Wahoo! New FREE video tutorial going on! This one is probably the one I should have done about a zillion years ago. Shenandoah is my best selling chainmaille kit – the pendant, earrings, and bracelet. I have a photo tutorial for the pendant/earrings, and now here is a video tutorial! Yippee! I also did my Enso bracelet – all of these pieces use the Japanese 12-in-2 chainmaille weave. This weave is SO versatile and fun, there’s a lot of design potential with it.

Here is the video:

If you’re interested, the photo tutorial is also right here!

And of course — you can see all of my FREE jewelry tutorials right here.

Look! It’s Tuesday and I’m writing again! I also managed to put up a new banner. The old one said “Summer 2013 — seeing as how it’s January of 2014…. a little overdue!

After I posted yesterday, I got caught up in looking through my old blog posts. I am so happy I have so much about my children when they were little. Some of the stories I remember, and have been come family legend (this video for example… Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!! Is there a ploblem?! Oh my goodness that video KILLS ME.) Other stories have fallen behind lost to memory — except when I spend a half hour reading through my archives! This one (specifically, the barbie doll head story) got retold at the dinner table last night.

It has been a great month so far in 2014. Last Thanksgiving, we went to Utah to my sisters to have Thanksgiving with a lot of family on my side, as we usually do. At some point during our visit, we went and saw the movie Frozen. I was kind of on the fence about seeing it – actually, more on the ‘nah, i’ll see it later” side of the fence. But I went, saw the movie, and was COMPLETELY blown away with how awesome it was (and is!).

I pick my daughter Jocelyn up every day from school along with two other girls we carpool with. And every day in January, we have a ritual on our way home from school. We crank up “Let it Go”, grab our imaginary microphones, and belt it out as we drive home. Sometimes I need to circle the block until it’s finished! I haven’t been this much in love with a Disney movie since Beauty and the Beast. When I saw in the theater with the opening scene to Beauty and the Beast, I felt transported. I felt like I was sitting watching musical theater. It was so beautifully done, the music so lovely – I was in heaven!

Yup, Frozen has topped them all. I may or may not cry in at least 5 different places in the movie.

Here’s the song “Let it Go”, sung by Idina Mendel.

I ran across this parady version which totally cracks me up. It is an alto’s lament that Disney songs are always so HIGH. It’s hilarious, but I also think it’s funny because “Let it Go” is one of the LOWEST Disney songs every! The highest it gets is an E — it think it’s even an E flat — which really, is NOT that high! Still, hilarious parady.

WARNING: BAD LANGUAGE! Don’t let your children wander over and watch it with you! Ahem. Like someone might do. Not me. No, it definitely wasn’t me. Why, did my kids tell you? Dammit, I told them not to tell anyone I let them see this.

There is a Frozen Sing A Long movie that is supposed to be released this weekend. I will be there!

I’m off to cut some jump rings this morning, and hopefully get to some enameling later today. My ideas for an entire enamel collection is growing — including the basket hoops up there in my new site banner. Aren’t they the CUTEST?

Off to work.. Happy Wednesday!

-amy pats herself on the back for writing. TWO TIMES in one week!

Here it is:

Would you like to see all the banners I’ve ever done ever? Here ya go!

So it’s the end of January, and I have not posted at all on my blog. Doh! One of my new years resolutions was that I would try to do so more. Better late than never, right?

Another resolution I made was to make more jewelry. Not only MAKE it — but POST it. Post it on my flickr account, here on my blog, up on my site for sale… just get it OUT THERE! I have a lot of what I call.. UFOs. UnFinished Objects. Some of them are dangerously close to being done, if only I would do it.

So along with this vein, I joined a flickr group challenge called 3xR 2014. The challenge is to, “Reduce, Reuse and Recycle all the crap we have laying around on our benches and in our studios! Finish all those projects, use those stones we’ve been hoarding, take a look at that old sketchbook. Nothing is off limits here. Make as much work or as little as you choose but you need to Use What You Have.”

I also joined in conjunction, a flickr challenge group called THAW2014 – which stands for Thing A Week – I think both of these challenges will be great for me.

This is perfect for me. I have a LOT of material to work with, if only I would sit down and do it. For myself, I am including taking some of these UFOs and getting them finished. My goal is to do at least 1 a week. Since buying a kiln last year, I have slowing been building up my collection of enamels, and want to move into that direction.

So enough with the jibber jab! I actually HAVE ben making a piece a week — but they’ve sat on my bench instead of beign shared with the world. Which is part of the challenge to myself — POST THEM! So here is my first week’s piece.

It started with a sample I made in a fold forming class I took last year with Ira Sherman. I had so much fun in that class, I was determined to come home and make fold forming my life’s work (it always goes like that after a workshop!)

I choose one of these two forms:

I annealed it, and pickled it, to get off all the black oxides. Enamel needs a clean surface or the glass particles won’t fuse to the copper. The metal was initially rolled through a rolling mill with a piece of pattered paper, which caused the pattern to imprint on the metal. The hammer marks on one side of the leaf are also quite visible, so I opted to go with transparent enamel on the front. Green transparent, and a clear transparent.

You can see the imprinted pattern underneath the green enamel. I love the clear enamel too — it makes a shimmery golden surface with the copper underneath.

On the opposite side, I decided on a punch of color. Bright orange, with a very subtle lighter orange through the middle of the leaf.

Enamel is sifted onto the metal dry. You can see faint lines where I drew through the enamel to reveal the base orange color underneath. This technique (scratching through one layer to see underneath) is called sgraffito.

Overall, I am so happy with this piece. I kind of wish I had done more with the setting rather than just attaching it to the chain with jump rings, but time wasn’t on my side this time.

I have the other pieces I did this month as well — so that will help me to post again later this week!

Amy