more glass pendants

I forgot to take pictures during jewelry class last week but next Thursday is the last class so my final projects will be finished and coming home with me. I decided to make a few silver pendants with cut out and punched out designs. It was A LOT of sawing (and changing of blades as I snapped a few) but I like the way they are turning out. I designed them for my dissertation committee members so they have an animal theme to them.

Now that I'm done school I'll have time to get back into soap making and baking. Hopefully I'll have something to post soon. I'm also looking into more classes to take. I'm leaning toward cake decorating or the second level of silversmithing. I REALLY enjoy glass fusing but would like to do more than just pendants so I'm looking into purchasing my own kiln so I can do some experimenting. So much exciting crafty-goodness!

Here are the second batch of glass pendants I made. I find them very hard to photograph well. The flash or light tends to shine off them and it's hard to really show off the different colours in the pieces.


And here is one that went to my best friend Becky. She sported it on our evening out to Spamalot.


This weekend has been awesome. It's really my first weekend "off" in 6 years so I've been enjoying doing whatever I please guilt-free! The highlight of the weekend was a visit to a travel agency where we booked a trip to the Dominican Republic (Punta Cana). We leave on Saturday - less than a week!! This trip is Alex's graduation present to me - he's the best. All-inclusive food and drinks (24 hours a day!) sounds so luxurious. I can't wait to go!

project two - copper bracelet and pendant

Traffic was a big mess last Thursday so I was half an hour late for class and arrived without designs for my final project. I had had a very busy and stressful week and wasn't feeling very creative so instead of designing a crappy project to start, I finished off my bracelet and made a matching pendant. I'll be starting my final project in tomorrow's class.

Here is the copper after I cut the metal and filed and sanded the edges.


After annealing and bending the piece into shape.


On to hammering


The pendant has been cut (but not yet filed or sanded)


The completed set


In other other news....I'm officially finished school!! Yahoooo!!! I successfully defended my dissertation last Wednesday and couldn't be more thrilled or relieved. Just call me Dr. Lorah!

silversmithing project one

Last week I attended my third silversmithing class. I am really enjoying myself as are the other students. I continue to be impressed by the knowledge, skill and dedicated of our instructor Sarah - she's really great.

Our first project was to make a sterling silver band ring and then set a cabochon stone with a bezel setting. I really liked the way my ring turned out and decided that I didn't want to cover it with the stone setting so I ended up leaving my ring as is.

Here is the silver I chose, I wanted to make a wide and thick ring. This picture is after I sawed the length of silver and was about to sand the edges.


Here is the silver after annealing and bending it into shape. This was the ring at the end of first class.


During class 2 I soldered the seam of the ring and then did A LOT of hammering to get the ring nice and round. Here is the ring after that process.


Next I sanded the edges, exterior and interior of the ring with 6 different grades of sandpaper to get it nice and smooth and then tossed it into the tumbler to get shiny.


Because I wasn't doing the bezel setting for the ring I was able to get started on my next project at the end of class two. During last week's class I finished the project, a hammered copper cuff bracelet. I forgot to take pictures of the bracelet when it was finished off (after cleaning and brushing) so I'll wait to add photos of that. Next week I will be starting my final project.

In other news...my doctoral defense is on WEDNESDAY!!! Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I'm trying not to completely freak out. The rest of the weekend is allotted to getting my presentation in order. I've taken Monday and Tuesday off work and will use those days to prepare for the questions I will get. By noon on Wednesday I should be a very happy camper and will likely have some minor changes to make before sending the dissertation off to be bound. I am SO looking forward to being done with school!

glass fusing is cool

As promised, here are the photos from my class on fused glass pendants. This class was so fun and easy!! Not all the pieces worked out but I had never worked with glass before so it was a learning process for me. I'm thinking of taking the class again...or getting my own kiln so I can make more of these babies. The information for the class specified that we would be able to make 3 pendants and could use different colours and kinds of cut glass, glass bead or paint on designs. It wasn't until the class was nearly done that the instructor mentioned we could make extra pieces at an additional charge. I went crazy and ended up with 8 pieces by the time the class was finished. Of course once I was in the car (and for the next several days) I came up with all sorts of other designs I should have tried and people I should have made a pendant for.

Here are all 8 of the pieces before they went into the kiln

And here they are afterward


This was the first one I made. I really wanted to use the glass beads.


I used a stencil and paint on this one (I tried to free hand a design on one piece but it didn't work out and I washed it off). The stencil stuck to the glass and I had to pick off all the little pieces of paper with a toothpick. Tedious work. Obviously I missed some of the debris as the piece has a air bubble in it! I was dissappointed that that happened but now I think it adds a neat effect.