SilverBlueberry

Sunday, April 22, 2012

On the front page!

My honeycomb ring was featured on the front page of Etsy last night in this beautiful treasury:

:) yay!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

For this month's blogroll of our Etsy Aspiring Metalsmiths team the topic is Spring, and how it affects our jewelry design and work.

Now, about spring. Having grown up in the Netherlands but living in Sweden, I have realized that my definition of spring is not like the Swedish definition of spring. My mother always lets me know when the first spring flowers come. Snowdrops in January, crocus in February-March, etc. Easter dinners often have fresh spring vegetables and you see lambs in the meadows and ducklings everywhere.

Here, we often have snow, ice and wintery weather well into April, the food you get at Easter is basically the same food you have at Christmas, and if you're lucky and the snow has melted, you can see one or two flowers carefully peeking out. When I hadn't been living in Sweden long, people would surprise me with their talk about spring (to me it felt and looked like winter) and 'springwinter' (vårvinter in Swedish). Now that I have lived here longer I can appreciate springwinter. It still looks like winter but it's lighter out. There is melting water running in the ditches besides the roads and there are definitely signs of spring. Dirty, melting snow, gravelly roads (annoying but a sign of spring!), and if it's sunny out you feel the warmth of the sun rays. The plants wait and wait, especially if April is cold, and then suddenly everything explodes.

This year we have been lucky with a warm March, and even though it's cold again now, we have some bold pioneers:

For me and my jewelry, spring is a big deal. My stock of willow rings is declining now that we are at the end of winter, and I have to turn down people who inquire after fern rings in popular sizes. But once spring starts and the leaves are there, I have a couple of busy months. See here for instance. Many leaves need to be at a certain stage where they are the prettiest, usually when they are just unfolding and they are all crinkly. And right now I feel anxious like a farmer about his crop - will there be any frost just as the leaves are unfolding? Has my fern survived? Will my willow produce good leaves or will it be attacked by a moose? (you never know!)

Check out the posts on the same topic by my talented team members:

Steph Stargell stephstargell.com
Lilian girllovesglitter.blogspot.com
Pennee - All Wired Up Jewelry Designs allwiredupjewelrydesigns.blogspot.com
nancycreations nancysjewelrydesigns.blogspot.com
SerpentsDanceDesigns dancetothedoor.blogspot.com
Autumn Bradley autumnbradley.blogspot.com
Contemporary Jewelry by Beatriz Fortes cjbf.blogspot.com
Jessica @ Abella Blue abellabluestudio.com/blog
Sylvia Anderson sylviaanderson.blogspot.com
Gloria gloria-hemlockhollow.blogspot.com
Amy Estelle amyestellemetalworks.blogspot.com/2012/03/spring-has-sprung.html

Friday, February 3, 2012

Tutorial - fold formed earrings

It's been a while since I did a tutorial. In part it is that I don't feel my skills are on that level that I can tell other people how to make something. And when you see how these earrings are made you will see that it is actually very easy.

For the first pair of these earrings I made I used sterling silver sheet, pretty thin - 0.3-0.4 mm. For the pair in this tutorial I used 0.3 mm fine silver, and it's extremely easy to work with. You don't have to worry about firescale either, which is very handy since there are multiple heating (annealing) steps involved. If you use sterling silver, you have to pickle in between, which is not necessary with fine silver.

So I start with cutting two pieces of my fine silver sheet. It is not necessary that they are absolutely identical, but approximately the same size.

I usually order my silver sheet dead soft, so I can fold the pieces of sheet directly as shown in picture 1 below. I can't fold the corners flat with my fingers, so I use my plastic mallet (wooden or rawhide mallet can also be used) on a wood surface to flatten the folded piece of sheet (picture 2).

I then cut a halfround-ish shape out of the sheet with my metal sheers, and try to cut approximately the same shape of both pieces of folded sheet (pictures 3 and 4).

Now we start the hammering and forming of the earrings. On picture 5 you see that I'm using the sharp side of a riveting hammer on a steel block. I hammer perpendicular to the seam and do not hammer on the seam itself but on the rounded side. As you will do this again and again, remember to keep hammering perpendicular to the seam (it will curl into a croissant). I hammer one side, then turn it around and hammer the other side. Then I anneal the piece and redo the hammering on both sides until I'm happy with the curvature.

On picture 6 you can see the difference between having done one earring once on both sides, and the other earring twice on both sides. Sterling silver may need a little more hammering than fine silver.

When I am happy with the curvature of the croissants I will make room for an earring post on one side (picture 7) with round nose pliers. When you've hammered one side, the pattern on the other side will get smooshed by the steel block, so as a finishing step I hammer the smooshed side once more on a wood surface (picture 8).

I then solder earring posts to the earrings. I may reconsider when I do this step, since there is a risk that the solder flows between the two 'wings', so they can't be opened properly. I then pickle the earrings and open and shape them with my fingers, and this is the result:

I then throw them into the tumbler and out come a pair of shiny fold-formed earrings.

This blog post is part of the blogroll of the Aspiring Metalsmiths Etsy Team, so please check out the other blogs that contributed to this month's tutorial theme:

VCArtisanOriginals - www.artisanoriginals.blogspot.com
Sylvia Anderson - www.sylviaanderson.blogspot.com/
Metals Addict - www.metalsaddict.com
Lilian Ginebra - girllovesglitter.blogspot.com/
Esmeralda - jewelry-by-silverblueberry.blogspot.com/
Amy Estelle – www.amyestellemetalworks.blogspot.com/2012/01/my-first-tutorial-bez....
Mary Anne Karren - silverpearlmetalworks.wordpress.com/
Stacy - formandfunktionaccessories.blogspot.com/2012/01/making-ring-band.html
Shannon of Gifted Designs - gifteddesigns.blogspot.com/
Pennee- All Wired Up Jewelry Designs - allwiredupjewelrydesigns.blogspot.com/
Jessica @ Abella Blue - www.abellablue.com/blog
Elizabeth Brown – www.resurrectionsilver.blogspot.com

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The sweat of the sun and the tears of the moon

Weird title? A few days ago I went to see the Inca gold exhibition in Stockholm and I wanted to remember this.

According to the Inca, gold was the sweat of the sun and silver the tears of the moon. Isn't that pretty? Of course it had implications - no regular people ever wore gold or silver, only royalty did, since they were believed to be the living descendants of the sun god, Inti.

Anyway, they showed the most amazing and delicate gold and silver work there. Some of the jewelry could be mistaken for modern art jewelry - big solid gold ear plugs, giant (giant!) ear pieces or neck pieces, forehead, chin or nose decorations.. Not your everyday jewelry.

I definitely got inspired - now I feel like making all kinds of nose jewelry :)

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Just married!

Last Thursday (Aug 4th) John and I got married. We had originally thought to have a simple ceremony in the city hall of Stockholm but it seemed nice to be away for a few days and in the end we settled on having the wedding on Gotland. We saw this little guy on our way to the wedding:

I'm sure he was a good omen. :)

We had the - very short! - ceremony in this pretty pavilion in the botanical garden of Visby:

The registrar read this poem by Nils Ferlin. Below are both the swedish version and an english translation.

I folkviseton

Nils Ferlin

(1898-1961)

Kärleken kommer och kärleken går,

ingen kan tyda dess lagar.

Men dig vill jag följa i vinter och vår

och alla min levnads dagar.

Mitt hjärta är ditt,

ditt hjärta är mitt

och aldrig jag lämnar det åter.

Min lycka är din

din lycka är min,

och gråten är min när du gråter.

Kärleken är så förunderligt stark,

kuvas av intet i världen.

Rosor slår ut ur den hårdaste mark,

som sol över mörka gärden.

Mitt hjärta är ditt,

ditt hjärta är mitt

och aldrig jag lämnar det åter.

Min lycka är din

din lycka är min,

och gråten är min när du gråter.

Translation by Fred Lane

In Folk-song Fashion

Love comes along, love drifts away

No-one can tell us the reasons.

But here by thy side, love, I know I shall stay

through all the passing seasons.

My heart, it is thine; thy heart, it is mine

and mine shall remain till I die.

My happiness, thine; thy happiness, mine

- thy tears, they are mine when thou cryest.

Love is so strong, so wondrously strong

- naught in the world makes it yield.

Roses spring up from the hardest of ground

as sunshine spreads over dark fields.

My heart, it is thine; thy heart, it is mine

and mine shall remain till I die.

My happiness, thine; thy happiness, mine

- thy tears, they are mine when thou cryest.

Monday, July 25, 2011

July Project Blogroll - What are you working on?

This month's blogroll of the Aspiring Metalsmiths Team we're showing what we are currently working on. And there is that word, currently. Are all the half-finished, half-started things on my bench included in this? Or just the items that I have actually touched recently?

I have no idea if my way of working is similar to that of others or not. I sometimes sketch but most often don't. Usually I have bits of silver and stones lying around on my bench and sometimes they align themselves in a pretty way and I have a new pendant. I start things, and then forget about them. I make metal clay findings and then they lie around for a while (a while being between a few days and a year) until I find a use for them.

So my bench looks very much like the two upper pictures below. One thing that I really do work on is of course my wedding jewelry. I finished all the segments of my necklace and I'm working on a way to attach the focal stone without it hanging wonky. Another thing I'm working on - just started today - are matching earrings, but I have no picture of those yet.

Upper left: stones, half finished rings, and PMC stuff in progress
Upper right: my dish with some scrap, findings, solder, small stones
Center below: wedding jewelry in progress

Below is PMC work in progress. I did a big batch of fern earrings and some other stuff yesterday. Today most of that has been fired and the two pendants in the lower pic are still in progress. I touch up some areas with slip, let it dry, forget about it, sand, touch up again, sand, etc. That goes on until I either finish a piece or my cat steps on it and it's ruined. ;)

Below is a spontaneous project that started after a few etching attempts that didn't really turn out great. I cut off the etched parts and two rectangles were left. Earrings of course! I decided to make a rough texture by banging them against a piece of granite and then I decided I would try and flush set two emeralds at the ends.
In the pictures below I am 1- about to solder on the posts; 2- about to throw them in the pickle after soldering; 3- showing off flushed set emerald #1 while I still struggle with #2. The match functions as a support while I try and flush set, since the stones stick out slightly at the back. I stick the earring post in a drill hole in my wooden block while I work on setting the stone.

Below are some miscellaneous things in progress. The blue slag has been on my bench for ages, and recently it's become more clear what I want to do with it. It's to be combined with garnet, a color combination which I love. I sawed out the back plate for the pendant and I'm going to try and set the bezel around it, so I need a perfect fit of back plate and stone.
The PMC leaf and boulder opal have also been on my bench for ages but only recently I started on the bezel. It's tricky to solder on the bezel because of the leaf vein structure. I'm cheating a little with PMC slip - I hope it works!
The pretty agua nueva agates have been set in step bezel wire from Rio, but I can't get the stones to stop wobbling and I'll have to take them apart again (I really don't wanna, so they're just sitting beside my bench right now).
And then there is the prong setting. I made this months ago from a piece of square wire. I intended it for a red spinel. Who knows, it may still end up in that setting!

Upper left: blue slag necklace in progress
Upper right: leaf with boulder opal
Lower left: agua nueva agate earrings - paused
Lower right: home made prong setting

Check out the blogs by my teamies to see what they're working on:

Sunday, July 10, 2011

From berry to ring (and tummy)

The smultron. Or wild strawberry. I had found these occasionally in the Netherlands, where I'm from, but somehow they didn't have that smultron flavor. Only when I came to Sweden, and was prepared not to like them (as opposed to every body else here; saying you don't care for smultron is like blasphemy), I found out what they Could taste like. It's hard to describe the flavor if you haven't tasted it. It has hints of strawberry but is much more aromatic.

There is nothing like picking smultron on a warm summer's day. You stand there in the sun leaning forward and the warm sweet scent washes over you. They are tiny but even so I managed to fill an entire bowl the other day. Doesn't this look great:

John and I divided the harvest and had them with vanilla ice cream. Yummy.

For my jewelry I use a different part of the plant. When a strawberry plant sends out runners, the first leaves that come are these tiny tiny strawberry leaves. Here is a close-up:

I take these and paint several layers f metal clay paste on them, and after drying and firing they are silver leaves. I use them as details on for instance rings, like on this strawberry ring below: