Blog
Your Competition
Who is your competition in this world of jewelry making? Is it the other jewelry artist in the local art gallery? Is it people who post their creations on Instagram and have infinity number of followers? Is it the person who has a "shop update" once a month and everything sells out in five minutes? Is it the people who use cheap labor to make cheap jewelry that always undercuts you?
I'm here to tell you you shouldn't be worrying about any of them.
It's the Little Things (aka Not Being Too Hard On Yourself)
I was feeling guilty that I didn't have a chance to blog in the last two days. Seriously?! How messed up is that?! I've got enough angst on my plate without adding mythical worries to feel badly about.
So much easier to think about what I *didn't* get done rather than appreciate what I *did* get done. Silly woman.
A Year's Worth of Babble in One Post... also we discuss Positive Distractions
My last blog post was April 2020... yes, a whole year. I have excuses, but I won't bore you with them. Instead let me try to catch you up a wee bit and we'll go from there.
Last January, I started my journey into the technique of cloisonné. I actually have an album on Facebook that shows the entire journey and if I have a spare hour someday soon, I thought it'd be fun to re-create those images here on my website.
My New Studio Assistant, A Robot Vacuum
You may think this blog post is not metalsmith related, but you’d be wrong… in my world anyway.
Last June I was in some hot springs and got to talking with another traveler there. Somehow we ended up talking about the fact that she got and loves her Roomba (robotic vacuum… you’ve seen the videos of cats riding around on them).
A Few Cloisonné Pieces and A Mermaid
Okay, let's catch you up. What have I made since the last time I showed you my jewelry?
I wanted to try setting some enamel cabochon (cloisonné, to be specific) into traditional bezel settings. By "traditional", I mean flat wire, not gallery wire or scalloped or serrated. Those other wires are very easy to "push over" which is a good thing when it comes to pushing metal up against glass... but I like the look of a traditional bezel setting at times (most times) so wanted to see if I could do it.
My Open Front Cuff Ring Tutorial
As promised, this blog post is just to show you my latest tutorial (click here to see the listing with all the detailed info).
My Cloisonne Enameling Shelf
First, we must laugh at me. Well, at least I made it through 9 weeks (more or less). Then the snowball started. It was custom orders, then pandemic, and gallery closings, and tutorials, etc. I am OFF the schedule, completely, of feeling the need to fill a quota. As I said on Facebook, I've gone feral (in more ways than one).
On Saturday, I will catch you up on jewelry I've made recently. On Friday, I'll catch you up on my latest tutorial. And tomorrow, I'll show you the results of my comparison of finishing techniques for cloisonne.
Week #9 Musings and More
So you know that Beck song that goes: Soy un perdedor... I'm a loser baby so why don't you kill me?
For years I thought it was, "I'm a lizard baby so why don't you kill me?"
I kinda still sing that in my head when the song comes on Pandora. Anyway, trying to stave of feeling like a loser... or a lizard. But it's hard when I've had two weeks in a row of NOT accomplishing my New Year's resolution of creating 10 items fo jewelry per week.
Week #8 Musings and More
Another short one as I am both pressed for time and have little jewelry to show.
I only have three pieces of jewelry to show for the week. I'm gonna let that slide because the other thing I accomplished this week was resurrecting my simple copper etching tutorial. Tutorials are an immense amount of time investment, so I'm cutting myself some slack on the jewelry this week.
Okay, other than that, here are the three pieces of jewelry that I made.
