The Self Image

I have been in an altered book swap with some friends of mine, but the going has been slow, so I decided to start my own book. It's hard to get any instant satisfaction when your book is traveling across the country in a zig zag.

This book is one that I started myself for no reason other than boredom and the need to alter a book.

I found this great self help book at the antique store, it was only one dollar and the chapter titles are worth three times that price. I tried to use the book's own words to tell a story. These are the first spreads in the book, but is is far from done.

Flower Necklace

Today was the last class, I am sad.
I made some more of the hammered soldered rings to finish my necklace, and then attached the whole thing together with oval jumprings. I made a simple toggle for the clasp.




I found out today that we have access to the workshop for the entire day next saturday. I am very pleased about that.

I bought some gorgeous labradorite beads today with my christmas gift certificate. I can't believe it took me so long to use it.

Bezel set ring

I am late in posting this week.
On Saturday, we had bezel setting demos.
I decided I had to try it while the information was fresh in my thoughts. So, instead of finishing the flower necklace, I made this ring. I will finish the necklace this week.
This stone is an intersting combination of turquoise and I think green aventurine and amethyst. Feel free to correct me, as my guess is uneducated, I made this determination purely from the colors and texture of the stone.
I really want to join my local rock hound club...if there is such a thing.

I cut the shank out of 18ga silver sheet and sweat soldered it to my bezel which I made from 1/8in bezel wire and 24ga sheet for the bottom.
My last soldering, which was easy solder, seemed to make the solder joint on the bezel recede (I knew this could happen, but this was my first experience with it). I used hard solder on the bezel wire and medium solder to attach it to the base, then easy solder to attach the shank to the box bezel.

I worked on this ring for 4 1/2 hours and the stone is still loose. I really wanted to get it secure, but I was running out of time, and I don't have a bezel pusher at home. Maybe I can find something around the house that will do the trick.
I wore this ring all saturday night and all day sunday, and the stone is still in, just loose.

Tube setting finally

Before I started to drill and set my stones into the flowers, I made a practice pendant. I worked so long already on the flowers that screwing them up in this final process would have been devastating to me.
This is a topaz of some sort, 6mm stone and one of the rings I had previously made. I soldered the tube setting to a back piece, and sawed and filed for a smooth finish. I soldered the filed tube setting to the inside of the ring. Then I sucessfully set the stone! YAY!

I really like this little pendant, I think I will just string it on a chain right through the ring.

I drilled out the middle of the flower with a burr bit, which proved to be quite a challenge. The soldered wire behaves nothing like sheet, that's for sure. Then I filed inside the hole until the tube fit into it snuggly on all joints. I soldered the tubes in place, and then off I was to the drill press.

Burring out the center of the tube is very picky, too. I started with smaller burr bits than I needed and worked my way to a larger size three times. It is easy to overdo it.

You can see in the close up that I could have done a neater job, but it was harder than I thought.

Next week we will do bezel setting.

My page in Cammy's book

Cammy was the first to work on my book, and now I finally worked on hers.
I did a spread in Cammy's book.
I hope she likes it.
It doesn't make much sense, but it was really fun to do.

My page in Leah's book

It has been a very long time since I received a book to work on. Last friday I got two in the mail.
This is Leah's book.
I call this 'Leah and her Ladybugs'.