New prints!

Here's a proof of a new Latvian card I'm working on --- I've cleaned it up a  bit since this picture was taken and have started printing cards for Dziesmu Svetki like this:

Multiple perspectives

I really enjoy seeing multiple perspective of things. One way this manifests is that i just LOVE to look at the end result of art projects where either the whole class/room/group is given a description of the assignment and we see how all the end results are different OR things like what Corning Glass did here where they took (what appear to be) children's drawings, made them out of glass, and posted both the idea + end result.

Here are two examples from the Corning Glass Museum site......

On paper:




In glass:

A new pattern

Here are a couple new pendants that I've been excited about:

Glass sandblasted

Aaaaaaaand sandblasting complete! Now to wash them and box them for the show.

Sandblasting

Guess who is going to the Vinery to sandblast this week?

I quite enjoy using this pink duct tape instead of the grey stuff ;)  Thanks to that long ago 3-year bag arranger for getting it for me :)  My goal is to finish cutting ALL of the existing glass in my house, sandblast it, and then be done with this stuff for .....  ever?  for years?  For a long time anyway.  I enjoy other projects more than this one (although I did get quite a bit of "quality TV time" in while working on these the other day).

Ooooh! Shiny!

I've been playing around with a new technique: polishing stuff in a rock tumbler. Initial results? WOW!!! Sooooo shiny!

And there's an extra bonus, too. Yesterday I found out that half an hour is enough to polish the silver BUT LEAVES MY DICHRO ALONE... Which is awesome because that means I can polish all of my glass bezel pendant without dealing with the buffer!

Dirty patterns

These are nowhere near done, and in fact are very dirty. But sometimes I think that the patterns left on a piece just after soldering are just so neat.

The other sock monster!

Here's the other animal/monster for the baby mobile we made in March :)

Glass Fish

This year, for the first time ever, I participated in a glass magless exchange (technically "magnets" but since everyone would have had to pay extra shipping costs if everyone glued magnets on to the back of their work, we all skipped the "glue magnet on" step and hence then name "magless").

I made fish.

One heckuva LOT of fish:

Rainbow snake!

In March, I made two stuffed animals for a dear friend's baby mobile..... these are the only pictures I took, though, so you folks might not get to see the green bat/owl/monster that also went to her house.

Four more stone settings

Man. I have to work on polishing these, but I figured I'd post a picture anyway --- even if it *is* dirty. This brings my total up to 16. Thirty-four more to go....

Surprise in the mail!

Someone sent me a bunch of AWESOME little dichroic cabs in the mail :) :) :) Now to design some silver to go around them.....

12 bezel settings

Thirty-eight more to go..... The I get to install a solar tube in my kitchen! By the way, i made all of the cabs used in these pendants and earrings, too. They're glass. Some are dichroic and the striped ones were just a neat technique I learned about earlier this year.

Starting to feel lived in!

Here's how the workbench fits into a whole wall of metal-working goodies :D

Still needed: proper ventilation.

50 earring challenge

I finished 50 pairs of earrings last month.

Bench in progress.....

Someone mentioned that they're tired of looking at that picture from November AND ps, it's been nearly five months since I've updated this blog. So. Here goes an attempt to get back in the swing of sharing things that I'm working on.... Because there's been a lot of new stuff going on :)

Day 25 --- Printing cards!

Experimenting with assorted color combos and a new place for my little press:

Days 18 - 24

Day 18 = if cooking is art, then cooking this amazing cornbread will have to suffice for Day 18

Day 19 = Does looking at and buying art count? I went to Milwaukee's International Folk Festival and bought a fair trade hat made from alpaca AND an amazing amber necklace.

Day 20 = more top-secret metalwork

Day 21 = I tried to finish a set of stamped spoons for my father, but it was too noisy to finish all in that one night :/

Day 22 = I went to see the Muppets. No art was made.

Day 23 = more cooking as art!!!

Day 24 = sketched some future lino designs

Pumpkin fun!

Seen on a local walk around the block, these guys made me pause and smile :D

Day 16 & 17 --- metalwork

Been working away on that metalwork project for Feb. I'm about half done! Yeah! Too bad it's a super-top-secret project because it would be fun to post pictures of it. Ah well. I can leave you with this, though. Here's a preview of what's involved in the super-top-secret-metal-project of mine :)



In February there will be more pictures.