Pictures of Hands

pebble ring

palladium and moissanite hatshepsut

three stone ring stack

spring evening pink gold solitaire

I love it when people send me a photo of their rings! It's awesome to see what I've made on someone else's hand (instead of my own, which can get pretty boring).  I also have pictures of smiling couples, which is also super awesome.  But hands are more anonymous and most people probably don't want me to give their image to the internets for all eternity.  But I LOVE getting them all the same.

I promised

pug photos, and I have to deliver.

I took this epic series of photos of Dieter a couple of weekends ago at the coast. I love the Oregon coast more than any place on earth (except for the Oregon countryside and Oregon forests and rivers. I pretty much love all of Oregon. With a passion. And I have to admit that I am pretty happy that the dismal, gray, depression inducing weather keeps the population down.)

(This is what the sky looks like 3/4 of the year, so

just keep that in mind when you are thinking of

moving here. I've seen the Oregon winter break

people and send them scurrying back to drier climes.

Hehehehe.)

This is what Dieter looks like when he is trying to get up to full speed. He's adorable. And he has to be, since he is also incredibly evil.

Gunter has three great loves: eating (obviously), fetching (as he is getting ready to do here), and staring lovingly at me (at least I think that is what he is doing, maybe he is just thinking about how succulent I would be roasted with an apple in my mouth).

Why so many pictures of Dieter? Has he displaced Gunter as the Tiny Pug Dictator of your heart? No, he is just more photogenic, plus he is around to take photos of. Gunter is usually off in the distance, chasing down his Evil Cuz toy (see the 4th picture down, upper left hand corner).

Dieter likes to eat sand. Gunter likes to dig in the sand. It is a symbiotic relationship. Gunter digs and Dieter stands behind him eating the sand chunks that land nearby.

Okay, I realize this is a pug heavy blog post. But they are irresistible and if you only knew how many photos I didn't post. They make my day, every day. (Geez, lady, get a grip.)

This is ostensibly a jewelry blog, so here is the requisite photo of jewelry.

I finished that pink gold solitaire yesterday and I absolutely love the combination of the pink gold and the diamond, which is K color. I've decided that K color diamonds are my favorite. So colorful. (I also love stacking jewelry together, it makes me feel as though I've accomplished something).

I've been debating whether or not I should get back into the eternity ring business. I put it on hiatus because I was finding them to be a huge pain in the tuchus, but I think I've perfected them now and I might be ready to sell them again.

Shows over folks, move along

No, not really. But that is sort of how I felt when I finished my engagement ring the other day. I don't know why. I seriously wondered if I would now completely lose my urge to make jewelry after I had made my own ring. Luckily that wasn't the case. :-)

I can't explain how nervous I was making this ring, especially setting the stone. It was crazy. I'm not a nervous person, so the feeling was a novel one. I hope it doesn't stick around.

I went this route because I wanted to wear a single ring and because I have gigantic ogre hands and wanted something substantial. Plus, it just sort of appeared in my head like this, and it felt like something I would be happy with in the long term. I'm easily bored with jewelry, so I needed to make a piece that would withstand my fickleness. I have one pair of earrings that I've never gotten tired of, I made them a thousand years ago and they are still my favorite. White faceted agate drops with two disks of turquoise stacked above. Super simple, but I looooooove them. And I needed to looooooove this. And I do. It feels like a piece of German engineered machinery. It feels like sunken treasure.

I totally crack myself up. While I want to share my ring with people, I also feel incredibly uncomfortable at the same time. I feel like it is bragging, I feel like I'm showing off. It seems a little gauche (man, I love that word). I just can't get too serious about the whole thing. It all seems sort of silly (I also feel this way about wedding dresses. But I'm going to be wearing a ruffled, pretty pretty princess dress, so I am a total mental hypocrite!). But then again, this is what I do for a living so I guess I get a pass? Plus, wedding rings are pretty, and I find them all interesting to tell the truth. I always find myself looking at hands when I am out and about.

(Mental process going on in the photo: okay, how do I get my hand in the shot without looking awkward. Just sort drape it across your chest. Like this. No. Like this. Just Look Natural. Okay. Too obvious. Relax your fingers. This looks dumb. Go with it.)

All right! Have a wonderful weekend. I plan on posting pug photos next week. We had an epically good trip to the coast the other weekend and I have to share a few of the best shots. Pugs are awesome. And so are giant gold rings. :-D

What to do when you are flagging..

What do you do when you are flagging? Because I have been flagging left, right, and center over here at the studio. Here I am, living the dream, and I'm still struggling to appreciate it. What is my deal? I ask you, what is my deal?!? It has even been sunny outside!

I'm think I'm suffering from a lack of motivation. A stifling malaise. I love my job, but I'm feeling lackluster right now and I need to figure this problem out in order to make my job sustainable mentally. The only way is to keep on keeping on! Coming up with new stuff. New stuff is the exciting stuff! To be honest, I really just want to make more earrings...I loooove earrings. But people don't seem to want to buy earrings (why is that? or am I wrong?). And often the earrings I want to make take too long to be economically feasible. Maybe I'm reading this wrong, or maybe I haven't made the right earrings, but they don't seem to be good sellers. But I want to be trying new things, in different ways and earrings have been calling to me. I have been very focused on trying to get myself to a certain level of quality for what I make, but I have lost sight of making new things, maybe imperfect things. I really like perfection, almost to the point of folly. I need to let that obsession go in order to move forward.

I don't really make earrings to sell in my shop, for various reasons. I generally make earrings as gifts, usually the day the gift is to be gifted. And I'm always in a rush, so I never take photos of these experiments. So I have no record of my random creations, and I think I like it that way. Maybe. My obsessive side wishes I had multiple photographs from every angle of everything I've ever made. But sometimes a candid mobile phone shot is even better:

BFF in B-day earrings

On an unrelated note, my engagement ring is almost finished. The casting turned out gorgeous! So yellow! So chunky....solid. That's all I'm going to say for now. It's super solid.

Side Views

I've got it! I've got it!

Finally! I've decided what to do for my engagement ring! There was this super spectacular recycled diamond available a few weeks ago, and I snapped it up. It's freaking gorgeous! It arrived last week, and I've been taking it out and admiring it every day. .87ct, VVS2, K color! Lovely, lovely! I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of the color, since it is "lower" down on the color spectrum, but I think I'm in love. There is nothing super yellow about, it is just darkly sparkly. I'm not sure how else to explain it. I plan on setting it in 18kt yellow (what else?).

I've also decided on a design for the actual ring. But I will save that for another post!

Tax Day

Let me just give all of you reading out there a little bit of friendly advice:

MAKE SURE YOU PAY THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF ESTIMATED TAXES EVERY QUARTER.

If you just do that you will have a relatively painless tax day. If you do not, you might find yourself wandering around the natural foods grocery store with a dazed expression, trying and failing to soothe the sting caused by writing ginormous checks to the IRS with a cup of coffee and a chocolate cookie, at a loss as to whether new burt's bees lip balm will make you feel better (hint: it won't). Oh well.

So this morning, when my car didn't start (yay!!) and I was waiting around for my future father in law to come and rescue me, I was reading this (another only semi-successful retail therapy purchase):

Toward an Art History of Medieval Rings

Tell you what, I love that title, that's fo'sho. My jewelry and design related book collection is gradually growing. There is little that I like more than a glossy book filled with photographs of things made with gold and accompanied by much small print. Seriously. And this book is especially nice. There are photographs from many different angles! Even from the bottom and back! (Not on everything, but enough to make it very exciting.) Most of the time jewelry books don't provide multiple angles, with the result that it is hard to tell how something is put together. What use is one gorgeous photograph from the most artistic possible angle, if it hides how the thing is constructed? No use, that's what. I want the nitty gritty. I want to see how the bezel is attached to the shank, I want to know what these medieval goldsmiths did and how they did it.

And this (!!!!!):

ZOMFG!

That is a sword hilt made of diamonds. Holy sh*t. The skill! The skill!! The size of those rocks. But mostly the skill! The beauty of the design! I love the three curves that arc over the largest cushion/round shaped diamond in the hand guard section. Maximizing a simple design with tons of bling. Gorgeous. (This isn't from the medieval ring book, btw, this is from something else, snapped a quick picture at Powell's Books.)

oh, oh, oh!

Will I ever be this skilled? No. Probably not. I'm sure this guy spent his entire life from the age of 8 on as an apprentice. And this was probably made by a whole shop of people anyway, each doing a certain part of the process that they specialized in. But I can dream. I can dream.

9:00 in the A.M.

Ladies and gents, I accomplished the impossible today. I arrived in the studio at 9:05am. I don't know why it is such a struggle for me to get out of bed (it's really not even the getting out of bed, it is the getting around and dressing and eating and getting out of the door that is the hard part for some reason). But I did it!! I made it! And I think I can keep it up. Now that I'm no longer living in a Shadowland (i.e. the NW during the winter) I have much more motivation for full days and lots of work (and working out! I have to tackle the results of all that winter cake eating!).

And why would I be compelled to attempt this feat of early morning (I realize 9am isn't early, I used to have to get up at 3am to get to work when I was in the Navy) bravery?! To finish these:

It really took me forever to get this finished. I think I had the wax kicking around forever, and then the cast pieces kicking around for another forever. But they are finally done. I think I will do some adjusting to the design and maybe some other variations. I just wish I had made them in my size!

I really like how they can be worn more ways than one. These photos aren't ideal, the light right now isn't the best. And I don't have a solitaire on hand to photograph them with. They look really nice facing out from either side of a simple solitaire, very lacy.

All right! I'm forcing myself to pack up and head home early today. Cheers!

A possible?

I'm still struggling with my own wedding ring, but I finished this set the other day for someone else (it is actually a complete set, solitaire, woman's wedding band, man's wedding band) and I liked them all together. I love the chunkiness. Of course, I will probably go with yellow gold, but it sure looks nice in the palladium.

I also like the idea of wearing just a super wide plain band for some reason. A bit ironic for someone who uses stones in almost everything she makes?

But I love shiny things (almost) as much as I love cake with cream cheese frosting, so I'm not absolutely sure I would be happy with just a big fat band. But maybe I would be? And then maybe I could make myself an outrageous pair of diamond earrings? I'm excited to make something for myself, I think I have 4 things total. A couple of pairs of earrings (one set an experiment), a necklace made of scrap metal, and my current engagement ring(s). Oh, and some bangles (a return from a customer who wanted a larger size). Sad? But I actually don't wear that much jewelry (more irony?), so I'm not complaining (too much).

All right, I'm starting to ramble and I should probably get back to work now. That way I can go home early. Tonight is burrito night!

The Jackpot

I haven't won the lottery. It is hard to if you don't play. (Let us just pause here for a moment and imagine what I would do with 60 million dollars. Would I continue working? I would like to think so. Maybe just doing whatever I wanted, crazy, expensive, time consuming projects that probably wouldn't sell! But that would be fine, because I would be swimming in money, Scrooge McDuck style. Maybe I would go back to school (glutton for punishment?) and get a degree in art history and maybe one in literature, or history, or radical feminist theory? Or perhaps I would buy a vineyard and spend my days among the vines, steadily getting fatter and fatter on a diet of fine goat cheeses and tender French bâtard? Well, I know that I would like fund a scholarship at a women's college (or maybe high school?!?). Can you imagine how fun it would be to read the application essays?! Especially while I'm sipping on wine from my own vineyard?! But maybe I would just bake cupcakes all day long. And on the days that I didn't bake cupcakes, I would do all the yoga that I could ever want at all of the expensive yoga studios in town.)

Okay. Enough of that. Please feel free to fantasize about how you would spend your 60mil in the comments section. I find it fascinating what people would do.

So, no, I didn't win the lottery, but I did hit the jackpot with this here book:

Please ignore the cheesy 80's style cover (check out that pyramid in the center!). I love it that it looks so much like a textbook! Concepts and technology! It's a real goldmine (har har!) for the relentless jeweler who loooooves to slog through things like this on her lunch break:

(yeah yeah!)

Thus far I have made it through filigree. Remember that I am planning on making some little filigree pieces for a wedding necklace? I figured I had better read up a bit on the finer points of filigree construction before letting myself loose at the bench. I knew the basic idea, but now I REALLY know. This is the most instructive book I've found. (Tim McCreight's The Complete Metalsmith is a total joke compared to this book. Sorry, Tim.) I really feel like I can go out and do filigree after reading the filigree chapter. It was very thorough (am I the only person who can't spell thorough? Other toughies: necessary, beginning, and accommodate) and as far as I can tell it is worth every last expensive penny that it cost. Can't wait to read the the section on granulation!

No Post, Just Pugs

Oh the joys of newly shorn head!

(I'm a bit of a ham...)

Bold move, I know, since I will be wearing a pretty-pretty-princess dress at my upcoming wedding, but I just couldn't stand my long hair any more. And since I've had this haircut for the majority of my life since I was in the second grade, I just feel that is more authentically me. I would rather get married looking like myself (even if it will look slightly ridiculous with a big fairy dress), than have hair that doesn't suit me. I should be married as myself, not some hair-sprayed be-lipsticked version. (Not that there is anything wrong with lipstick and/or hairspray.)

What have I been up to in the studio? Well, the wedding rush is upon me and it is only March.

I have to admit, I have the most awesome job in the world. Sure, sometimes I am tired and my back hurts from sitting hunched over some project...or I feel that I just can't deal with answering any more emails...

But then I look down at my sweet little studio from my perch in the loft, and I just feel so incredibly lucky to have this opportunity to make things. And to define my life however I want to. To keep my own hours, and to have the work of my hands and brain benefit me; I'm so thankful that I'm not working to line the pockets of the people who own the company. I love working for myself, I can't imagine working for someone else. I have the chance to explore my own interests (which happen to revolve around jewelry and art in general...luckily enough!) and follow my own pursuits. Many (most?) people don't get to do this, and I am lucky. Extremely lucky. (I also don't think I could take orders from someone else (5 years in the Navy taught me this) so it is probably for the best all around that I take orders only from myself!).

And I get the chance to make beautiful, meaningful things. How sweet is that? I know (or at least I am fairly confident...fingers crossed!) that when the little black box is opened, happiness comes out of it! That people are reminded of those that they love when they look down at their hands. And I MADE that thing that reminds them! It's a great job, and when I'm feeling worn down about my work I need to think about that.

Have a wonderful weekend!