I am teaching several classes at Stars Beads in Vienna, VA.

This weekend, Sunday, 2/14, I’m teaching Celtic Visions bracelet at 12pm.

Sunday 2/28 at 12pm, I’m teaching Posie Earrings in lots of different colors.

Wednesday 4/21 at 6pm, I’m teaching Aura Earrings,

And finally, 4/28 at 6pm, I’m teaching Celtic Visions Star Pendant.

Click here for more information and to register!

#2? What happened to #1?

Well, I didn’t post for #1. But better late then never, right?

Tonight was class #2 of my silversmithing class at the Art League in Alexandria. We did cuttlefish bone castings, which I have to admit, I wasn’t actually too excited about initially, but now I am SO in love with my piece, I got very excited!

Cuttlefish bones are made up of pretty much just calcium. They are very soft, which makes it easy to carve into it, or press shapes into it. You may have actually seen one – they are good for birds, and are often wired to the side of bird cages for the bird to snack on. We decided on the shape we wanted to cast and then carved/impressed the shape into the soft cuttlefish bone, then fitted another bone over it and cut out a little funnel at the topfor the melted metal to flow into the casting.

Cuttlefish bone also has a natural striation in the material that makes really interesting patterns and textures in the casting.

I decided to make a disc shaped pendant with the spokes of a lego gear emerging out of the disc at an angle. I figured with the wavy striations, it would look like a gear or a snowflake sticking up out of the sand.

You can see the striations quite a bit on the back.

It turned out very well! I wish I had thought to snap a few photos of my carving that I cast the piece from, but I didn’t. After I made my mold, I heated scrap silver in a crucible until it was molten, adding a bit of flux (boric acid I think) to help remove any slag (grossness. and yes, that’s a technical term). Then carefully, but quickly, I poured the molten silver into the void i had carefully carved out.

During the carving, the workshop smelt faintly fishy the whole time, but after pouring hot molten meltal into the bone, there was nothing faint about it. It smelled very badly of nasty burnt fish, blech!

A few students had some bad luck with their molds. Not enough material between the mold and the edge of the bone, and the molten metal would find a way to escape the mold and all was ruined. Once used, the bones could not be used again, as they were burnt to a stinky crisp. I was very happy that my casting turned out wonderfully, much better than I expected.

After retrieving my cooled metal from the quench pot and chucking the stinky remains of the burnt mold, I consulted Nick, our teacher on ways to finish this sucker off. On Nick’s suggestions, I filed the angled gear shape down smooth. This week I will need to decide whether to keep the edges as they are, or perhaps cut away around the edge of the protruding gear and into each little coggy protruberance. I’m not sure which I’ll do.

This photo is it’s current state, after a bit of filing.

Good thing I have a week to think it over!

-Amy

To Jocelyn:

Everyone picks their nose. Sometimes, it just needs to be done. The trick is, do it when you’re alone and no one can see you. Now get to work, it sounds like there’s only 2 millimeters of actual space for air to pass through up in there.

To Ethan:
There is such a thing as picking your nose too much. Those teeny tiny boogers? They might not be boogers. They might be small scabs that need to HEAL so that your nose doesn’t bleed. Again. From you picking it too much. Very important: Do it when you’re alone and no one can see you.

Also? Kleenex. That’s where the boogers go. Not in your mouth.

Passing the wisdom on from generation to generation. That’s me.

I am SO guilt ridden, I didn’t post a THING in December! Well, here is a new banner at least to start off the new year, featuring a skinny stacking ring with a 4mm amethyst (soon to be available in my shop). I hope to do some blogging soon, so much to talk about!

To see all the banners I’ve ever used, click here.

THE MOANING AND WISHING FOR A DIFFERENT KIND OF ME

Oh blog. I remember when we were good friends. I’d come visit a lot, I’d write everythign down that was in my head, you’d dutifully display it for the world to see.. Ahhh good times. I’m sorry that I spend so much time with the other woman and all. I jot down those 140 characters, and suddenly I have no need to come see you anymore. Those quickies seem to satisfy me, what can I say. I’ll try to do better, promise. The results however, will probably be disjointed and nonsensical. You’ve beenw warned.

THE RAIN IN SPAIN

For some reason, every time it rains, I remember my brother’s friend in high school and how his car’s windshield wipers that didn’t work. He always said, “Oh, it doesn’t matter once you get goign fast enough,” and sure enough, the few times I rode in his car in the rain (I grew up in Washington state, so there were plenty of opportunities) soon enough, the water would blow off to the edges, and become a solid sheet so that each drop melted into the whole and visibility was not affected.

I don’t know why, but lately I’ve been trying to drive in the rain without my windshield wipers on. It doesn’t last very long. Visibility isn’t even very impaired by the time I run through the following thoughts in my head:

“Wow, those drops sure aren’t melting into the whole. I can see each and every one, farking up my vision.
If I crash and die, I wonder if the CSI will note that my windshield wipers were off and think I was trying some weird scientific experiment suicidal attempt by driving w/out them on. Or maybe they will assume they were knocked to the “off” position in the crash. Maybe the other drivers, the ones that feared for their life as I slowly veer into their lanes, will note that my wipers weren’t on and report it. Fuck this, I’m turning my wipers on.”

All these thoughts happens in about 5 seconds and I turn the wipers back on. And then I go about 35 more seconds wondering what it would be like to drive w/out my wipers on, and try it again. Rinse, repeat. Tell my children I love them.

SPEAKING OF CHILDREN AND LOVE

This morning due to James car being at the subaru service dept AGAIN, why yes, AGAIN, only 6 months after HAVING THE ENTIRE ENGINE REBUILT (on their dime, I might add), for “not enough compression” in the engine block (that’s all we know at this point, they’re still looking) .. where was I? Oh yes.. children. Love.

This morning, I did bus drop-off for the kids, as James took my car to work and I worked at home. I watched Ethan climb aboard, and then what I knew was Ethan’s sillouhette, as he moved down the bus’ aisle, until he plopped in a seat somewhere in the middle and I could once again recognize him through the window. I blew him a kiss – because in a few short years, he is probably going to ignore me at the bus, if I’m even there. And in return…. He gave me the Spock vulcan “Live Long, and Prosper” hand sign. Since this kid has never actually seen star trek, aside from those burger king star trek movie bobble head figures that came in happy meals a few months back, I knew that he ACTUALLY meant to give me the sign language sign for “I love you.” But I gave him the vulcan hand sign back. I love you, and prosper, little dude.

Just so I don’t leave Jocelyn out, and therefore get complaints from her in her teens of how “you NEVER pay attention to ME!” I must say that we’ve got to get this girl some music lessons, and pronto. Ethan did a group piano class during his year of kindergarten, and has some materials still kicking around. So when Jocelyn asked me to teach her a song on the piano, I pulled out “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” and showed her the image showing where each hand goes on the black keys, and how each number in the song corresponded to a finger. She took to it like a duck on water, and now will play the first line by ear (no music), jazzing up the rhythms to make it more interesting.

I’ve always called her an artist, but we’re going to have to stick musician on there as well. Piano lessons here we come.

OH RIGHT. I MAKE JEWELRY, DON’T I?

That’s enough for today, blog. I don’t want you to go into shock or anything. I do have some shop news – After envisioning several pieces PERFECT for halloween, but then not actually making them in time for the spooky season, I am happy that the 2 pieces I had planned for teh holiday season are finished and in the shop.

I call them my Festivity Necklace. Perfect for holiday events, the fun friend-thrown ones, or the try-to-make-them-fun work-thrown events!

I made one with cobalt blue and clear AB beads, and one in crimson red & midnight black beads:

I have kicked off my Black Friday / Cyber Monday sale – free shipping and 15% off all jewelry – have a look!

rainestudios on etsy

rainestudios on artfire

thanks, and happy thanksgiving!

I tried a few things in my silver class last night, and was fraught with much frustration. First, I attempted a bezel. A bezel is the thin wall of silver that holds in/down a stone in a ring, pendant, earring, etc. I could make the bezel fairly well, but I could not solder the damn thing onto my backplate. This could be for a number of reasons – if the components (backplate, bezel, solder) wasn’t clean enough, or close enough, or hot enough, the solder won’t “flow”, which is shorthand for melt and run between the molecules of the joint you’re soldering and stick ’em together!

In my case, I’m pretty sure I did not have the bezel flush enough to the backplate. It’s a pain to get a little circle of silver to touch EVERYWHERE on a flat sheet of sterling silver. If that sheet is not perfectly flat, there’ll be a gap. If the bezel edge is not perfectly flat, there’ll be a gap.

After 3 tries of my solder not melting, not flowing at all, but just getting hotter and hotter until it STUCK on the backplate like old chewed up gum, I gave up and tried something easy.

First I annealed a piece of wire – anneal is when you heat the metal enough to realign the molecules in the metal so that it is soft and malleable. They call it “dead soft”. Annealing is a process one goes through many times in making a piece, as the more the metal is worked, the harder and more brittle it can be – without annealing, the metal may be too hard to shape and work, or so brittle it could break.

Anyway! I annealed my wire and then clamped one end in a vice and proceeded to tie a knot. Then I pulled as hard as I could to get the knot into a nice small shape. Then I wrapped it around a ring mandrel, marked the size I wanted, snipped and made the two ends as perfectly flush and close as I could get them. Then I went to solder them together – after that, a little reshaping with the ring mandrel and a hammer, and I’d have a nice little ring.

My soldering woes had not yet left me, however. That solder just did not want to flow. I think something was bubbling up from the charcoal block I was using and dirtying up my wire. Finally after several tries though, I managed to get my knot ring made and shaped.

KNOT RING

Feeling a bit better about my soldering, I went back to my bezel, double checking everything and making sure Nick (my teacher) gave it his approval. Once again, I soldered away, and while I still had a few of my solder pieces NOT flow, instead, just SIT there fusing themselves to the backplate, enough of the solder did flow, that I finally tasted sucess!

The bezel is complete, and next I will make a ring shank to mount it on. Inside will go a pretty pink oval rhodocrosite stone:

BEZEL

So all in all, not a bad use of my classtime. I am very excited for next week – I’ve ordered some tubing and have a whole bunch of sweet little faceted gems to set. Nothing too expensive yet, but I got white topaz, peridot, amethyst, tourmaline. Drooled over the sapphires, but I’ll wait until I have more skill! I’m planning on making a series of skinny stacking rings with gemstones for the shop.

All in all, a great night at the bench.

-amy

Ahh, hello blog!

It’s been busy around Casa de Panders. Monday was Columbus day, and I had it off… but no one else did. It was quite nice to lounge around the house doing nothing all day! I debated on what I would do, but with my car at the shop (it needed a new radiator, sniff) I was stuck at home and ended up cutting rings and chain mailling all day.

Here’s what I made:

Celtic Visions in copper

Jens Pind in 14 gauge (ie: HUGE) sterling silver

And here’s another Jens Pind, in 18 gauge sterling that I made last week. It’s listed in the shop now.

So, it was a pleasant enough day – unfortunately, I think I overdid it and the joints in my right forefinger and thumb are kind of aching – this is really kind of pissing me off, as I just bought new pliers that I really quite liked. I hope it wasn’t the pliers that did it.

Oh, and here’s one more picture: Any guesses as to who Jocelyn is going to be for Halloween? Someone from one of my FAVORITEST movies!

-amy

My child. She slays me.

I KNOW that if I had stepped in and “helped” her with this project, they would not have turned out as AWESOME as they did.

She said, “I’m making some paper dolls, Mommy!” And make them she did.

Behold! The dolls!

#1: halloween (note the ghostie earring) #2: rocking out with headphones (note the music note) #3 ROBOTS! OMG SHE MADE ROBOTS!!! #4 normal girl

Behold! The clothing she made for the dolls!

And here are the dolls with their clothes on. I laid the clothes on the dolls and scanned them “dressed”:

#1: halloween girl now has ghostie shirt too! #3 That robot girl is lookin’ pretty boobtastic!

If you click the images, you’ll go to my flickr page where I have added a few notes to the first and second page.

Oh man. These just kill me. KILL me. I am going crazy in the best way, when I look at these! That girl. I love her.

-amy

Made this bracelet up over the weekend. It is done in a weave called “Stepping Stones” – very fitting, don’t you think? I tweaked the sizes of the rings to give maximum drama between the “stones” and the smaller rings running around them.

This will be listed in my shop as soon as I can get some good photos taken.

I think when I list it, I will name it, “A River Runs Through It.”

What would you name it? I’d love to hear.