Jewelry work in September!

 Rocking my Jewelry studio this week. I had a large list and did not finish it in the limited time I had given myself, but it was better than nothing. I would drop my daughter off at school down the street, have some coffee with my dad, go for a run and then have 2-3 hours left to get some work done before my daughter got out at 12. I was really enjoying it though. I really miss making jewelry sometimes. It did not feel at all like work, except when my fingers hurt.

These are the links being made for my silver, textured link bracelets. By the end of this process I feel very intimate with every individual link. I bend the wire into loop, solder, stretch to be oval, hammer flat, hammer a pattern on both sides, chemically color and them tumble to polish. So much work goes into these. I love mine, I wear it every day and even shower in it. The one I am wearing is over 5 years old and showing very little wear.

 These are the beginnings of my square wire rings. They seem to be a favorite at the Art Hus. I get a lot of requests, but these suckers are so hard to size. There is a mathematical formula, but it does not account for the hammering and texturing, so they are very hard to make for custom orders.

These will end up being my rustic heart pendants, similar to the one I wear. I did not finish them, so I do not know when I will get back to them. I sure hope to get these 3 done before the Queen of Arts show at the Elverhoj Museum, but no guarantees.

 More work on the square wire rings. Here they are getting soldered and then reshaped and later textured on the mandrel. I need to prepare some of them for a bezel, antique them and polish before they are ready.

These are some of the stamps that I use to texture my work. These are my favorites. I actually made these myself when I was in college from cement nails and iron horseshoe nails. I hope to make more some day, but these have really held up through the years. I am very proud of them.

This was August

 August was quite busy. It was a countdown until my daughter's first day of Kindergarten,  trip to the Sketchbook Project, some round robin journal fun, a little bit of work, a sketch day with my daughter and dad, some pen pal letters sent and my first "real" official run.

 This is the mobile library of the Sketchbook Project. My mom has a book in hear. I had no idea it was coming to Santa Barbara for 2 days! I got off work early and gave myself an hour to indulge in all the awesome books. I checked out around 10 journals and enjoyed most of them a lot. Lots of fun and inspiration. I bought a blank one to take home, fill up and send out. I am excited at the thought of checking it out next year. I better get to work on that soon, It is due in January.

 Here is my first entry in someone else's journal. I had some fun with this one. I like the way it came out. I am very excited to see this round robin every month and to see what all the other artists are doing. The best part will be getting my 2 journals I made back and seeing all the awesome artwork I get to keep!!

My daughter is growing so fast. It was nice to have her at our sketch day this month. She did one sketch in my journal and then collected a bunch of tiny white flowers to decorate my book.

 Finally made a new stamp for my new tags to replace my too large, old ones at the Art Hus. Now I just need to find time to get in there and retag all my stuff :P

 I love it when I find time to send out mail to my 5 pen pals! I have always loved to write letters and then have a bunch of fun making them a bit artsy. I had hoped to get these out every month, but I am not quite hitting that. I think I am at every month and a half or two.

My big personal news is that I signed up and finished a "5K" race. It was Run or Dye. My whole work was going to come out, but it did not really work out like that. I had been trying to hit 3 miles for around a year and was so stoaked to think I was going to finally do it! I am very proud that I finished, but my running app said it was only 2.75 miles. It was fun to be bombarded with color and have my daughter there to cheer me on. I am sure this will not be my last, but don't expect me to be running a 10k or marathon any time soon :)