Posts Tagged ‘jewelry’

Not from me though.

Nope, from my fellow metalsmith Jaime, of Bella-Bijou Jewelry. Jaime is a fabulous artist and really sweet too! Head on over to her blog to check out her lovely pieces and enter the contest.

http://bellabijoujewellery.blogspot.com/2010/03/something-special-for-you-giveaway-time.html

Good luck!

I’ve found I’m obsessed with orange lately. And pink. I used to hate pink and orange, but these days they make me happy.

So what do I do? Combine my new color obsession with my long standing flower, rock, and metal obsessions.

This is what happened:

Isn’t it just delish? Like orange soda on a hot summer day.

I confess. It laid around my house for nearly three months before I decided to list it in the shop. I don’t sell my happiness very easily. I hope it sells and goes to a lovely home that will love it as much as I do. I have other orange (and pink!) stones to keep me happy.

But if it doesn’t? You won’t see me crying.

To the ring from hell (you know who you are):

After three entirely too late nights of trying to perfect you, I’ve decided that I seriously hate you. However, you shall not defeat me. In fact, you best stop trying. Or I will rip you apart and send you to the refiners.

You’ve been warned.

That is all.

I spent the summer working on building up our necklace stock. Now I’m working on rings.

Silver rings, stacking rings, gemstone rings, and even solid 14kt gold rings. Yes, you read that right. I finished my very first solid gold pieces! It’s fabulous to solder and polish. And scary. The entire metal market is scary right now, but gold is especially frightening. It’s all too sobering to see how expensive a tiny piece costs!

But it sure is fun.

Secret of Life Ring

Cubic Zirconia & Textured Sterling Solitaire

Black Spinel & Sterling Stacking Rings

Solid 14kt Gold & Black Spinel Ring

Solid 14kt Gold Textured Band

Call me a ding-a-ling, but I’m pretty pleased with these ring-a-lings! (Insert the “Crystal-is-such-a-cheeseball-smace” here.)

That’s me!

Or my jewelry, anyway. I set my very first (and second, third, fourth, and fifth!) faceted gemstones this week. I am a happy camper. I used tube settings because I love their sleek look, but I’ll be doing some prong settings soon too. Yes, bloggy buds, I now solder and set precious stones. Aren’t you proud?!

My first was a sterling silver ring that I forged and soldered a tube setting onto. I set a 3mm (teeeeny tiny!) smoky quartz stone in it.

I saw that it was good, so I moved on to some earrings. Again, little 3mm smoky quartz stones. (Yep, I soldered the earrings too!)

I was pleased with the results, so I figured it was time to get serious. I pulled out the sapphires. Little tiny 3mm sapphires. I put them in a second pair of studs I had soldered.

(Just in case you’re wondering, there aren’t scratches on the silver. That’s fuzz. Cause you should never put lotion on before handling shiny jewelry. You get jewelry fuzz. And jewelry fuzz may be undetectable to the human eye, but jewelry fuzz can never fool the eye of a macro lens!)

Genuine sapphires, people. I set them. Go me! I don’t think I’ll be selling that pair. You may notice that the one on the left shows more silver around the stone. That’s because the stone sat lower in the setting than the one on the right. Boo. That’s not my fault. That was the person who cut the stone. But it was my fault for using it in the earrings. But can you blame me? I was having too much fun. Oh well. I guess I’ll just have to keep this one pair… what a pity.

Signs you’re a metal head:

You find yourself waiting… impatiently I might add… for your bezel setting to finish pickling so you can figure out what kind of bail to put on it. What time is it? 4am. But the pendant must be finished.

That is all.

We entered a contest for wedding crafts on Martha Stewart’s website. The rules said you can enter as many times as you want, so long as you do not submit the same thing more than once, so I entered three pieces I felt were perfect for weddings.

If you’d like to help, we’d love your vote!

The Audrey Necklace

Pearl & Gold Earrings

Golden Heart Necklace

The Belles are having a BOGO sale on Etsy!

Free earrings with any purchase all weekend long! Enter “weekend deals” in notes to seller during checkout.

2BellesBeads.etsy.com

Have fun shopping!

2BellesBeads is featured in one of Etsy’s gift guides! Soooo happy!

They picked my Initial Here – Hand Stamped Custom Font Letter Necklace.

This is a very good thing. So happy! Chocolate for all!