Contrariwise ramblings

I've had these cabs for over a year, set them as earrings over Christmas, and hadn't taken any photos till last week!  And now I finally listed them in my Etsy shop. 

I bought them at a local Gem and Mineral Show that's held twice a year at the fairgrounds. The dealer  must have had hundreds of Sleeping Beauty cabs rattling around in a box and my daughter spent a long time sorting through them to find matching pairs for me.  I still have about 8 matching pairs which, at my rate of setting them, should keep me busy for the next 8 years!

Here's a photo of the mountain  ---->

(Hmmm. I guess someone really had a vivid imagination.)


Well, if you want to see more pictures of these earrings, just go here.

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I've become absolutely fascinated with Morrisonite Jasper and have bought quite too many cabochons recently. (I just can't help myself .)  This is the first one that I've set.

Morrisonite Jasper is known as the King of Jaspers.  It's a rare stone that is known world-wide for its deep rich colors and unique patterns. I think you can see why.

Until I started working with cabochons, I never appreciated how special they are.  Some unique stones can only be found in incredibly small areas - for example, in just a single riverbank.  Morrisonite comes from a mine on one side of the Owyhee River canyon in southeastern Oregon near the Idaho border . It's no longer mined .

Therefore, as with Morrisonite, the supply of many beautiful materials is limited. Once gone, they're gone forever.

I love buying cabs online. I think it’s because, when they arrive in little packages in the mail, I get as excited as if it was Christmas morning! And when I open them, it’s always a surprise.

I’ve recently bought some new cabochons from Dale at JustCabs. When this Snake River Dendritic Agate arrived in the mail, it took my breath away.

The dendrites form a perfect miniature tree, which seems to be sitting on a golden brown hillside. If you use your imagination, you can see mountains behind it, also in shades of golden brown. The background color of this agate is white, but it glows with hints of peaches and purples.

The entire scene felt very Japanese to me, so I decided to set the stone to emphasize that feeling. I cut pieces of silver to create a bamboo twig to sit next to the stone. 

I thought about cutting out a design on the back, like I've done before.  But I had already put in so much time into this setting - and I was anxious to get it finished - that I decided to just do a little curlique as part of the bail in the back.

I just listed it in my shop.  More photos can be found there.

During the day I have a full-time job, but in the evenings and weekends I steal away a few hours working on my hobby and improving my techniques.

Depending on what else is going on in my life, this may mean that I may not get to my workshop at all for a while.  But on a good week, I might get as much 12 hours.

In the past couple of weeks, I've gotten some gorgeous stones which have inspired me to create new pieces of jewelry - but I've been so intent on working on them that I didn't want to use my spare time to take photos!  So I have a lot of new jewelry to photograph and list in my shop.

Today I finished this new ring and decided it was time to take some photos!

The stone in this ring is a black lace agate.  Nature created a perfect miniature landscape within this wonderful stone.

The agate has an image of autumn reeds in the foreground bordering a flowing stream.  In the background clouds float in the late-evening sky.  A full moon peeking behind the clouds illuminates the scene 

To complement the flora of the stone, hand-cut leaves are asymmetrically positioned on the setting and the motif is continued in the band.

A signature dragonfly can be found on the back.

More photos of this, my latest ring, are found here.

Saw + hammers + disc cutter + bracelet mandrel =

I think this is the first cuff bracelet I've ever made.   I had just gotten my disc cutter and I wanted to see what fun things I could do with it.  Plus I had a bracelet mandrel that I bought over a year ago and never used.  Why not try out both at once and see what I could come up with?

Time to play!

I made the cuff in copper which I texturized with a hammer.  I randomly made holes in it with the disc cutter, then soldered on silver discs. (Yes, the disc cutter's great at finding new ways to use all those silver scraps I have!)   Using a rawhide hammer, I formed the bracelet on the mandrel.  Then everything was oxidized and polished to bring out the texturizing and the silver accents.

A very simple equation.  Right?

More photos can be found here.

It's odd how suddenly an idea can come into your head.  In my mind, I've been envisioning a bracelet made of silver square links, each of the squares stamped with a different pattern.

This idea has been knocking around my head for a couple of weeks but it wasn't until last Thursday that I had some time to work on it.

This was going to be a heavy chunky bracelet.  And because I had NO IDEA OF WHAT I WAS DOING, I decided that I better try it copper first.  Otherwise, I might end up with a lot of very expensive scrap silver.

As I went along, I learned what worked and what didn't work so well. Everything fell into place SORT OF how I wanted it.  I had the links all finished and connected, but I had no ideas of what to do  for the closure.  I went to bed a little disappointed and didn't know what to do next.

I left the bracelet alone for the next couple of days.  I liked the way it had progressed but I was afraid that the wrong clasp woul completely ruin it.

Seriously.  I DREAMT clasps in my sleep:  snaps, hooks, toggles.

Saturday morning I was dozing in bed and it was about time to get up.  But  I was just lying there, enjoying the warmth of my bed, not wanting to get out, half dreaming and thinking about the bracelet.  All of a sudden, out of absolutely no where, it came to me.  I knew EXACTLY how I was going to finish the bracelet.

Once I knew how I wanted the clasp to look, it didn't take me long that day to finish the bracelet.

Each link is stamped with a different pattern:  flowers, hearts, stars, bubbles, etc.   And I created a toggle by cutting it into the last square link.  The bar has been hand- fabricated and stamped to match the pattern of the bracelet.

This is what I really like to do.  Create something completely out of my head and try to figure out how to do it without using any directions. I'm completely self-taught, and trying to figure out the techniques is so much fun.  It probably takes me ten times as long, but at least I'm enjoying myself.

Last Halloween, before most people even knew about Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland movie, Emma went trick or treating as the Mad Hatter, a la Johnny Depp:

I was at an out-of-town gymnastics tournament with my daughter all weekend, but during the past 2 nights I had some time to finally  finish this custom order.

Front:

The Graveyard Plume Agate pendant that I posted about last Saturday is taking me longer to set than I expected. I'm still working on it and hope to give you an update very soon but I had to put it aside for a little bit because I got a couple of custom orders that have to be in the front of my queue.

And with the "leaf-motif" in mind  (OK, who gets that obtuse reference???!!!), I cut out a maple leaf on the back which I hand drew with a marker.

Still, after all these snowy months, I wonder why snuffing snow seems to keep it's attraction.