Ring Vise

This odd looking tool is called a ring vise. I used it in Connie Fox's cold connection class in Santa Fe this weekend and had to get one to bring home. By far the easiest and best thing I've ever used to hold a piece of metal while you drill a hole through it. I'll try to post some pictures of it in use but trust me - it's the sh**. Many, many cool things to blog about from my brief trip to the SouthWest. The classes, the scenery, new friends, old friends - - much fun was had for sure!! I'm going out of town again on Wednesday for a couple of days, but I'll try to get some more goodies up before then!

How to Make Your Own Balled Silver Earwires

I often make my own earwires for my jewelry. My favorite style right now are balled silver earwires. It takes a little practice to shape the wire, but they are really pretty simple to do.

1. Start out with two 2 1/2" pieces of 20 gauge 1/2 hard sterling wire, cleaned and straightend.

2. Using pliers, hold one of the wires down into the flame of your torch. Hold the wire at the hottest point, which is right in front of the blue inner flame, until the metal rolls up into a ball.

3. Immediately plunge into water to cool.

4. The wire will be gray where you heated it. If desired, use a pro polish pad or steel wool to clean

and shine it.

5. Turn one end up into a simple loop with the tip of your round nose pliers.

6. Turn wire the opposite direction to create a larger bend. Here I'm using bailing pliers but the back of large round nose pliers or any other mandral will work too.

7. Make a slight bend at the end of the wire using chain nose pliers.

Finished earwires!!!

www.mjanedesigns.com

Nuf said...

www.mjanedesigns.com

Making Progress

The earring page is starting to take shape. Check out what I posted yesterday.
http://mjanedesigns.com/Earrings/earrings.html

Not sure if any progress will happen today. Jam packed and not with jewelry unfortunately!

Here comes Monday again! Everyone made it out the door to school today - no one sick! Yeah!! That means I have 10-2 to get something accomplished. I'm working hard to get a substantial number of earring posted on the website for sale. It's a lot of work!! Make them, photograph, edit the photos, build and publish the webpages. Where is that staff I don't have? Maybe some day.... These are some of the finished earrings that I have sitting on my work table. I took the pic yesterday afternoon with the sun streaming through the window - a beautiful thing when you work in the basement!

Updating and updating

It's been so long since I've blogged, that I'm going to just jump in where I am instead of trying to catch you up. The last few weeks I have, at long last, been focusing on updating my website. I decided to start with my personalized stamped silver jewelry. Honestly, I picked there to start because I knew it would be the most difficult. With all the options (name, number of charms, etc) involved to order these pieces on-line, it takes quite a bit of coding behind the scenes. I knew that if I could get through this part, the one of a kind jewelry would be a breeze to add.

The "personalized jewelry" page is completely done! I have 3 more stamped pieces to add on the jewelry page, then on to the fun stuff!!. Check it out: mjanedesigns

Cool New Pendants

I've been fooling around for a while with collage & paper. I LOVE paper! Wondering how I could use it in my jewelry. Think I perfected these little collage pendants this weekend. They are made on wooden scrabble tiles and covered with resin. The resin gives the tile a really nice clear hard finish with a pretty domed shape. If you're interested in resins, I suggest you check out Beadwork's special issue "handcrafted jewelry". Handcrafted Jewelry - Interweave

They have a great article on resins which saved me a lot of time and expense. I've ordered glue on bails & hope to have these strung in time for my show on the 23rd. They are fun, fun, fun!