some this time.

Now I have to decide what to make out of them.

Fear of Flying

I ran into a weird problem when I started trying to take pictures of my jewelry. None of them came out any good. I tried several times and never got anything worth using. I read about it first. Got a book, got a light box and followed the instructions. Still no good photos

Finally, as of yesterday I started to get some good photos. Not coincidentally, that’s also when I stopped trying to follow instructions and take the pictures the way I wanted. Went to the local Pier 1 Imports and bought a bunch of place mats. Place mats seemed like they’d make good backgrounds. And I wouldn’t have to iron them. Textures that are interesting, but not so interesting as to take away from the item being photographed.

Now I just have to get them posted. I’m kind of hesitant at this point. It’s do or die time.

Because I play with fire

The Wonderful Spouse thought I should have a fire extinguisher. I think he’s right. Especially as I’ve been doing it often enough thatI’ m starting to get comfortable with it. I know that’s when I’m the most dangerous. I feel better knowing that we have afire extinguisher.

Mad scientist Monday

I got to play with wires and electricity and chemicals today. Mad scientist Monday! I recently took a class in electroplating and today put it to use. It was nice to be able to work at my own pace. They never rush you in their classes, but there’s no way to avoid the fact that you have to clean up and go home before the shop closes.

So I chose some seed pods, painted them with a clear coat, attached them to cooper wire and then painted them with an electrically conductive paint.

The long pods just didn’t turn out that well. The curled back ends flattened out when I put them in the acid solution. And they’re still very fragile after being plated. Perhaps if I left them in solution longer and the plating was thicker I could bend the ends back to a curl.

I haven’t finished the other pods yet, but I think they’ll turn out a little better. Nature worked in my favor this once. When I pulled the stem out I was left with a small hole where the stamen of the flowers was. Perfect for running a wire through. I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see how the plating goes on those.

I did have fun playing mad scientist.

In the beginning

Mom has a doctor’s appointment that I need to go to this Friday so I put off signing up at any agencies because I didn’t think it would look good to say ‘Hello, nice to meet you, by the way I need Friday off’ on my first day of work. The last time I signed on at an agency I had work in just a couple days.

So I thought with the two weeks between I would see if I could get the on-line jewelry store I’ve been thinking about set up. And this weekend I had a class on how to start a jewelry business at Brea Bead Works.

The class, per usual, was awsome. But I came home with a list of things to do 30 items long. I thought I would be able to get the majority done before the class. Thankfully the class brought a lot things to my attention that I would have missed otherwise.

So far I’ve spent the greater part of each day working on something for the shop,making jewelry, logo and business card design, photographing pieces, deciding on packaging. Every day has been spent learning or doing or making. I can’t complain. For a long time I’ve felt that any day I made something was a good day.

One thing I’ve been experiementing with for a while is carving deigns in jeweler’s wax and using it to stamp designs. The tiny medallion above is the result of one such experiment.