Day Three!

My kids are home, the sun is shining (temporarily), and I'm sippin' on a mocha....nummy.... Life is good on all sorts of levels! Here's my newest addition to my shop for the April Challenge:

 Botanica - Sapphire, Vintage Glass, PMC and Sterling Silver Necklace

Whirlwind

As I've mentioned before it's the FaerieWorlds Festival this weekend....and I'm so happy that I get to go...yay!! But with all the back and forth, the day job, my business....well life in general, I'm now busting butt trying to get my clothes sewn! The thing is...even if I didn't have all the interruptions I'd still be working like a mad woman to get this done last minute. I'm not sure what it is with me...maybe it's my sign? Are there any Aquarius's out there that are habitual procrastinators? LOL It doesn't matter how many lists I have, or how organized I am...everything gets done last minute...but always in the nick of time! I think it's more like organized chaos...there is such a thing right? More than likely if you look it up on Wikipedia you'll see a picture of me next to the definition!

Well I'm off to catch some Zzz's before the alarm goes off at 8am. Ohhh...I finally listed my Goddess pendant in my shop, here's some pics of it below. Her name is Selene....Goddess of the Moon and she's made from Precious Metal Clay.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I'm a slacker!

Since joining Facebook again I've been really slacking on my blog posts! I've gotta figure out how to manage my time a bit better :) Wow...FB can be addicting, but it's really nice being able to keep in contact with my old friends.

Sales on Etsy have been right on target this month so I have no complaints there! I've made a bunch of PMC pieces, fired and polished them anyways, now it's just a matter of oxidizing them. I'll be sure to get the pictures up here as soon as I've finished them. The majority of the pieces I've made are for graduation gifts that people have ordered. I really love PMC...it's such a forgiving medium to work with..thank goodness or else I'd have a lot of wasted pieces. I tend to start making something...then half way through it I change my mind. Sometimes it's just because the piece isn't exactly what I had imagined or I'm just feelin' wishy washy and want to make something different..hehe

Well I'm off to fire up my torch and make some rings! I hope everyone is having a fabulous week...it looks like the sun is finally back in my neck of the woods...yay!

Eek...New Printer

Well I finally broke down and bought myself a new printer...I didn't want to, but my old one is on it's last leg. So after some research and talking with some people...everyone said to get a Kodak, even the gal at Office Max said to get it. I was a bit surprised that she had said that because she would lose a sale, but she said they don't carry Kodak products and it was better than the HP and others that I was interested in there. I ordered the ESP 9 All-in-One through Kodak, and I'm sure it'll take me forever to learn how to work it because I am so not a techie kind of girl ;)
I'm thinking it will take care of everything that I need it to do for my business and hopefully brew me a cup of coffee too...hehe!

I also just received my order of PMC today so I'll be busy tonight making some new pieces...Yay! I'll be sure to share all of my new creations with you and hopefully I'll have some listed in my shop before the weeks out. The boys have baseball games for the next 3 days so it may not be until the weekend before they get listed....I'll keep you posted!

Goddess Pendants

On Friday I ordered a custom Goddess Stamp that will be exactly like the Goddess in my previous post but without my name in it. I'm so excited about creating more Goddess pendants that I just had to order it. I've also ordered a "Blessed Be" stamp and am looking forward to making that into a jewelry piece as well.

PMC has opened up a new world for me...I have been busy sketching so many designs of flowers, vines, tree's and so much more. The possibilities seem endless and I can't wait to see the results. I can't draw worth beans but I have great hopes that my jewelry pieces will end up much prettier than my drawings...emphasis on hope..haha!

Today is an absolutely gorgeous day! The boys are at baseball practice right now and I think I'm going to venture outside for a bit to soak up some sun :)

I hope you all have a wonderful day!

PMC3 vs Art Metal Clay

I love PMC3!! I just worked with PMC3 today and in my previous posts I used Art Metal Clay 650 Slow Dry....holy crow the difference is amazing! I just ordered a huge amount of PMC3 because it was so much easier, cleaner...just everything about it was lovely! Below are some pictures of the piece I made using PMC3....Yes it's for me...it's my business logo...the Goddess with my name in it and adorned with some cz's (one to dot my "I" and the other to represent the full moon). Please excuse the quality of the photos, they've been taken just under my kitchen lights instead of in natural light.

Drying on the mug warmer before filing the edges:

After filing and before firing:



After firing:

I'm wearing it as we speak but I think I'm going to take it off to oxidize it so the Goddess and my name stands out more. Oh, and I didn't quench it after firing so the stones are in perfect condition :)

A little info

Here's some information that I've gathered on torch firing gemstones or lab-grown gemstone in pmc. You'll see where some stones survived and some were damaged. I'm thankful that someone else has tested this before I went on to suffer more losses. Even some stones that have a Moh's hardness of 7 or higher still aren't safe to fire unless they're gem quality of A or better. One lab-created stone that I was shocked about was Moissanite...I definitely would've thought this stone could've withstood the heat.

Also, I was surprised to really find only one site that mentioned allowing the piece to cool rather than quenching it in water to keep from damaging the stone. This was definitely a rookie mistake on my part, which I hope to never happen again.....though I happily wore my pendant with the cracked cz's today to work and even received compliments on it :)

I've hyperlinked the pictures to the sources where I found the information. By clicking on the pictures it'll take you to the sites that offer kiln firing information as well.

Hope this info helps!

One of the Pendants

Well here's one of the pendants, and I'm just not happy with the results of either one of them. At least not happy enough to sell them. I think I figured out what I did that ruined the stones, I quenched them, when I should've let them cool down slowly :( I haven't researched this to know for a fact, but it seems logical.

Though it was a loss as far as being able to list something totally new in my shop...I've got 2 new pendants that I will be happy to wear!

Working with Art Clay

So I set out to make some pendants today using Art Clay 650 low fire, slow dry. Let me just tell you, I have a new appreciation for those who work with this medium on a daily basis. It was no easy task for me, and apparently will need a lot more work on my part to perfect it in any way. I have also discovered that working with pmc will have to be my weekend project as I don't have a lot of time during the week.

So here is a picture of them after being fired. I meant to take a picture of them prior to firing but my batteries for my camera were dead and needed charging. The impatient person that I am couldn't wait for the batteries to be done charging before I fired the pieces.


I found that colored CZ's also tend to change color during firing. The daisy with the single stone was fired face up. The other pendant was fired face down...but the stones were still affected by the heat. Also as you may or may not be able to tell, I could've done a better job at sanding the pieces prior to firing them. The bezel settings definitely could've used more attention, but yet again the impatient part of me didn't want to wait....I really need to start listening to the more patient side of me :)

Right now as I type this, these pieces are being oxidized. I'll try to touch them up a bit more after their done, and I'm really hoping the flaws or imperfections are less noticeable when I'm finished. If not, then I guess I have a couple of new pendants for myself, or I guess I could list them in my shop as "Oops" pieces...we'll see!

I'll post more pictures of them after they're done oxidizing...see you soon!

Earrings....Gotta Love 'Em

I love jewelry, especially earrings. There's something so very feminine about them, whether they're short or long, simple or adorned with gemstones....they really are the perfect addition to finish off your look. While making a pair of earrings or any type of jewelry for that matter, I normally make myself a pair too. Mostly to test the style...see how they wear, but also because I can't help myself :)

Below are a couple of pieces that I made today to list and no need to ask...I made myself a pair of each of these..hehe

I made a Peridot set to sell and a Garnet set for myself...it's my birthstone and it had to be done!

For these earrings I made myself a very small pair and a 2" pair as I tend to like big earrings. The pair pictured are comparable in size to my Large Rustic Hoops also sold in my store.

I'll be ordering some PMC (Precious Metal Clay) soon, and can't wait to start working with this medium. I have so many ideas and sketches that I'm looking forward to making. I was going to order some this weekend, but I've decided to wait just a bit to allow myself to gain more knowledge about working with it. Oh, I so love the creative outlet that jewelry has given me!