Jewelry

One of the groups I am involved with online is called Etsymetal.  We are a group of metalsmiths spanning the globe and we also all have shops on the site Etsy.

In response to the tragic events in Japan we are assembling a collection of work to be to used to raise money for aid.  Currently the details are being worked out, but there will be at least 2 charm bracelets as well as 2'nd and 3'rd place prizes for a raffle.

I have begun to brainstorm ideas for the 2 charms I will create for the bracelets.  This design is a new one that I am excited about! 

The metal is from a vintage silverplate spoon.  One side says, 'With love and hope and prayer'.
The second side says, 'Find peace'.  The third side has a red enameled flower.  Freshwater pearls and glass beads hang from the bottom.

After months of creating new work, but only showing it at art shows and in galleries, I've begun the task of photographing and listing pieces in my online shops. 

Many of you may know what a task this truely is.  It takes time to take crisp photographs from different angles, and then crop and scale them to size.  Next comes measuring each piece and writing descriptions, and then uploading everything together.  It is a chore, but it feels great to be breathing new life into my online presence! 

Right now I'm focusing on my etsy shop, because the photo editing goes twice as fast.  (A big thank you goes out to whoever wrote the code that resizes photographs automatically on that site!)  I've already added 20+ listings to my shop, with more still to come.  If you've seen something on flickr that you would like me to list, just send me a message and I'll do what I can ;)

This was an excruciating ring to make!  Not the actual construction, but the photo shoot.
Yesterday's snails were super snails compared to today's batch!  Today's snails were moody and stubborn and soooo sllllloooooooowwwww....
To say a snail is sluggish is just silly.  Slugs are speedy little creatures!!  I put one on the ring and it went down the slide, took a swim, and then crawled out and down my hand.  All this while one snail just sat on top of the slide unmoving.
My hand was cramping up through this process (I didn't want to spill the water and had to be very still.)  
*Sigh*  No more snails for me for a long time!

I am happy to see that many people have enjoyed seeing this ring and the photos of my snail session!  It makes the 40+ minutes I spent waiting on the snails to to do something worth the time investment. And I do LOVE this ring/photos too!

You can see the other photos from this session in my flickr album.

This was my exact idea from the beginning of the project (vs the 1 slug from yesterday.)
My ideal would have been 5 snails all crawling in the same direction around one of my fingers, with very little space between them. But...um...snails don't really listen to your directions. They do what they want, when they want, and if they don't want to play they just refuse to come out of their shells!
I think I was very lucky to find 3 tolerant and brave snails for these pics, there were 4 more that just wouldn't cooperate :-)

You can see more pictures from this photo shoot in my flickr album.

I have wanted to 'make' this ring since the start of the RAD project.  This morning I happened to see a slug while outside with Bailey...So a little camera shoot later, it's 8:30am and I've already finished today's ring!  Woot :-) 

There are a few more photos of Mr Slug in my flickr album.