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Happy Valentine’s Day from Alone Star Jewelry
Working with Cold Connections Well here we are in a brand new year! It’s hard to believe that Christmas went by so fast and Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! I must admit that I’ve had a harder time this year getting back into the swing of things after the holidays. It would seem that I didn’t get enough R&R time or maybe I realize the importance of having time to yourself to just piddle around or sneak in some more quality time with your family. It always goes by much too fast! But, having said that, it is the new year so move forward we must. I’ve never been good at forcing myself to sit down and…
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Leaf Drop Earrings
As promised earlier, here is a picture of the shorter Leaf Drop earrings, made from a bronze leaf disk that was formed from my own design mold. We sold several pair of the longer version at the recent Galveston show, but many asked about making them shorter, so here is what that looks like. My mother-in-law, at about 5′ in height, never wears earrings that dip even 1/2-inch below her lobe! Lisa will make one of her professional-looking shots very soon and these will be placed on the site aside the long version, seen below. The wire is sterling, as is the connecting bead and earwire. Here is another something…
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Settling down in 2K10
Yes, the Longhorn game is behind us, the Christmas decor is packed away and routine is slowly reasserting itself. Last night I got my workroom organized once again so that the drawings in my sketchbook have a chance to morph into the real thing. This year I will continue making earrings, seemingly my favorite item, but will push into making rings. Rings have been on the back burner for a long while and it’s time to try my hand at them. I had not made a new necklace in a while until coming up with this new one, seen above: Lisa is photographing it to put on the site but…
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Welcome to the New Year!
We would like to wish everyone a happy new year! It is my warmest wish that 2010 be a good year for us all. I’m not here to talk about resolutions because I haven’t made any and I’m not a fan anyway. They tend to make me stress and feel guilty for not following through on them all. I would prefer to say that I will strive to be a better person and work hard at whatever I may do this year. Shauna and I are both working on new designs and I wish I had something to show you today but the sketches are too rough at this point…
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Here Comes Santa Claus!
Christmas will soon be upon us and as we hurry to ready ourselves for this glorious day, we should all take a moment to remember our brave troops who are abroad and unable to celebrate Christmas with their families. May God bless them one and all. Another thing we should all do this Christmas season is to remember to sit back every now and then to catch our breath and enjoy all that is going on around us with our family and friends. We move at too fast a pace in our normal lives and need to make every effort to appreciate what we have and not take our blessings…
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Bronzed
Good evening. I have “finished” these earrings, bronze with chrysoprase and moonstones. They are the bronze domes I showed in a recent post, just fired with the three holes in each. I think these earrings are prettier with all three stones green, but these will stay as they are unless something else occurs to me, which is possible since I am not settled with them. We are going to start making our own earwires, one pair shown with the earrings. We each got a set of cup burs, which work great for quickly filing the ends of the wire for a comfortable fit. Sometimes finishing afterward with a file is…
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Make Your Plans! (The holidays are here!)
I would like to talk about the Mary Queen Christmas Bazaar this evening, because it’s coming up–before we know it–the first weekend in December! This art, craft, and food festival is held annually in Friendswood, and was first suggested to us in 2005 by my sister-in-law. We learned that the bazaar is a juried arts and crafts event with top-quality goods. We got in that year, and plan to continue our annual streak of participation in this “feel-good” event. The bazaar is held in the parish hall–indoors!–so bad weather can’t put a hole in your calendar, so plan to join us December 4th and 5th. Attending the MQCB will light…
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Happy Hallowe’en! & other (technical) topics
Working on a few projects at once, as usual. Keeps it interesting… I have been working with bronze clay over the last few weeks. My first experiences were with domes that fired to about 1.5″ but I had some problems with uneven shrinkage so had to cut them to a smaller diameter. Warping is always a strong possibility, but uneven shrinkage is when the edges of your shape pull in; a circle is no longer a circle, in my case. I have been doing some research which has helped me consider the issues. The following can effect shrinkage:1) thickness–thinner pieces not only warp easily but if pieces have uneventhicknesses, edge…
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All Hallow’s Eve
ArtoberFest 2009, Galveston, Texas Tomorrow is Hallowe’en! It’s always been my second favorite holiday. Mom used to make donuts in our kitchen, and we trick-or-treated faithfully until well into junior high. So now our kids are carrying on the tradition! I will be out contributing, dressed witchly with my pit fire burning, enticing the juicy little ones into the backyard lair…. But that means it’s after Artoberfest ‘way back on the 17th-18th! Seems like months ago by now, but we had a great show and need to thank Galveston! My earlier post explained how much we love going there, and this year was even better since we had the best…
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Ready to show!
The last new pieces have been finished and we are now in our packing mode, getting ready for the trek to ARToberFEST! This pendant is called “Warmth” and features a Rhodolite cab (garnet family) and 24k gold, which was applied using the Keum-boo technique. Read more about the pendant at our site. We hope to see many friends at this show. Please come by if you are out and about this weekend. Hope to see you there!
