Fathers Day Gift Ideas

Mothers Day is coming up next weekend, but remember that Fathers Day is just around the corner too! Order now to make sure you get what you want in time! All items can be customized just for you, just shoot me an email if you want to customize a piece you see here.

This first piece is a custom, hand cut sterling silver dog tag. It is made from 18 gauge sterling silver, which is thick enough to stamp on both sides. It has been oxidized and given a matte brushed finish. It hangs from a 20" oxidized sterling silver bead chain. Perfect for your man! Click on my Etsy shop to purchase......

The next piece is a hand stamped keychain. This keychain can be one large sterling silver stamped disc, two medium discs or three small discs. The disc is attached with a soldered sterling silver jump ring. The key ring is solid sterling silver as well. This gift will last forever, and is sure to make dad or grandpa happy! To purchase please visit my Etsy shop.

Such A Pretty Stone!

I bought this turquoise stone awhile ago. I fell in love with it! Okay, I love all my stones, but this piece is extremely beautiful on its own. I was afraid I wouldn't do it justice.

I LOVE the way it turned out! I hand set it in a fine silver bezel with sterling silver back, added handmade sterling silver balls, leaves and a rose. I then soldered the toggle circle to the pendant and finished the chain.  Turquoise is supposed to be the new "in" color for spring and summer! I think the piece has a modern twist with a romantic feel. What do you think?  To purchase see my shop at www.etsy.com/shop/ThirteenGems

For All My Stone Friends.....my little collection

I caught the stone buying bug a few months ago. In the beginning, I bought a stone at a time and then immediately made something with it. That was good for the budget. But then the bug got worse and I started falling in love with stones, and if you love stones, you know once you love a stone, it has to be yours!

Now I have seen many stone collections and know that mine is teeny tiny! You should see some of the metalsmiths collections! They have so many stones it makes me dizzy!

Here is a picture of my little teeny tiny collection-hey you have to start somewhere right?

They are: agate, turquoise, ocean jasper with druzy, amethyst sage, lapis lazul, agate with druzy, onyx, sonoran sunrise (which I set and then hated-so not sure what I am going to do with it.), chalcedony, some type of jasper (I think), not sure, and fordite.

My favorites are:

This Ocean Jasper. It has a great druzy on the top and another pocket on the left bottom corner.

I think I am going to prong set this, just not sure how yet.

This Amethyst Sage. It has the prettiest purples, creams and browns in it, with dendrites

throughout. I want to make sure to set it so light can get to it....hmmm maybe

a good time to try an open back setting.

Lastly, 

This Agate, that also has a beautiful druzy in the middle.

I love these, the crystals shine so pretty in the sunlight.

Spinner Ring

I made this ring for my sister for her birthday this year. I decided that I would take pictures of the process as I made the ring. This is the first time I have ever taken pictures of my process, so I think I may have skipped some steps and am not sure that it will be all that clear...here is the final ring....

I started with a single sheet of sterling silver. I cut my measured portion and then I stamped inside a saying that I thought fit the relationship between my big sis and I. "I'm smiling because you're my sister. I'm laughing because there's nothing you can do about it." I then formed the sheet into a circle on my ring mandrel. Made sure the seam of the ring was even and soldered.

Once I had the seam soldered, I had to pickle it. Pickling is a way to remove firescale (the yucky

mess you see above in the last picture). It is an acid bath you stick your sterling into and it takes 

the gross firescale off. After that, I hammered the edges into a flare, then bent them back onto themselves

(like rolling a shirt cuff) and hammered them down. I then hammered the ring to give it texture.

Next I added three spinning rings. Two of plain sterling bands and one of a twisted sterling wire. I soldered the rings around the band (so they move freely) and put the ring back into the pickle. See how

clean the pickle makes it?

The ring then gets filed and sanded to make sure there are no rough edges and to remove dirt and debri from it. After sanding and filing, it goes into a liver of sulfer bath to give it a dark patina (to turn it black).

Once out of the LOS, it gets a little shine and I remove the patina that I don't want on the ring with some steel wool. When its ready, I put it in the tumbler and tumble for a couple of hours. The tumbler shines and hardens the silver so it is less likely to bend or break.

Once out of the tumbler, the ring is shiny and ready to go! 

I took pictures, packed it up and shipped it off! Hope you love it sis!

My workspace

My workspace is just in my dining room and garage for now. I am on the lookout for the perfect work bench. Problem is that I know exactly what I want.....and can't find it. For now I am fine working half in the house and half in the garage. Keeps me closer to the family when I am working. Although it creates a nasty mess in the dining room :)

Neglected

So I realized that I have seriously neglected this blog. Once I had my website established, I didn't think I needed the blog. But now I think it would be great to show the process behind a lot of my work...so upcoming posts are.....my sad little workspace...pictures of items in process, not just the finished product.

Sometimes customers have no idea how much work goes into a piece.....I hope to be able to show you some of the behind the scenes images.

Workshop with Khobe from studiometalwork

I had the amazing opportunity to go to Long Beach this weekend and take a wonderful class on tension setting rings. It was much harder than I thought it would be. Quite an amount of attention needed when dealing with the tiny details.

Khobes studio is amazing, probably what we all dream of!
Here are the rings that we made. They are pretty cool!