Guess what I did for over 5 hours last night and will be doing again for several hours this afternoon?

Tumbling my new jewelry components!

My partner and I bought a new magnetic centrifugal tumbler, which is supposed to tumble more quickly and efficiently than the rotary tumblers.  My partner thought it might be possible that using the two tumblers consecutively might eliminate the need for wire-brushing freshly kiln-fired pieces – a tedious and sometimes hand-scraping painful necessity to creating silver clay jewelry.  She tried a combination of an hour in the rotary tumbler (half- hour for pieces with stones embedded), followed by an hour in the magnetic tumbler.  Her pieces came out with a mirror finish – no brushing!

So last night I brought the tumbler to my house and tried it, having prepared the night before by tumbling all my pieces in the rotary tumbler for an hour.  Considering that I had 125 grams worth of pieces that could not be tumbled all at once this took several hours.  I was very excited pulling the first group of pieces out of the magnetic tumbler (which I set for an hour).  Sure enough, the stoneware finish was eliminated.  However, my pieces were still fairly matte.  So they went in the rotary tumbler again for a third tumbling.  Then I tried another group of pieces, less this time, for 90 minutes.  Still matte, but better.  Next group – 14 pieces instead of 16 (about 20 the first group), for 90 minutes – still matte but better than the second group.  Lastly (although I still have more to do) I tried 10 pieces for 100 minutes and those came out fairly shiny, but I still wouldn’t call it a mirror finish.

This morning I put in 10 more pieces and set the timer for 120 minutes.  My husband is home sick for the day so I felt confident in leaving the tumbler going when I left for work.  I really hope that this time I get a mirror finish but I’ll have to wait until I get home this afternoon to see.

My partner used a particular type of dish soap in the tumbler that I am going to borrow to see if the soap I’m using is a factor in not getting a mirror finish.  All this tumbling is taking a ridiculous amount of time but it does eliminate the need for brushing, which I hate, so its worth it.  Right?

So, after an afternoon and evening of escalating aggravation I finally was able to tumble one load.  Bleah.

That load was in the tumbler for over 2 hours and it wasn’t nearly as shiny as I would’ve expected.

Tonight I have two loads ready to go but I still have more that I have to brush – its going to be a looooooooong night…

Bummer.

Anyway, I got everything fired last night.  200 grams of clay (minus a few pieces – probably about 25 grams worth) in only 3 firings!  I was impressed that I was able to fit so much onto one fire brick at one time.

And I got my least favorite part of the process over with (the sanding and filing – which I dislike because it is tedious, but also for the reason stated above).

Tonight?  My second least favorite part – brushing.  Then?  Tumble-a-thon!  Yay!  I love tumbling my new pieces because when they come out of the tumbler they are so sparkly and beautiful.

Tomorrow?  Actually making jewelry out of these new pieces!  Whoo hoo!

birds and butterfly necklace components

I’ve been going through a bird phase ever since last fall – I can’t help myself, I love them!

necklace components and one bracelet set

My new favorite though are these peacock feathers! I may have to keep one of them… There’s a nice deep blue sapphire in the eye of the feather on the right.  I’ve also really been excited about geometric shapes lately and I did a whole series of them for necklaces and earrings.  The three oval bracelet components in the lower right corner of the above photo are textured with my piped silver design as shown but on the back they are textured with the spiral texture that you see in the rectangle components to the left of them.

butterflies and flowers

geometric shapes

modern Etruscan shapes for necklace

modern embellished Etruscan shapes for necklace

These elements are finished on the other side with my piped silverwork (like the oval bracelet components).

square elements for necklace (with tanzanite)

These elements are textured with a paisley pattern on the reverse side.

I’ve also made 65 new pairs of earrings in similar motifs and I have sanded and filed over half of them (43 pairs). Tonight I hope to fire at least two loads and finish firing tomorrow. Then I will tumble everything during the rest of the week and begin making actual jewelry out of these components over the weekend.

mehndi teardrop amulet necklace

This is one of my amulet necklaces – I choose a selection of items in a motif that tell a little “story”… maybe it’s a color story or a story about geometry… this particular necklace is an exotic story!  I set a marquis faceted blue sapphire into the fine silver clay and fired it in place and wrapped a sky blue zircon at the top.  I accented both little silver drops with a deep blue kyanite briolette.  I love the royal colors of the blue with the exotic design.

Oval Lily Cluster Necklace

This necklace has my favorite little “flip flop” mini cornflake keishi pearls in an unusual shade of baby blue.  Mixingcolors with these pearls was challenging as the shade of blue has a subtle cast of green in it but it didn’t go with my usual blue/green stones that I tend to favor when I make things for myself.  I used chalcedony and iolite in the necklace and in the cascade I used additionally some gray sapphire and mystic blue quartz.

Granulated Disc Necklace

Do you ever make something and think “I hope this doesn’t sell because I want it”? That’s the case with this necklace I made two years ago.

spiral textured oval earrings with quartz briolette

I made a series of these, from which I was going to make a bracelet, but then the show I was at, which was multiple days, I was selling out of earrings and I didn’t have any more fired pieces that I could make earrings for so I scratched my bracelet idea and decided to make multiple pairs of earrings instead – so now I have 4 pairs of earrings made from these little spiral textured ovals. I do think that they are pretty cute!

Take a gander at these and tell me what you think! Can you guess what I used as a background?

Alexandrite Star Earrings

The photo does not do justice to the amazing color of these alexandrite stones (lab grown) – a vibrant purple with shots of teal blue!

Sapphire Star V-Wire Earrings

These limpid blue sapphires are amazing and I never get tired of using them when I can get my hands on them. Its a pain to set the v-wires, especially when I’m also setting a stone, but I think that the overall effect is worth it for these earrings.

Peridot Sheild V-Wire Earrings

Don’t you love trillions? The shape is a little challenging to work with but they sparkle so beautifully!

Green Amethyst Lily Cluster Earrings

I accented this Asian-inspired lily cluster with full round-cut pale sage green amethyst (prassiolite) briolettes.

Victorian Double Peridot Earrings

I cast these earrings from a fragment of a mold that I made of a Victorian-era stick pin. I found these large, clear, sparkly peridots at a recent gem show and thought that this shape, along with the smaller peridots set them off nicely.

Victorian Peridot Button Earrings

I cast these earrings from one of my favorite molds that I made of a Victorian-era button. I love the rough edges – they give sort of an artifact-y feel to the earrings.

Dainty Flower Earrings

Sweet little flowers for dainty ears!

Aqua Chalcedony Briolette Earrings

I call this spectacular cut of briolette “pyramid” because I can’t figure out what else to call them. Shades of blue-green (or green-blue) are my favorite and this shade of chalcedony has a wonderful “glow from within” effect. I felt that these needed no further adornment.

Rose Quartz Pointer Briolette Earrings

Another pair of briolettes with no need for further adornment from my stash of uniquely cut beads. These rose quartz briolettes are so beautifully faceted and they also have that “glow from within” quality that the chalcedony does. I have a matching pendant necklace (slightly larger) so perfectly cut that it could be used as a pendulum.

This is just a small portion of the photos that I’ve taken recently. I will post more later.

I spent the better part of Saturday scrambling to take some professional-looking photos (as much as I am capeable with limited practice and knowledge) to submit to a jury for a show.  I can’t believe in all the years I’ve been making jewelry I haven’t either sent jewelry to a professional photographer or goofed around more to practice taking my own.  Oh well…

I received a new light tent that I ordered on eBay and promptly melted the lights that came with the kit.  The directions say to not leave the lights on for more than an hour, which I didn’t, I turned them off every time I set up a shot and then on when I was ready to take the shot – anyways… melted lights.  I dug into my show box to get my little clip-on lamps to use for this purpose and one of the bulbs was burned out so I used one of the little clip-on lamps and a larger, very old clip-on lamp.  My feeling from this session is that I could’ve probably used a bit more powerful light source, but at least I didn’t set the house on fire.

I used photographic mirror board as my background and while I like the effect, it is a pain to use.  It attracts every spec of dust, every piece of lint, every strand of cat fur – you can wipe, wipe, wipe but it will never be gone.  I wound up doing quite a bit of clean-up work in photoshop, using the spot-healing brush and clone stamp tools to remove all the bits of flotsam and jetsom that appeared in the background.

I photographed several pieces and these are, in my opinion, the best of that session.  I submitted the “Heart’s Whimsy” necklace, the Chinnoisserie Disc V-Wire Earrings and the “Morning Glory” necklace as my jury photographs.

Morning Glory Necklace

The “Morning Glory” necklace is a newly made piece with an older pendant.  I wrapped dozens of little faceted quartz and kyanite briolettes and faceted rondelle aquamarine, zircon, apatite, and kyanite with sterling silver and strung them onto beading wire with really pretty silvery freshwater pearls and finished the necklace with a lovely twisted wire extender chain.

Heart's Whimsy Necklace

The “Heart’s Whimsy” is from my personal collection, it is the original and first of a limited series (there have been a total of 5 “Heart’s Whimsy” necklaces of differing motifs made).  It also is from the first group of silver clay jewelry that I ever made on my own (outside of classes).  I used syringe clay to pipe the motif on a sheet of clay that I cut the design with a cookie cutter.  The edges have a “broken” look that I’ve never been able to repeat again.  I also hadn’t bought my tumbler yet and opted to antique the piece with liver of sulpher to finish rather than try to achieve a highly polished look – all polishing was done with an agate burnishing tool by hand.  To match I antiqued all the wire, chain and findings I used to put the necklace together.  I haven’t made an antiqued piece since that small group that I made early on.

Chinoisserie Disc V-Wire Earrings

The Chioisserie Disc V-Wire Earrings – why do I call these Chioisserie?  I used to work at a very unique store in NW Washington DC.  They went out of business a few years ago but at the time they were the “largest east-coast importer” of vintage Japanese textiles.  They also sold Japanese antique furniture, Chinese antique furniture (this was before China placed a ban on shipping furniture older than 100 years out of the country), basketry from the Philippines, they had their own clothing designer on staff and at one time or another produced a clothing line in Bali and then in India.  It was basically a grand mish-mosh of stuff – a treasure trove of some really interesting person’s attic.  I digress.  I had the opportunity to buy for this shop – I bought jewelry, clothing, accessories, etc…  Among some of the items I bought were some beautiful vintage Chinese textiles – there is a style of embroidery and quilting that the Chinese did on these textiles that is very distinctive and the motif of the button that I cast a mold of for these earrings reminds me nostalgically of those beautiful textiles.

Egyptian Lily Earrings with Blue Topaz

I just love these fantastic twisty-cut faceted blue topaz don’t you?

Oval Flower Doorknock Necklace

To see these pieces live and in person please subscribe to updates or visit my website,  I will be posting information about where I will be showing my work as I confirm show dates.

Deco Lotus Earrings with Peridot

I call this pattern “Deco Lotus” because it has that sort of Deco/Egyptian Revival look to it in my opinion.  The pattern is inverted (I usually use the “lotus” part on the bottom and the dot-textured part at the top) but I decided in this case I wanted to try it this way.  I am fascinated by unusually cut stones and I own several different types of stones with this cut (I’ve heard it called “rice cut”, “puff marquis”, and “full round marquis”), they remind me of little water droplets and I think the shape goes really well with the motiff of the silver component.

Art Clay Silver and Garnet Earrings with Baroque Pearl Drop

This is a new component I’ve never used before – it’s actually a fragment of a larger piece, I just used part of the mold to make these little football-shaped components.  I set garnets into the wet clay and fired them in place and then added these sumptuous freshwater pearls after finishing.

I like the agate geode as a background but I’m not sure whether it is too distracting or not and I’m still trying to get the lighting right – I’m getting glare off the metal or the stones – I’m going to have to invest in a light tent after all.

Deco Sunburst Station Necklace with Tanzanite

What do you think?

The pendant (I call them “door knock” pendants – I’m weird that way) was cast out of fine silver (Art Clay silver) from a mold I made of an Art Deco-era button.  This button really appealed to me as it is unusual to find buttons in any shapes other than round, particularly with so much detail.  The mold lost a little detail in the upper left area but I think that gives it a more antique feeling.  I set a genuine tanzanite directly into the clay and fired it in place.  I love the dissonance of the ultra-feminine, curvy pear-shaped stone with the straight geometry and faceted texture of the component.

When the clay was still wet I drilled a hole on either side so that I could later attach jumprings and chain.  Once the piece was fired, brushed and burnished I added my rings and several inches of sterling silver rolo chain and added an extender chain at the back so that it may be worn at different lengths.

I took the picture with my digital camera under a daylight lamp on one of a pair of agate geode bookends.  The drusy makes a nice resting area for making a small piece “stand up”.

I’m planning on playing with photography over the next few weeks and I welcome any suggestions for improving my technique.  I’ll be finishing other pieces from my last grouping of components and I anticipate experimenting a lot with backgrounds, color, lighting and methods of photography.