Day 6, almost forgot...

Whoa, got so engrossed in working on a piece I almost forgot to post!  Thought I would have more to reveal for you today, but some are still in progress and won't make it in time for this day.  Will work on them tomorrow.  I'm really excited about one of the pieces so stay tuned.

Hope you all weathered the storms today well.  They are reporting that not far from here in Elmira they had a tornado touchdown.  We got through with just some much needed rain everywhere we went today.  After dancing between the raindrops all day, here is what I finished.  For those of you suffering the drought, I hope you get some rain too.

This was in the tumbler still for several hours today, it's a fold formed cuff.  The next pic shows it on my arm, but looks a little odd.  It's awkardly difficult to take a picture of your own arm, lol.

A big cuff like this makes me feel a little like Wonder Woman or maybe Isis (remember her?). 

Remember the brass pieces I was having difficulty with enamel pinging off?  Well I finished it up, still missing a bit of enamel, but I'm liking it that way.  I don't think it will continue to chip as it tumbler for a long time in steel shot with no further damage.  Will report back if it does though, will be wear testing it this weekend.  It reminds me of something ancient, perhaps from Egypt? 

I also like how the copper is coming up from the brass.  

Hand forged everything on this one myself from the links down to the clasp.  Sorry this is blurry, couldn't fix it even in fotoflexer.  This happens when you are cooking dinner and snapping pics at the same time.

Oh, and here was the second experiment with alcohol inks under clear enamel.  I tinted the copper with cranberry in first then added dots of purple, which ened up as these white splotches.  Not how I had hoped it would turn out but interesting none the less.

See ya tomorrow.  Happy Friday!

Day 5, posting late again

Today was an assembly and production day.  I only have pics of one finished piece so far because as I am writing this one piece is pickling and another is in the tumbler, so those will reveal tomorrow.  Hopefully they will have friends with them.

Here is the piece that is fully completed.  You may remember the components from Day 2.

The necklace ended up just a little longer than chocker length.  You may also recognize the double headpins from a previous post.

Made a quick and easy toggle clasp from another double ended headpin.  This one I left unenameled.  Tip of the Day:  When choosing jumpring to make your chains be sure to buy or make those that have been sawcut. Notice that these don't close quite as tightly as they should because the cuts are not as clean as they should be.

Ooops, my chip is showing!  A couple of the headpins still have chips but they are smooth after being in the tumbler, so I left them as is.

I just forgot to get pics of the todays alcohol ink experiment.  Still not working as I had hoped, but it was kind of an interesting effect.  I will try to remember it for you tomorrow, which will also probably be a late posting unless I get to it between daughter's appts tomorrow.

Day 4, the adventures continue

Here we are at day four already, where do these summer days go?  Sorry I didn't post sooner, my kids called me from upstairs.  Yes, on the phone and no my house isn't that big.  They were both hiding in their bedrooms from "something freaky flying around in the hallway, HURRY!".  It was a bat, and it took me about a half hour to get the poor confused thing to fly out an open window.  All are safe now, the kids and the bat.  Hey, one bat in 17 years living in an 1880's farmhouse isn't bad.  For those who are squeamish about bats, no fear I didn't take any pics of it to paste.

Today I worked on more stamping with enamels.  I hammered old pennies, punched the middles out and hammered some more.  I love whacking all that metal almost as much as playing with the torch.  Next I laid down base coats of enamels, stamped, sifted and fired up again.  Kind of an assembly line process but still a bunch of fun.

Here are all 11 of the discs I did today. Maybe washers would be a more appropriate term?  I really like the way the came out and can't wait to reveal them in a necklace later in the week.  I wish the picture showed the stamping better.

These are some of my faves in the batch.  i wish you could see the colors better in the pic, the one on the right is actually robins egg over elk brown but is reading sort of white in the picture.

While I was having all this fun I decided to multitask.  I had some double headpins I did awhile ago that needed to be cleaned up.  So they hit the pickle for a bit, and then I tossed them in the tumbler with steel shot.  This was an experiment too, I wasn't sure how the enamel would hold up to tumbling.  The result...

They held up great!  The tumbler did it's job and brought the shine back to the copper wire.  The chipping that you see occurred pretumble, some actually happened in the pickle but I suspect they were already cracked.  The chipped ones can be refired just add a little more enamel to fix.  I don't always tumble, when I'm in a hurry to move on with a project like the discs I just brass brush after pickling.  Tip of the day:  When enameling headpins I fire directly on the first couple layers of enamel, then I fire further up the wire on subsequent layers.  Firing on the wire rather than directly on the enamel the colors stay more vibrant and true.

The next experiment started today but will continue tomorrow.  I LOVE the look of alcohol inks on copper.  The debate is how to use them and then seal them so that they never transfer to the wearer's skin.  So I tried it under transparent clear enamel.

Results as you can see were not exactly stellar.  This is why the experiment will continue tomorrow and report back.  I think I know where part of this went awry so hopefully I can make it work like I want it to.

So what are you working on this week?  Any new techniques you haven't tried before? 

Day 3, the experimenting continues

So here we are on day 3 of experimenting in the studios.  Not too much got done today, due to a headache that struck this afternoon.  Not sure how I irritated my neck to cause that, haven't had one of those in awhile and really hadn't missed them at all.  But fear not, there are lots of ideas floating around in my head and hopefully I will get tons done tomorrow.

Started with some wire work that I enameled.  I saw some lovely enameled wire flowers by Jennifer LaVite on the Painting with Fire ning.  If you are interested in torch fired enamel I encourage you to join this fun, supportive group of inspiring ladies.  Jennifer's flowers reminded me of little wire angels I had made in the past after seeing them on an episode of Carol Duval.  So, I made up a quick little angle out of 19g dark annealed steel wire and enameled with torch firing.  I used cobalt and foundation white, then added a cat's eye bead for her head.

Thankfully she is made to hang as a pendant and not stand, she stands a tad crooked.

Then another stamping and enameled piece.  This one is cut from 24g copper, and hammered so it's domed slightly.  Enameled with a few coats of clear, stamped with Stazon, sifted with victoria red and refired.

This one still needs a bail soldered on it since I didn't want a hole in my heart.  I like that the stamping isn't quite perfect, feels more organic to me.  Tip of the day: After stamping and sifting allow to dry a bit, tap off and use a small dry paint brush to remove any excess enamel grains.  This prevents shadow color that you may not want.

The pieces that follow are experiments from last week:

Sometimes you have to share the uglies too.  These are brass pieces for a bracelet.  Notice the missing chips of enamel on 2 out of 3?  The enamel keeps pinging off these spots.  This may be because i need to counter enamel on the back, I thought I could get away without it since they are domed but perhaps not.  However, I am determined to make it work because I really like the granite effect I got by mixing black and foundation white.  So those 2 chippy pieces plus 2 more of the links will be refired tomorrow, think happy enamel sticking thoughts for me on this one :).

This little dragonfly I did either last week or the week before.  I neither love nor hate him.  I'm undecided as to what it is I don't love about him.  Any critiques or ideas why I don't love him?

Hopefully tomorrows pics will be crowded with several pieces per pic.  See ya then!

Day 2 experimenting in the studios...

I was shocked to see I got a mention on Barbara Lewis' Blog today!  What a huge honor.  She has set up a facebook page to post your pics of  Happy Accidents in your creative pursuits.  Lots of great stuff being shared over there already!

Soooo, on to day two in my studios.  Today I did some enameling of tubes to make beads and also a bit of soldering.  Both came out okay and both will be part of a necklace I hope to get together later this evening.

This is the soldered piece.  I shaped the copper disc, enameled with cobalt and pine yellow.  The bale piece is a piece of 10g copper wire, hammered and shaped.  I left the center of the back of the flower unenameled so it could be soldered on the bale.  Tip of the day:  Don't over heat your solder or it will burn out and not hold your pieces together (if you do though, no worries, just brass brush both sides and try again).  It took me 4 attempts to get it soldered correctly :).

Then there were the tube beads, made from bent and cut pieces of 1/8 inch diameter copper tube.  Once the smaller pieces were enameled you can't see the bend so much.  The one marked FAVE was actually the first one, done with transparent enamel.  Loved how the copper and oxides showed through which I tried to replicate  more times with mixed results.  You can see one of them has a large "bubble" which is actually more of a blob.  The Tip: make sure to keep turning your bead or the molten glass will slump on you.

The two blue beads were meant to be willow green, however the willow didn't seem to like having to be fired so long and kept going muddy (could also be because I use propane and not MAPP).  So I just recovered in cobalt.  The Tip:  If you underfire your enamel it will look bumpy like the one marked in the photo.  I should b able to fix that by refiiring.  Also note that you can see more of the curve of the tube because I didn't add nearly as many layers of enamel.

All of the tubes were made using a variation of Barbara Lewis' immersion method.  It definitely worked!  The Tip: when using curved beads your mandrel may not go through both holes, have another one handy to remove molten glass from the open hole or you will end up with a really tiny vessel instead of a bead!

I didn't get a chance to work more with the stamps today.  Hope to do that tomorrow.

Hope to see you back for Day 3 :).



Coming Soon...a week of experimentation in the studio

Just read Barbara Lewis' blog post and thought "Yes, I will".  I will do more experimenting in my "studios" (not as prestigious as it may sound since in reality it's a corner of our kitchen and a corner of our living room) this week.  I had already picked up some supplies today to do just that.  I got to go shopping at Joann Fabrics alone today, so much nicer than dragging kids who don't really want to be there. So here is the first piece in the experiment.

Thank you again to all the ladies on the Painting With Fire ning who continue to support and inspire my enameling efforts.  This piece is done with rubber stamps, Stazon ink and enamels in willow green and elk brown.  Tip of the day: purposely placing words and on angle ensures that they never look unintentionally crooked.

Still to come later in the week, more stamping, alcohol inks, foldfoming and whatever else comes along.

Be sure to check out Barbara's blog post from today, the link is above.  The pictures alone are worth the click and sure to make you chuckle :).

Giveaway at Kristi Bowman Designs

Hey all,  Krist Bowman is having a giveaway.  Enter today, winner drawn tomorrow, lots of ways to get an entry!  Click on Kristi's name above to go right to her site...

She makes some really awesome copper components, full of texture.  So be sure to check her out on Etsy too.