Witte Wear

Yesterday we were driving back from Winter Park, CO and stopped in a funky little ice cream shop in Empire, CO. Who would have guessed that I'd walk out with adorable hand made hats for my daughters? After doing a little research, I've tracked down the designer's website: http://www.wittewear.com/ and her Facebook fan page: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?filter=lf#!/pages/Snohomish-WA/Witte-Wear/83895163460?ref=mf  Her work just beautiful and very well-made. Check it out!

Santa Fe 2010

santa fe scenery 024, originally uploaded by mjmchaag.

Check out my Santa Fe photos on Flickr.http://www.flickr.com/photos/26697027@N06/sets/72157623549731191/

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!