Show Your Studio!

I'm not a member of the Aspiring Metalsmith Group but I enjoy reading their blog and looking through their members' flickr photo albums. They recently decided to do a round of blogs entries where members posted photos of their studios. I love seeing how others set up their studios. If you'd like to show me your studio I'd be happy to visit your blog and say hi. Post your blog links in the comments section of this entry =)

Credit: I stole the tree photo in the black frame on my table from my friend Patricia's facebook photo album (hehe)

Ronnie is the jewelry designer at RadianTrace Jewelry. She's also the graphic artist at Mable's Makings, and the author of Ronnie Unplugged.

Metalsmithing 101 - Class Six

My second project was a Spinner Ring. Sparkly isn't it. Spinners should come with a warning! I'm addicted to spinning the inner rings! I actually completed this ring at home during the week before class. For the sixth class I began my Mom's Charoite & Amethyst pendant. I got as far as soldering both the large oval and the small round bezel settings onto the backing sheet for the two stones.

I'm a bit stumped as to how I will proceed. The oval shifted when the flux was heating. The flux is a thick gooey paste that tends go on in globs and then it bubbles up when heating and moves small pieces so this has happened to me twice now (on both projects). When I work solo in my studio I'm going to water down my flux more to try and gain control over this problem.

Anyhow, it is what it is. Now I have an oval bezel that isn't properly aligned with the round bezel sitting above it. I might try to make the piece look more organic by cutting notches and curves along the backing sheet in hopes that the oval might not appear so crooked.

I'll take a photo tomorrow and show you what I mean. I plan on working on it this week and then soldering the bail in class next Tuesday then moving onto my ammolite pendant.

Ronnie is the jewelry designer at RadianTrace Jewelry. She's also the graphic artist at Mable's Makings, and the author of Ronnie Unplugged.

Metalsmithing 101 - Class Four & Five

Ta Da! My first project is complete! The stone is Biggs Jasper, and considering it's the very first piece of silversmithed jewelry I've ever made I'm pleased with how it turned out.



In class 5 I made a chunky spinner ring with 3 textured spinners on a wide 18g hammer textured band. I'll wait until after I tumble it before posting photos. I'm amazed at how shiny sterling silver gets after tumbling. As pretty as shiny silver is, I plan on doing some oxidized pieces as well. On Tuesday (class 6) I begin my Mom's Charoite & Amethyst pendant. Hopefully that will progress quickly enough for me to be able to complete my more complicated ammolite pendant before the 8th and final class.

Aside from having my nose buried in my sketch book dreaming about all the silversmithed designs I'll be making in the future I've been busy making my usual style pieces for the remaining 6 Christmas Craft shows I'm doing this year. I'm tickled pink about my new necklace puppets. The color and texture of the fabric works perfectly with the black satin ribbons and the black semi-gloss bases. My table display color theme is black and brown with wood and black wrought iron. I'm aiming at having a bit of a rustic yet elegant presentation. I think it's working because I get a lot of compliments on not only my table setup, but also on my website. Here's a photo of the most recent show I did. Sorry for all the background distractions. Everyone was supposed to have skirted tables, but many vendors didn't honor that request.



These little bracelet project kits are going over well =)



Here's my little Christmas tree with snowball drop earrings as decorations. You can also see my gift wrap samples.



I have a few wood picture frames I'm using to display earrings



That's it for now. I'm sorry about the irregular entries. I tend to get wrapped up in what I'm doing offline and I don't realize how much time has passed in between blog posts.

Many Blessings to you and yours . . . Ronnie


Ronnie is the jewelry designer at RadianTrace Jewelry. She's also the graphic artist at Mable's Makings, and the author of Ronnie Unplugged.

Metalsmithing 101 - Class Three

During the third class we selected bezel wire for our stone, then soldered the bezel, then soldered the bezel wire onto sterling silver sheet. I'm doing a frame around my stone. Some students chose smaller stones so they're setting their stones right onto the ring shanks. They selected thicker bezel wire that they can file in a half moon shape to go around their ring bands. I've been watching what they're doing so when I make a ring like that I won't be totally unaware of how to do it.



My intent was to leave enough space around the triangular bezel so that I could add some little balls. BUT, when the torch flame hit my pieces it moved the bezel wire up the sheet. You'll notice how little sheet there is at the smallest end of the triangle. Oh well. Maybe I can add another larger triangle underneath and have a 'stepped' effect with enough room to add little balls.



I also paid off some of my tab and bought some extra bezel wire, some sterling silver sheet, and a small oval charoite cab. I was originally going to use the charoite for my Mom's pendant, but I decided it was too small for that so next class I'm buying a bigger oval charoite cab, and a small amethyst round cab to use in the design for my Mom's pendant. The two cabs will be set on a larger soft rectangular sheet backing with two silver balls on either side of the amethyst. I'm doing a wire swirl bail. The bail will have an extra curly tail on the back of the pendant. I think it will be really pretty.

Ronnie is the jewelry designer at RadianTrace Jewelry. She's also the graphic artist at Mable's Makings, and the author of Ronnie Unplugged.

I Enjoy Thinking

In fact, I enjoy thinking so much that occasionally I have to remind myself that actualizing thoughts and dreams into reality requires some leg work. As in, it's nice to dream and sketch layouts for my studio, but I am going to have to get off my butt at some point and actually move some boxes and sort through everything before I can make any changes. So yeah, that's what I told myself last night while sitting on the porch last night sipping decaf looking at the sky and dreaming about how my studio is going to look by the end of this month.

Ronnie is the jewelry designer at RadianTrace Jewelry. She's also the graphic artist at Mable's Makings, and the author of Ronnie Unplugged.