Studio Thursday

Does This Float Your Boat?

I get excited just looking at this picture. Seriously.

The right tool for the right job. Wow. What a difference a good tool can make. When I first tried carving wax, I made the mistake of using the crappy, awkward, clumsy things that pass for wax carving tools in the jewelry supply catalogs. What a waste of time and $$$. It's like they were made for hacking at a large block of wood or something. You know those plastic tools that they make for children? That is what the general quality/usefulness of "wax carving" jewelry tools are compared to dental tools. Oh, shiny, pokey, beautiful dental tools! I can't get enough of you. There are so many shapes! Almost all of them fantastic!

Dental tools. I love you.

Here are a couple of tips for making jewelry, but that I also think apply to life in general:

1) Use the largest tool possible for the job.

2) Do things in order (i.e. don't skips steps. You will just have to start all over again.)

3) Things take time. Small steps lead to progress. Almost nothing can be made/done in one swoop.

Ok, that is all I had to say. Have a great Friday everyone!

Man Hands

(I especially like the stunned look on my face!)

I think I might need to find someone else to model my rings. I have giant hands. Way out of proportion to the rest of my body, and I think someone with more regular lady hands might be able to provide scale for the rings better than me. Really, look at my hands in comparison with my face. I wish I could take a picture of my hand next to a regular sized woman hand. I'm not being weird here, my hands really are large. (I love my hands and I'm not imagining things.)

And now that I'm 30, how long will my hands look good? I mean really, I work with them all day long and they are bound to start looking like older lady hands at some point (some point soon?).

Well, that was all I had to say. I was photographing a set of rings this morning and the largeness of my hands struck me (not for the first time. I would say my hands have been larger than at least 96% of all my past boyfriends hands, truly).

Sneak Peek

There are 4 waxes of new designs, ready to be cast. Here is quick look at two:

I'm visualizing the bottom band as a stacking wedding ring, with 3 or 4 stacked together. I'm going to do it in pure palladium, and set it with diamonds. But I can see many different combinations. The top band I think would look great stacked with another like it, or alone. I'm super excited for them to be finished!

If anyone was wondering

how this turned out in the end:

here it is:

I like it. Especially the big fat rim around the stone. I really tried to make that more even and symmetrical than my other pebble rings, although I like those as well. The more organic natural look is just different from this. I think I will be exaggerating that in the future and making the pebble rings more oval, rather than round, and have this one be a separate design.

Still haven't had a chance to blog about the rose cut diamonds. I was pleased with them, but they have more inclusions that I was expecting. I don't mind inclusions, especially in a natural stone, but a couple had inclusions that came all the way to the surface. I think they are gorgeous, but I'm not sure if everyone would agree. But maybe the person who is looking for a natural rose cut stone is the type who would appreciate the uniqueness that inclusions give. We'll see. Still haven't decided which to use first! I think I might wait until I have the ring in my hand and see which looks good against the metal. :-)

Ahhh...Almost (re-)Organized

The new place is great! I love it. It is larger and just better suited to my work style. I really like having everything in one room. It's super bright too! And there is a fancy loft thing that is a great spot for piling all the junk you don't know what to do with. Out of sight, out of mind.
This is how I've tentatively set things up. I think it needs a little tweaking. And the pugs were very annoyed at being in a new place at first, but I think with a judicious amount of bribing with meaty bones they will come to terms.

On another depressing topic....
Since half of my last castings in the palladium white gold I use turned out like this (the other 2 turned out freaking perfect!):

(ooooh....bummer!)

New waxes!
Wax carving is becoming much easier, so I'm glad. I just casting to become easier too!

Ok, that is all for now. I did get the rose cut diamonds today, but I am too tired from the move/organizing to blog about it today. I think I'll post about them this week. :-) Thanks for all the comments!