oh, bracelets bracelets

gemmy, luxe, cocktail-ring-style bracelets, on narrow chocolate leather with toggle-button closure

(perfectly sized for any wrist!)

I just L.O.V.E. them in a stack!

find them here

xo

heal the bay

at the end of 2010, I worked on a wonderful collaborative project with Buy the Bay, a part of the wonderful ocean preservation group Heal the Bay.

here are the fruits of our labor

(oh my, look at that -- they're almost gone!)

(and a little bit about me)

this day

an eighteen hour work day.

some days are just like that.
and it's good.
I'd rather have eighteen hour days than zero hour days.

the bling:
a twenty carat aquamarine. right next to my grandma's one carat diamond.
thanks, Gram.

what we do....

oh, yes please

yes, yes, and YES some more!

this is how I really feel

this pretty much sums up how I feel about my life and everything in it....

::MORE DETAILS HERE::

after a long sleep

after a long sleep

my busy hands make plenty {PLENTY} of jewels

I am loving my work

loving family

loving life

and soon, again, will be loving blogging......

to celebrate ::LIFE:: I will be
giving away one of these diamond-set ingot pendants,
with your custom letter (or two!)

made with my antique steel letter tools.

and love

STAY TUNED FOR DETAILS
bring along a friend!

look here for more details

sometimes i amuse myself...

well... I recently fulfilled a large order of silver jewelry.

it was a fun project, a labor of love, and I feel lucky to have been

helped by so many SKILLED AND WILLING hands...

just to entertain myself, I put up a display in the shop

a handful of the hundreds of pieces that were shipped.

yes, they are ALL the same!

entertainment

rings in silver with 14k granules, all size 8

a life of abundance

some days I am very in-touch with the abundance in my life....

a bounty of lemons that will yield the perfect lemonade

a jar of ALL COPPER pennies

(I am going to use these at the bench for solder-lifts)

{{I used a zinc penny by mistake recently and plated a complex and gorgeous ring. ugh. more on that later}}

and a great job

{{making LOTS of jewelry}}

these days

yesterday: I metalsmithed in flip flops (hey, I know it's a no-no)

and I worked on what is JUST POSSIBLY the coolest ring I have ever made

AND HERE IT IS

a wedge of tourmalated quartz tops a bold and modernist reliquary

on a wide band, with a super-smooth brushed finish

THE RELIQUARY HOLDS

rough diamonds. twelve of them.

{{nope. I'm not kidding you}}

here are a few other treasures.

I also made a ring from a STUNNING 20 carat star ruby

today: I metalsmithed in ugg boots (chilly day)

and I worked on a (somewhat tedious) production project.

not quite as cool as yesterday, but still a joy to be doing what I love

virtual metalsmithing...?

I am pretty much a hands-on, old school, manual arts type person.

this said, I was recently shown this amazing metalsmithing tool - the imakejewelry app for the iphone (or ipod touch), by incredible jewelery artist Victoria Lansford.

I would usually scoff at some techie thing like this... but this is AN AMAZING BENCH TOOL. every imaginable gauge, weight & length conversion, ring sizing by gauge, and all sorts of info on stones... IN YOUR POCKET!

all that and it's under four dollars. worth it's weight in silver.

first frost

sitting on the workbench for a while (too long!) - completed on the first day of winter. amazingness in Dendritic Quartz & a thick sterling silver sheet that I poured, forged & rolled myself! really from scratch & REALLY a labor of love!