New Steampunk Continued

Well the box finally arrived from Virginia.  The box with all the new steampunk style jewelry my younger daughter has been working on for a month or two.  Unlike my designs, hers have some color.  She used heat treated copper in a few to give them a warm glow.



She sent a few that include industrial hardware and watch parts on very feminine filligree findings.






She's experimented with something she calls ice resin.  She captures small watch parts and hardware or even a stamp in this clear resin that's set into a bezel cup or old watch frame.










She also sent some bracelets and several pair of earrings.
These watch faces I particularly like.

So Jansjems is now pretty well set for 2012, at least until summer.  We have a lot of new pieces in both silver and steampunk.  Out  first craft fair is this Saturday, Feb 11, at Eastworks in Easthampton.   Hope to see some of you there.

Not Neglecting the Steampunk

I've been waiting for some new steampunk designs from my youngest daughter.  She's the one in Virginia.  She sent a few pictures of her pieces but I haven't gotten the package yet.  I'm not sure if this is a pendant or a brooch but it's really beautiful.








I'm not quite finished with the silver but I've managed to create a few new items while I wait for the clay to dry or fire.  My steampunk often have a little bling on them.  I can't resist a gemstone or 2 for color.







Of course with Valentine's Day coming soon, I had to create at least one appropriate piece of jewelry.



One of my favorites is this larger piece with lots of character.

Watch the Etsy shop for new pieces going up slowly as I find time to photograph them.

New Inventory for 2012

The clay is all gone :(  It certainly didn't take long.  It's all jewelry now.  And you can tell me what you think.

I have to say that except for a couple of classes with a certified metal clay artist, I've been learning the hard way.  Fortunately I've only had a couple of projects that were a total loss but still...  I've been reading a lot and watching YouTube videos (what did we do before YouTube?).  As a result my new collection includes bezel set stones and some pretty fancy colors.

I started off with a few simple things.  For craft shows I need to have a wide range of styles and prices.  Simple pendants and earrings sell well so make sure to have a  few.  This one has a square cut peridot in the center that can be set right into wet clay and then fired.  Some stones can actually stand the super high temperature of 1650 degrees that silver clay can tolerate.  But peridot can only be fired at 1430 degrees for 30 minutes.



At the high end, I've created 4 pendants with bezel set stones.  These have stones that can't handle heat at all.  You need to create the piece and the bezel separately.  Then attach the 2 pieces together and fire again at1650 degrees for an hour or two.  Once it's all done, you can set the stone in the bezel.  This one below is my favorite.  The stone is aqua chalcedony and I've added a few pearls.

Oxidizing silver is pretty much hit or miss.  I've collected a few formulas used by other artisans and they have helped.  But a lot depends on the clay.  Fresh clay oxidizes better than reconstituted clay.  It also depends on the temperature of the sulfur solution.  I've used straight liver of sulfur and tried adding ammonia.  You can imagine how bad the work room smells.  And I've never had the same results twice.

Something really interesting happened with a pendant I made in the steampunk style. The key and lock were created at different times from different wads of clay.  I attached them and dipped the entire pendant into one of my new formulas hoping for a little color and this was the result.  If I had actually wanted the key to be a completely different color from the lock I could never have figured out how to make it happen.


 Then there's this bracelet.  I really only wanted it to be lightly oxidized to bring out the pattern in the links.  I didn't want any color so I just used a watered down liver of sulfur solution. This blue and gold combination was another surprise!

It takes time and practice to be able to handle silver clay well.  There are classes and there's a whole certification process with a series of projects to help artists get proficient and learn to do things like set stones, make hinges, create lockets and boxes.  It costs a lot of money and takes a bit of time so I'm not sure I'm ready yet.  I was getting a 35% discount from my supplier.  But now that the manufacturer of the clay is making it mandatory to be certified in order to receive that 35% discount, so I may be compelled to get the certification.

Happy New Year

It's finally 2012 and I hope that my year from Hell is finally over.  Splitting my a time between Western Mass. & Southbridge took a toll on my health.  I really couldn't maintain any kind of normalcy here and spent way too much time dealing with social services, paperwork, insurance companies, etc. Am now taking blood pressure meds:(   I got some great help from Elderly Services when a counselor helped me through a 19 page application for VA survivor benefits for Mom.  The application was sent out in early April and I was told I would hear in approximately 90 days.  It's been 9 months, Mom has passed,  & I've gotten 3 letters from them saying they still hadn't made a decision.  I was told that I shouldn't inform them of Mom's death until I get a decision as it would just create confusion and more paperwork.

So far, 2 weeks into 2012, all is well.   Though last year started out pretty decent too.  It didn't take a bad turn until late February.  Well, I have big hopes for this year--and some big plans.

To Recap--
I spent a lot of time with Mom so I did fewer craft shows last year and made less money at the ones I did attend.  Bad economy?  Well I hope that's all it was but we'll see how this years works out.

At the end of the year I was asked to participate in a holiday market in the center of Greenfield--a shop set up just until Christmas.  The Pushkin Gallery turned out to be a great venue as I was asked twice to bring in more stock.  I don't really have time to create new pieces during that time of year but I did the best I could.  Sales there somewhat made up for losses during the rest of the year.  I also have some items at the Daylily here in town and, while not booming, sales are steady.

I did lots of cooking and baking as both Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve was at our house.  We had a houseful at Thanksgiving and my youngest daughter drove up from Virginia.  Christmas was quiet, fewer people, missed Mom, and we ended up at the movies on Christmas day watching the Muppets.

Mom's house is still not on the market and I continue to drive to Southbridge more often than I'd like.  We had the floors refinished, the back porch rebuilt, a new bathtub surround installed, some sheet rock repaired, and work done in the basement.  The people who did that work found some plumbing issues that they said needed to be addressed.  A plumber is scheduled for this coming week.   Still need to get the building inspector in and Hubby and I plan to spend a couple of weekends painting 2 or 3 rooms.  I hope to get it listed by the end of February.

On the Positive Side--
It's now January, I've already applied to 6 shows, and have so far gotten into 3 of them.  Woo Hoo!  It's also the only time of year when I can spend large blocks of quality time creating jewelry. I have some new skills--riveting and soldering.  So I made some new steampunk pieces the first week of January.  And this past week I finally opened up my new shipment of silver clay. Made a few pendants and earrings.  But I'm most proud that I successfully set a triangular cabochon of rainbow silica.  Another woo hoo!!

But the best news is that yesterday I purchased tickets for a flight to Paris.  I said that after I retired I would travel and I will finally start this spring.  My oldest daughter & I have a hotel room in the Latin Quarter close to many of the traditional tourist sights.  But we also have a list of 2nd hand shops where we'll look for couture on the cheap.  We're also planning to go to the largest of the the Paris flea markets--Les Puces--to look for some unique findings that we can use in our steampunk designs.  We go shopping every year to NYC.  Maybe we can add Paris to our yearly itinerary.

Still Learning

While I have taken a couple of classes in the art of making silver clay jewelry, my steampunk designs are truly "trial and error" works of art.  I started creating from vintage found objects as a challenge and the designs have evolved as I learned new things about working with metals.

The components in my steampunk jewelry are held together by wire or epoxy as I don't solder.  My youngest daughter, however, has taken a steampunk course.  Yes, they do exist in some places. And she learned to make rivets.  So over the Thanksgiving holiday I got a quick course in rivet making.

Though it requires a little practice to make nice, round rivets, it's not very difficult.  The hardest thing was finding wire thick enough yet soft enough to hammer into flat heads.  The wire Hubby uses for wrapping his bonsai plants turned out to be perfect.  I think it's aluminum.  Basically, you drill holes where you want the pieces attached.  Find a wire of that thickness. Then create a head on one end by holding a piece of wire sticking up about 3-4mm in a stationary vise and hammer straight down with a ball peen hammer.  Insert the wire through the holes of the connection, cut it to about 2-3mm above the metal and create another head on the other end.  The new steampunk piece above is my first attempt at rivets.  I still have to work on making them nice and smooth and round without so much sanding.  But I'm loving this new technique--well, new to me.

Someone suggested that I create a tutorial as that always makes a great blog post.  But in searching google there are several out there already, like this one.

Also, if you can afford it, there are tools  that drill the holes and place manufactured rivets neatly for you.  Maybe someday.  But right now I'm enjoying the whole manual process.