Jewelery class #2

Today was the second week of jewelry class. Our actual instructor was not there, so one of the other teachers covered for her. I actually preferred this instructor to ours, as she seemed less distracted and it was easier to get an answer to any questions we might have. We did sit around a lot and wait while she was helping another student work on something else, so that was a bit of wasted time. But overall, it was a lot more interesting than last week. And one of the gals that I got on well with last week in the Tuesday class came to our Wednesday class this week because she couldn't make it to her session. Hopefully she'll continue to come to the Wednesday session because Jenny will be gone for a few weeks and that will leave me as the only beginner for those classes.

This is my piece of Nu Gold after being textured. I love it!
Its actually more gold than it looks but it picked up some pinkish stuff
from being in the pickling acid with the copper.

After a demonstration on how to use the jeweler's saw, we were turned loose on our metal samples. The metal seems thin, but its surprisingly difficult to saw. At least I don't have to fear taking off a hand, unlike my previous metal working days at ye old Worthington Industries. But, before we were ready to cut out our actual bracelet pieces we had some other steps to do. In order to make it workable, it had to be annealed.

That's right, they let us handle a gas blowtorch thingie (very technical term there) to heat the metal until it was red hot, then drop it in a crock pot of acid. Very exciting. After that, Jenny and I took steel texturing hammers to our pieces. She was working with copper, I had Nu Gold. (An brass alloy of copper and zinc I believe) I am quite pleased with how the texture turned out, though it was a long and rather noisy process to get there.

Jenny hammers her copper to give it some sweet texture

Next week we will glue our templates to the metal and cut out the links. And you can disregard the jewelry homework in the last post. My indecisiveness led to a last minute change of plans, so my links will now be tall rectangles of alternating copper and Nu Gold. Hopefully it doesn't look like poo when its all said and done.

Things I love...

...made by other people.

1. LaurenAlane's birds, especially the cake toppers. You can check her out at www.laurenalane.com



photo from laurenalane.blogspot.com

2. Origami bouquets. I still love my flowers but these are a close second. She has some tea stained ones that are pretty awesome too. Its probably good I didn't find these until it was too late to change my mind or I'd still be waffling back and forth. you can see more of her flowers at www.arguingthemobius.etsy.com




Another gorgeous origami bouquet, this one was made by a fellow craftster for her own wedding.



3. Anything made by Howlindoggie of etsy, especially this necklace. It was hard to pick just one of her pieces to share. I don't think I'll manage anything like this at our jewelry class...



More of her designs can be seen at www.howlindoggie.etsy.com


I've been cruising etsy for inspiration for our jewelry class but its kind of hard to know what to look for since I'm not sure exactly what we will be doing. I do have a few ideas, but seeing what some people can make is intimidating!