Designing around the cabochons

While my work is taking up just about all of my time, I've been using the spare half hour here and there to work on making components for earrings and pendants.  My favorite part of the design process is this step (picture below) where I lay out all the components and try to decide which cabochon to set where.  It's like candy, except, of course, you should not eat your jewelry.

The Cabochons are Here, pt. 2

The rest of the cabochons showed up and they're mostly red and blue so I took a sort of purply patriotic photo of them for you.  I've got amethyst, garnet, swiss blue topaz and turquoise.  Yeah, I'll be at my jewelry bench.  Or at least dreaming of it.

The Cabochons Are Here!!

Okay, so only one of the two orders has arrived so far, but here are some of the pretty cabochons that came my way.  I'm really loving the peridot and the peach moonstone.  There's also some onyx, black star diopside, nephrite jade, moonstone, blue lace agate. lab created ruby and lab created sapphire in this picture.  Oh, the things I want to make.

Handcrafted Earwires

The FTC has a SUPER strict definition of handmade for metal jewelry and in order to call my pieces handmade, I have to handcraft every single component.  So, I've started making my own earwires.  I start by using a torch to ball up the end of some wire.  This is sterling silver wire, so you can see the balls are not completely smooth:  they pit a little.

At BeadFest I learned that when I do this with Argentium wire, it's best not to quench in water, but just to let the wire cool on its own.  Then I cut the wire off 2 inches from the end and use tools to shape the wire.  Here are my hands, desperately in need of lotion, working the wire into the shape I want it.

 

Well, those look lovely, except there's nothing to stop those earwires from slipping out of your ears!  The last step is to put a bend at the bottom of the earwire, like this:

Then, of course, I polish and burnish and tumble these earwires until they're hard and shiny.  Ooooh, shiiiiiiny.  You can see the handcrafted earwires on my newest earrings, like the copper oak leaf earrings here:

Applied Sweat Soldering or, Look at the Pretty Colors!

I've been taking the lessons I learned and BeadFest and slowly applying them to my jewelry.  Someday I'll get up the blog posts about how I'm handmaking my own earwires and experimenting with the rolling mill.  No, really I will.  *whistles innocently*

In the meantime, I finally got to play with sweat soldering and setting cabochons in a bezel cup.  And here are the first three pairs of earrings (with handmade earwires!) that I made:

Lab-created sapphire and sterling silver earrings

Blue lace agate and sterling silver earrings

Lab-created ruby and sterling silver earrings

ICAP: The final, FINAL chapter

I've been traveling for a bit, but when I got home I had the nicest surprise in my mailbox.  After the ICAP show was over, I decided to send the jewelry to the poet who inspired the pieces.  And in return, she sent me her book!

I'm delighted that she even signed it for me!  Thanks, Sarah!

My last night on Etsy?

I've just had my best month ever on Etsy:  8 sales.  And if you are one of the eight amazing people who purchased a piece of jewelry, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Etsy started off as a handmade marketplace.  Yes, they also allow supplies and vintage, but Etsy's niche has been handmade.  And it's a great place for small, independent artisans and crafters to start selling online.  Over the years, I've learned so much from Etsy and other Etsy sellers about how to advertise, search engine optimization, photography and the art of online selling.

To show you how far I've come, here are the first and one of the last things I ever listed on Etsy:

Green Twisted Crystal Necklace c. 2009

Violet Swirls Earrings, c. 2012

This is why the recent set of events surrounding one Featured Seller has broken my heart.  If you're not familiar with the controversy, you can get caught up here:

http://www.regretsy.com/2012/04/24/update-ecologica-malibu/

There's more to the story, of course.  But I am extremely disappointed by Etsy's response to this controversy.  In this era of big box stores and cheap goods imported from places like China and the maquiladoras on the US Texas border, I want to support handmade.  I want to support independent artisans who honestly struggle to bring beautiful, functional, funny, amazing creations into this world.  And that is why I'm joining the protests on Etsy planned for May 1 and May 10.  I'll be taking all the items out of my shop on those days, and putting up a banner in support of independent artisans.

What remains to be seen is whether anyone who participates in the protests will be allowed to sell on Etsy again.  One seller (Nicole Hanna Jewelry) has already reported on her blog that Etsy closed her shop after she posted a statement about her support for handmade.  Other sellers on the Etsy forums are anonymously reporting that their shops have been closed without explanation.  So tonight may be the last night that I have an Etsy shop.  It feels bittersweet.