cupcakes & dinosaurs...

Had a fabulous time at the Flinders Street Market on the weekend. On Saturday I spent a fair portion of the day getting my hands dirty at the Making Creatures from Clay workshop in the centre of the market. Naomi from Wonkie Knee Art & Susanna from really useful pots ran the workshop & the lovely Rene from the Sunshine Van provided us with yummy chocolate cupcakes to keep our strength up :)

I was attempting to create a dragon, but it somehow morphed into a cute stegosaurus-type dinosaur creature as I worked. He went home with Susanna to dry out & get fired (that doesn't sound right, lol) - can't wait to see him finished. Any name suggestions for the little guy?

First (iPhone) photo by me, others by Mum & Kathryn.
We also had a stall - or two actually - which you can see photos of here & here.

and finally... { working 925 }

...my last workshop piece is this copper & silver brooch.

Since I only had one class to work on this (the last week - I miss it already) I did as much preparation as I could before I went. So I cut the silver piece (the copper component is from testing out textures with the rolling mill before I made my wing) & smoothed all my edges.
Then in class I made the brooch components, soldered them on, drilled & hammered my (copper) rivets & made the pin. I did the final finishing (sanding the front) after I got home.

I am hoping to get the necessary tools for both soldering & riveting - I'm fairly confident with the riveting, but soldering will be a matter of practice makes perfect (I had a lot of help with all the soldering I did during the course).

project 1, project 2 & project 3 from the workshops

over the mountains { working 925 }

My third project from silversmithing class is a small pendant, completed in one evening class.

The textured part is an off-cut from the middle layer of my wing pendant - it just looked like mountains to me (although my brother says it looks like sound-waves, which is pretty cool). So I simply cut a suitably sized piece for the back, sanded that, soldered the 'mountains' to the front, then filed/sanded the edges (also rounding the corners). A small hole, plus a jump ring & it's ready to wear.

I love both pendants I've completed, but I have a sneaking suspicion that this one - being very light & simple - might get more wear.

project 1  & project 2 from the workshops

on the wing { working 925 }

As promised, my second completed sterling piece.

The design went through some changes during it's development & I'm rather pleased with the outcome. Above you can see my paper mock-up, followed by one in heavier card (which was a really good idea - it led to a huge improvement in the shape of the middle layer), silver with cutting guidelines & the pieces before riveting.

The layers are held together with a rivet & there is a tube bail soldered onto the back.

project 1 from the workshops

recently...

I've been enjoying the evening light & mild weather - very up & down weather (today was 31C - last week they had snow not far from us!), but mostly it's been lovely.

Doing lots of travelling getting to & from class - only two more weeks to go. I won't miss the travelling/early mornings/late nights, but I'm going to miss class. My second project is almost finished - it's just not quite photo-ready...some sanding & finishing left to do.

I've taken a huge amount of jewellery photos - both for the blog & for etsy. Random out-take below

Had some yummy baked goodies recently too - I made a Carrot Cake & Amy baked Lemon Curd Marble Muffins (but with stewed apples instead of lemon curd) - both from the River Cottage Everyday cookbook.Yum.

& the garden is full of all sorts of birds...

tomorrow I fly...

...to Melbourne :)

I'm attending a PMC workshop & lecture over the weekend & decided to take few extra days & have a little holiday. So I'm planning to take lots of photos, eat some yummy food, browse some nice shops...& maybe even catch up with some DUST-ers.

So, I'll catch you all when I get back next week & until then, any fabulous suggestions of things to see/do?

wonderful workshops...

The Saturday of the conference was spent learning some new skills (or attempting to anyway)...

First Trish from TrishAlan Designs gave an interesting talk on teaching craft...not sure I want to go that way at the moment, but it certainly raised some things to consider if I do. Then we had morning tea  - & I would like to thank Ali for insisting on organising real coffee :)

My first workshop was Freeform Crochet - taught by Meggan. I made a cord for my id tag & started a circle...I didn't pick it up super fast, but I started to get somewhere. Then I travelled by train with Meggan on Sunday & got an extra lesson :). I not a crochet prodigy by any means, but I will spend some time playing & see if I can get anywhere...(in the photo below, the purple string & the smaller circle are my work - the larger circle Meggan made to show me a pattern).

After lunch, I did a zentangle workshop with Melanie. Zentangle is heaps of fun - I've been playing since I got home & have introduced my Mum & sisters to it. Amy has been especially taken with it & has produced some gorgeous drawings.

The bigger sheet in the photo below is the tangle I started at the workshop & have since completed. The smaller drawing is one that Melaine gave us the outline for, so we could all fill it in & see what we came up with - they have been great so far.

a better look at my first zentangle...

Melbourne workshops...

I'm back from Melbourne, tired but happy. Really loved the workshops I did with Hadar Jacobson. In the first (on Friday) we made a hollow bead/pendant/earrings (those are my earrings, in the photo above) & then we learnt Hadar's technique for getting the beautiful 'satin' finish.



The second workshop included both Saturday & Sunday. On saturday, we learnt to mix Hadar's copper clay (you buy it in powder form) before using some to make a piece to be combined with pmc. The above photo shows my silver & copper pendant. I made the copper ring on saturday & it, along with the other copper (or bronze) pieces was fired over night. On sunday I added pmc to make the outer silver ring, which I them fired with a torch, before finishing it in the same way as the earrings.


The pendant above combines bronze & copper clay...a bronze base, with a deep texture (from one of my stamps), which are then filled with copped clay. This piece still needs sanding & polishing.


I'm really pleased with the pieces I made & more importantly, I learnt a lot. I have plans for many new pieces over the coming weeks/months, so watch this space :)

A wedge of lemon

I finally fired the pmc pieces I had waiting, including my lemon wedge pendant, I made it at the workshop I did back in October.

The workshop was taught by Barbara Becker Simon, an American jeweller & artist. I'm quite pleased with my lemon wedge, I just need to finish the chain & I can start wearing it :)

I took these shots with our new macro lens (which I love), the detail is awesome. I have even more shots, which may appear later (did I mention that I love this lens?)