A new, improved "unabashed" 33 pendant!

To quote one of my least favorite pop tarts... …“oops, I did it again!”

Another “unabashed” #33 Clint Bowyer pendant. Copper, brass and sterling rivets. All cold connection. Made the numbers a little neater, different texture and treatment to the copper. I left it all unantiqued to let it develop a patina on its own. Of course the wearer could keep it looking as fresh as a newly minted penny by giving it a periodic cleansing in ketchup to keep the tarnish off. :)

 Slightly different treatment on the copper. The numbers were derived from an actual typeface rather than a rough sketch like my original “unabashed” pendant. Still it conveys the spirit of the piece, and the wearer would get a lot of attention from it.

This is the backside view of the piece showing how the rivets look. They shine up kinda pretty, like a constellation. Its the Clint Bowyer constellation, baby! Oh yeah! Rising star!!

Year Of Jewelry Challenge: Week 2

Ok, a little late on posting the Week 2 entry, but that's only because I didn't get it done until well after the Week 2 deadline. The suggested theme for Week 2 was “lunar eclipse” but I will call this one “oh for Peace sakes, my need to get other deadlines finishes completely eclipsed my ability in meeting the week 2 YOJ dealine on time”.  I am working on a baseball related book as a contract job, and its “eclipsing” just about everything else right now.

However, enough whining about that. Here is the peace, er, piece:

I got the idea for the execution of this from Tangocat Gems’ “Filigree Cross” tutorial. Thought it would be fun to do a peace symbol using the same twisting & twining that she illustrated in that tutorial. Copper wire.

Year Of Jewelry Challenge: Week 1

About a year or so ago I started running across blog postings by various jewelry artists I really respect, and noticed they would post "Year of Jewelry" entries. Last month I was lucky enough to find out from Nancy Wickman of Wickwire Jewelry that there was another one starting up for 2011!

The Year of Jewelry Challenge is to create and post a new piece of jewelry every week. My personal challenge is to stick with this and to learn a lot more about the creation of jewelry and its various techniques.

The theme for Week 1 is “New Beginnings”, and decided what I've been playing with in the lessons from Jodi Bombardier's new book "Weave, Wrap, Coil" would be appropriate. The ring is the first woven wire ring I have ever made (and the jury is still out to whether I enjoyed it or not) and the other piece is part of one of the necklace projects. While I'm pleased with the weaving on this piece (and it was a challenge to weave to a narrower point!) the symmetry is off on the frame. So, this will likely become the dangle on a forged copper bookmark or something.

Hammered Hearts

A recent design. Hearts formed and hammered out of thick gauge copper wire, then some coiled and woven embellishments added. I made 7 in all in this "series", including the prototype.

Above: The "prototype".

 

Above: #4 of 7.

Above: #6 of 7. My favorite of the series. "Unfortunately" I ended up squishing the coil on the side, so didn't feel like I could justify selling it. Oh, darn. I had to keep it. 

Some "Tree of Life" Pendants from last year

I became quite fascinated with Connie Tescar's "Tree of Life" pendant tutorial from jewelrylessons.com. Ended up making a number of them.

The first 5. All in copper. Some more in copper:

And a few in silver:

 

I have a couple more pieces in the works with different frames. Moving on to my own interpretation of this wonderful Tree.