Fleur-de-lis Earrings by Dana Evans

Today I finished a pair of new earrings and I thought I'd give you all a sneak peak....

They include a pair of Australian opals I got in Tucson last month- I knew just how I wanted to use them!

The sketch on the left is of a pair of earrings I've been wanting to make for a while- this sketch is probably over a year old. Just didn't have the stones yet to make them. Here they are- I'm assembling the parts. The wire at the top is 16 ga. square Argentium silver that will have some balls fused to it. I already made the bezels for the stones, and took a while creating the paper template for the bottom fleur-de-lis shape. I fuss a lot on templates because I want to get it right. This was my 3rd or 4th one, and I still fussed to get it just right.

Here I fused the balls onto the square wire and traced/cut out the silver fleur de lis shapes at the bottom. I'm trying the stones out, but of course I remove them when I solder things together...

After this step, I needed to solder the bezels to a back plate.....

Which I did here.... I also cut out most of the backs of the stones (because they're transparent) but left a seat. Additionally I left little tabs on the tops and bottoms of each bezel so the fused wire and fleur-de-lis pieces could be soldered onto them and join all pieces together. Before I did this, however, I soldered an earwire to the back of each fused wire segment to be folded later on...

Here they are above ready for keum-boo. I cut a pattern of what shape I wanted, used that to transfer to the gold foil, and cut them out. I put them on my electric burner and burnished the foil so it 'stuck' to the silver. (see my earlier post on keum boo for more info!)

And here are the oxidized finished pair. I discovered that it was challenging to hammer/punch close these bezels because they had some of the elements soldered to them, which stiffened them quite a bit. In the future I will use thinner-walled bezels if I have elements soldered to them.

I'm not putting these in my Etsy store just yet- I'm keeping these for the Ratner show next month!!

You can see more at my website: DanaEvansStudio.com.

A series I'm working on: leaf earrings- inspired by a cluster of leaves my daughter found in the parking lot at the new Denver Ikea. She held up the leaves and said, "Mommy! You should make earrings like this!" She's a great idea girl! She's since made me a list of 24 other inspiring things I can use to make earrings.  7 year-olds have some of the best ideas! (Be on the lookout for Candy Corn earrings soon!!)

Odaybea's most recent work: 925 silver ring with South Sea Pearl

Ratner Museum Show

The Ladysmiths will be showing and selling their work at The Ratner Museum this April 27-28. Please see the postcard below. Click it for a larger image, it will open in a new window. Last year was such a huge success we are expecting this year to be even better. There are 12 of us this year.  We are lucky gals to have this opportunity! If you live in the DC Metro Area please come by! If you are planning a visit to DC this would be a fantastic show for you! It's never too late to start holiday shopping. (and you won't find these items mass produced because they are all hand made)

Carolyn's latest work in progress

(these will be rings and pendants when finished)

We recently met to discuss marketing. Most of the focus was on Etsy, everyone had some great tips to offer, Evie brought an array of very forward-looking jewelry business cards from a recent show. Karen showed us some creative marketing books, Bodil shared what it's like to sell from B&Ms (brick and mortar stores). Sharon was very up on all the Etsy changes for sellers and buyers. Let's just say we all couldn't stop talking!

 (Carolyn hosted this time around)

Also, some of the ladies have been taking a wax carving class at The Art League in Alexandria, VA. I'm sure there will be some great results to post here.

Enameling Workshop

Well this month's meeting was actually an enameling workshop. We had to unfortunately put a limit on attendees because we had so much interest, and not enough room in Mimi's basement!! It was a snug fit but we had a great time... had some successes and failures, but not the epic fail we ALL had at our last enameling workshop!

This was our kick-off meeting before getting to work- over coffee and treats: (l to r) Ellen, Bodil, Sharon, Karen, Sandra, Mimi. Evie also came and I was taking pics (Dana).

 Karen's pieces turned out nicely- counterenamel on the back (blue color) with the fronts a nice autumn-y orange. My bad, I put the transparent enamels in the area Karen was working, and she didn't realize that, so she used them for copper, which is not a good idea- everything comes out  muddy. Transparents are for silver and gold. Or for copper, if you layer a piece of silver foil on top of the copper first.

These are Dana's... they are hydraulic-formed and cut-out, then sprinkled with different colors on them. You can't really blend colors of enamel- it just looks dotty. But these were my successes of the day! I didn't counterenamel them, so we'll see if they last without cracking (currently in the possession of fellow-Ladysmith Carolyn, who's wearing them! Hopefully!)

These are Dana's copper beads. It was a disaster to initially sift and fire, but then I did Barbara Lewis' trick of heating and dipping in enamel, and it worked well! I did melt the plastic containers of enamel accidently, but next time I'll know to use glass containers if I do this technique again...

One thing I was disappointed about was the lack of vibrancy in the enameling colors once fired. But one of the experienced Ladysmiths reminded me later that the act of torch-firing can add carbon and some unexpected and hence dimmer results. Thanks, Brenda!!

Lesson: heat the metal to melt the enamel, don't heat the enamel!! So, when we fired from below, then switched to above once fusing began, we had success! Item on left was fired from above- ouch!

Hope we remember all this for next time!!

What's Your Story??

This week 8 of us met with the intention of presenting our work to the group for feedback. It was inspired by the need to have a 'story' which is both personal and marketable, in order to better focus our work and move it into a direction that's both satisfying personally and professionally. So, this week's post is a collage of each participant's reaction to the get-together, with an emphasis on what each got out of the meeting in terms of feedback. So first we start with Caroline:

 An earlier pic of Caroline's work in progress, above, and some stones, below, she wants to encorporate into her work.

From Caroline: "Fabulous meeting regarding each jeweler’s body of work. It was a non-judgmental combination of quick impressions, thoughtful evaluations. and brainstorming ideas of how to move off stumbling blocks in our work process, find our own niche, connect with potential buyers, and create ways to present our work. The end result for me was seeing a path I want to be on this year. Before going, I wondered if I would be a bit down after seeing the progress everyone had made in the last year or so. It did the opposite and I’m now raring to get going again – hello hollow boxes. Thank you everyone. The cupcakes were worth the trip—extra special thanks to  Ellen."

Bodil's work:

 Bodil's sea glass bracelet (in progress) above, and custom gold bangle, below.

 Bodil's jellyfish pendants, above, and silver nugget bracelet, below.

 Bodil's sea glass earrings, above, and sand necklace, below.

From Bodil: "I brought about 30 photos and found that the pieces that I adore is what people associate with me. Basically I have two main styles.  Heart (emotion) three dimensional pieces using naturally occurring shapes. And head (intellect) a more symmetrical flat style.  Similar look but as much feeling.  

I create small works of art to wear from what is found, and my style is also expressed in the materials used

Rather than use seed beads for my framed bezels I will try using crushed shells and tiny pebbles - again found materials to create small mosaics"

The 3 pendants below are all by Lucia:

From Lucia: "Our meeting today was most helpful in many ways.....providing us with ideas on identity, image,  definition or clarification of our goals, promotion, presentation etc. Hearing how each member reacted to my work was both reassuring and productive. I was very grateful for the input about the photography on my website...I actually had not really considered whether or not it could be improved or in what way. Hearing the constructive criticism of each members' work made me reflect on my own and question how well I was handling the same aspect. Time management suggestions were also very helpful as we all struggle to use our creative time to the best advantage. I look forward to more group critiques because they provide a terrific way to gauge how our customers and clients may be reacting to what we offer. Let's continue this type of meeting....perhaps twice a year so we can track our improvements and discoveries. "

 Sharon's work:

 Sharon's tin/button ring, above, and assorted pieces, below.

From Sharon: "I thought I had a good idea of my style, brand and story before our meeting.  But the Ladies helped me solidify the idea of tying my old career path -- journalism -- into my new one.  Using newspaper or print in my packaging, describing my spare design in terms like "edited" and "concise," and maintaining a line of black & white pieces are just a few of the ways I can keep this theme running through my work.  Time to get these ideas into circulation!"

Ellen's work:

From Ellen: "I learned how really important it is to have a cohesive look, and to listen to my "vision" for my work - not to people who may not like or appreciate it. I was not surprised to hear that my influences are Celtic/moorish/Middle Eastern. I need to build confidence in my price points, and believe that the right customers are out there. Now, to find them :)!"

Karen's work:

Karen's Thoughts:

1. Go to that awesome GF bakery and Get. More. Cupcakes. (GF= Gluten Free)

2. repeat 1.

3. then, Get In My Studio!!!!

4. What I got out of today:It was LOVELY to see bodies of work from our other members- How lovely to get a better idea of what they work on, struggle with, have questions about! And- being relatively new to the Metalsmithing arena, to know that what I thought were "beginner questions" aren't really all that beginner after all. ;) My work: first, refer to number 3. ;) More working will help me define better what I like, how I like to work, and also important (!) what I can sustain.  Finding a theme that will hold my attention is important. I made a few pages of sketches of "potential future jewelry lines" and... while some were interesting, some were less so as I kept drawing. huh! I had figured the more I kept working on a theme, and the more potential I saw in it, the more interesting it would become? Maybe not so oddly- the themes I haven't "finished" are the ones I'm most interested in playing with first... Is there a lesson there about burning out before you begin? belaboring a point? or... is the sheer (potential!) volume of work ahead the wall that stops even my first step? (resistance! ahhh run!!)

One great question asked on me today after I showed my pile of (seemingly) disparate printouts, photos, design stuff, printed cards and whatnot, "What would you MOST want to work on Right Now, if you could go work on your jewelry?"
At the moment I said- ooh the etched copper cuffs. And I have one in the start-up phase already (hooray!) and- items with a story- historical, mythical, personal...

Now that I've had a moment- ask me now? CHAINS! love em. love love love love em.

That was a lovely clarifier. I need to remember that question more often. 

My goals? Make More Stuff. Sell It. Make More Stuff. Bask in the Awesomeness!

What Am I best at? So far the design concept part. Still building skillsets. (10,000 hours, here I come!)

How can I stand out? By making sure I use MY brain in MY creations. Only I have this brain and this combination of experiences. Only -I- can show these. Anyone else trying to do it for me or like me will just get it wrong. 

I am a talented thinker. I can (I can! I can!) come up with interesting ideas, that aren't Just Like what is already out there. I consciously make that part of my directive.

Dana's work:

 Boxed-out/hollow pieces, above, and chased/repousee pieces, below.

 Granulated pieces, above, and keum-boo pieces, below.

From Dana: "I was struggling with the feeling I should focus in more with my work- for example, right now I'm doing Argentium granulation, mostly with opals. Should I focus on doing that and only that? Should I combine techniques in order to be different and stand out? The ladies thought my work was pretty uniform in style and thought I should instead focus on my background in architecture and improve my PR. "Houses for stones" is what one lady said. The suggestion was to change my lapidary shop (on Etsy) from StoneCabCrazy to StoneAddict, and change my jewelry shop (also on Etsy) from StoneAddict to something more like StoneMason or Homes for Stones, etc... something that accentuates my architecture background- that I'm building structures for my stones. Also, big suggestion was to build my own website for credibility, visibility, etc... and have a 'Shop' button that leads to my Etsy shop. So, I'm very excited and have a lot to think about and a lot of work ahead of me!"

The comments/blurbs above were only a small portion of the discussions we had. Not only was it valuable for each participant, it was a great way to help train ourselves to 'talk' about our work and art in general- that's hard to do for some of us. Looking forward to doing this twice a year- was a great help to all!!

First Fall Meeting- Silhouette Cameo

Today we met at my house (Dana) so I could show everyone my new toy:

It's a Silhouette Cameo, and you can get one from SilhouetteAmerica.com. It's an electronic cutter, developed for the scrapbooker, but there are other uses...

Here it is cutting some CopprClay, during a class I took this summer.

There's a whole library of images to buy (most only $.99) like this one for a card. Note the cool scalloped edge. It even perforated the fold edge for easy-folding!

You can even buy some adhesive vinyl and make your own glass etchings!

Here I made a multi-layered sticker for my daughter's journal out of self-adhesive foam sheets. This was also a bought pattern.

These hearts started as a bought image, but I modified them to add the loop at the top. They're Shrink Plastic!! Imagine the possibilities...

Here's a fun Halloween image I bought.

Oh, that's right... we're metalsmiths... 

Okay, these images I created myself using the software (upgrade to the Designer Edition- you'll be able to do more...) and then ran the cut paper through the rolling mill. The images elongate due to the rolling mill's action so you need to take that into account when designing. You could use it for creating PNP images, if you didn't have a laser printer. Thoughts about using it for gold foil/Keum Boo were also thrown around. So many uses....

Thanks to everyone who came today: Karen, Ann, Sharon, Mimi, Bodil, Deb, Caroline, Ellen Y., Ellen K.,  & Odaybea.  We also did a bit of Argentium fusing. Sorry I wasn't better at taking any group shots! See you all next time!

Opal Pendant on Pink Sapphire Necklace

Here is my latest one-of-a-kind necklace.   It's a genuine opal hand polished by Dana Evans.  I love the pink streaks in the center of the stone, and think the bright pink sapphire beads ties it together well.   I added a simple black metal magnetic clasp for fun.    On the back it says  BODIL in braille.

I think I'll keep this one for myself.....

Harrison Casting Company

Hello Ladies,

I had such good luck with a new casting company I started using (thanks to a referral from Dana Evans) that I thought I'd share this with you.

Bill Harrison   of Harrison Casting Company   in Rhode Island

Their prices are much cheaper than the company I had been using.

$15 per mold 
10 cents per piece for basic finishing
they use 100% recycled silver
will accept your old scrap gold for a casting

harrisoncastingco@yahoo.com

Always good to save money, AND get a quality product.

Bodil Lund