Forest Life pendant with sugilite and Amethyst

This pendant was made for my forest life series. I used a heavily hammer textured piece of silver for the backing. It reminded me of a leaf that had been on the ground for some time. I forged a silver wire into the shape of a curling vine. The round amethyst at the bottom to finish and give the eye a resting and a way to keep from going off the design.

Setting the big stone

Elks Teeth Jewelry

This project stated when  customer came to me with these elks teeth. Souvenirs from a hunting trip. The idea is to make a pendant and a pair of earrings 

These are the natural teeth as I received them

I reshaped them and sanded the bottoms flat in preparation of setting them.

Here the wax models are ready to cast.  The teeth can't be heated up so they have to be removed from the wax for the next step

The wax has been transformed into silver and the and the teeth are being adjusted to get the fit back in the cup.

The finished product. . If you have an idea for a project contact me here

Building a setting

This project started out with a customer bringing me a Marquise shaped Stone. and a sketch.The stone was a shape and size then I couldn't buy a setting for so I decided to make one

I used a soft fire brick as my soldering pad and this allowed me to push the wire prongs into the pad and hold them in place in little notches I filed to hold them

After those were soldered I pulled it out of the brick and soldered on the bottom frame.  Unfortunately I don't have a picture of that, but you can see it in the next picture sitting on the solder pad. At this point I still have the prongs sticking down so I pressed them back into the fire brick to allighn it for the next solder joint.

I forged out the wings and added them to the setting.

At this point I pre finished the entire piece before setting the stone so I could get to the hard to reach places and not worry about the stone.

 The finished piece.  This was a custom made piece so it's not available for purchase.

This is one of the peices I've been working on that includes stones that I bought from a fellow artist at a "swap meet / flea market" for artists and art supplies. It was a fun day and I came away with a bunch of stones, some of which I don't even know what they are.  However I do know what this one is.  It's Charoite.  It comes from one place in Russia.

"It is a fairly recent discovery found in Russia in 1978 in the Murun mountains in Yakutia, near the Charo River. This is the only known location for this rare mineral. It ranges in color from a light lilac to a deep purple and can be mottled with gray, white and black inclusions. The chatoyant variety in a bright deep purple, is usually considered more valuable than the non-chatoyant variety although both are used in jewelry and compliment a number of other stones." from bernardine

 This is the domed side of a

 a 2 sided pendant

This big pendant is back set meaning the bezel was folded over the stone from the back and the "seat" that the flat side of the stone would sit on is now on the front   This makes this piece wearable either way

new display

As it turns out I'm not totally happy with the new display.  The bar for hanging earrings doesn't really function as hoped and I'm thinking of changing it again so I can include more earrings. 

Lariat project

This project was designed for a customer. He came to me with the idea for a lariat with a rounded triangle at the top and a stone at the other end of the chain. We worked together ,back and forth, to come up with the final design. Some of my students want to try something like this so I'm showing the steps. If there are questions, leave them as comments or as email

The first steps in this piece are not shown.  I used square cross section wire and used a file to make notches and bends where the corners are.  Then I could solder the corners without having to line then up. Only one join needed lining up.  I also soldered a 16 ga ring on the bottom of the bezel cup to allow for more soldering area . It gave me a place to put the edge of the frame. notice the chunk of pad holding up the frame while I solder it in possiton.

Holding it in a 3rd hand tool resting on the solder pad to steady the position.  (white paper for photo only, obviously, you can't have paper on the solder bench) 

I filed a small flat spot on top of the frame to give the top ring a place to attach. The ring itself is flattened on the bottom.  Easy solder is pre flowed on the ring.  Heat is appied to the frame and the ring brought in as the frame reaches temp.

For some reason the program wont let me write below the above picture.  The picture shows how I hold the jump ring that attaches the top ring to the chain for soldering.  The finished piece with a sardonix bead and set moonstone

Custom Pendant

This was an interesting job. A friend had this bottle cap as a keep sake from a trip to Japan. One of her favorite beers discovered on a brewery tour. She wanted to make it into a pendant


I cut the rim off. I had to do it in 2 stages to get the right height but that turned out to be a good thing because I made earrings out of the rims. I made a silver bezel cup to fit and covered it with plexi to protect the cap and set it in the bezel

She loved it

Painting pins

This bad shot is of 3 painting pins. This is about all I have left from this series of pin pendants. The center one is of bronze and the acrylic painting is set behind polycarbonate and set like a stone with silver bezel. The sticks are also silver. The one on the right is a print of a watercolor I did of a swimming pool It's coated with acrylic and set from behind in a copper frame. The left on is also a print and set from behind in a silver frame. The top picture shows some paintings that have yet to be used, waiting patiently to be cropped and prepared for the next series to begin.

Beach Glass custom job

A customer brought me this piece of glass to make a necklace.  It has an open back to let the light thru

New Copper Necklaces

This is a group shot of a few of the new copper necklaces. I'm putting everything on leather now and offering the chains as a separate sale. I've had great response to this idea. This series of pendants and earings is colored with patinas and heat and coated with acrylics. The color in Photoshop is blue green, in this post it's green so I don't know what your seeing but the actual color is greenish blue turquoise to sky blue. The red copper is showing red magenta and actually it's more red orange. If interested I can do better with individual shots of pieces you might be interested in. This is just a sampling of some of the new designs.

From the bench

Here's one for the techies that like to see the process. This is a shot of my bench after 2 or 3 casting sessions. These are all silver except for the gold hearts in the upper left corner. They are still attached to the sprus and casting button. All the others have been cut off but nothing else has been done. This is what sterling silver looks like after casting. Now the fun begins. Figuring out what to do with it all I have a few ideas. But first it's grinding, sanding soldering on parts buffing and tumbling for a high polish finish. Antiquing (oxidizing) for contrast. Most of these pieces will be used in combination with other castings, stones or beads for color. The little gold hearts will be soldered onto the cross. These are part of my hearts line and part of a wholesale order. The trees will get finished and put on chains. There are a couple of leaves in there that will get the same treatment. Just a nice simple statement about nature and the beauty of curved line. Everything else is up for further design. The branches are molded from actual sticks that were drift wood found on the beaches of the north fork of Long Island. The texture will pop out with finishing. The leaves are all one of a kind as is the rose. Not sure what I'm going to do with the rose. Any ideas? Stay tuned to see what comes out. It looks like a mess now but some beautiful jewelry will emerge after I wave my magic wand over it.

Here a some new shell pendants. These are cast in solid silver and come with a chain. These, are made from molds of shells I found on beaches in Florida as are all my cast shells.

This is called a "baby's ear" shell

This is the top of a conch

Here is a pendant I made as a demo for my "open back and odd shapes" pendant class. This is a moon shell I found over New Years on the beach in So. Carolina. I ground it down on the back until it was flat and made the bezel and added the wire. It's also a demo for the "Bails" class to show creative ways to attach chains.

New Ideas

These 3 new pieces are demos for a new class on what to do with your scrap. It's a combination of melting and fabriating using found metal and scrapes

A few years ago I get interested in making a series of these painting pendants / pins. Every series seems to be inspired by the paintings and by the desire to try new way of making them. This time is probably the 4th or 5th series and I'm using epoxy as a way to cover and protect the image. The images are actual, one of a kind, original , miniature paintings in watercolor, watercolor pencil and gauche. I really like the addition of bronze to this series.as well. It works with the colors of the paintings and has an arty quality about it. Bronze has been used in art for centuries and I've been using it for my fish buckles for not quite that long. pieces are priced without chain.












#238
This is one of the smaller ones from this series. This painting is pretty subtle and almost abstract. Pinks , yellows and blues. The frame is silver with a bronze backing and a silver bail. I used some green patina on this one and it nearly matches the color of the bottom of the painting which you can't really see in this shot. this pendant is about the size of a reading glass lens regular price 65.00 special blogger price 45.00






#234
This one is a little different. This is more like the style of pendant I made in the last series. It's still one of my favorite ways to do these. The frame is silver and the backing is copper that I heat treated to get a red enamel like finish, however there is no paint or enamel on the copper. It's held together with little brass bolt/rivets

The painting is a small abstract color field of clouds, island, water. It is not covered with epoxy but is coated with several layers of acrylic medium and varnish to protect it. The silver frame stands up above the picture with give more protection. This would fit on half of credit card
reg. price 120. blog price 100.00




#242
This is the most elaborate and biggest one I did in this series. The leaf is cast in silver. The frame is made of bronze with silver branches and leaf. The branches and backing are hammer textured. The painting in this pin /pendant was mostly done with watercolor pencil. I re-worked the clouds with white gauche back at the studio. It's hard to see the subtle colors in these photos because there is a fairly think coating of clear epoxy over the image interferes with the lighting. However you can see some of the pinks in the clouds. There are many layers of color.
I wanted to do some metal work on this painting and not just a simple frame. Even though this is a totally made up scene, it has a nice narrative. I haven't really titled these but if I did this one would be " It's Only May and I'm Thinking of the Tetons Already".
It is probably 2 inches wide and 3 inches high. It would fit comfortably on a credit card. ( in more ways than one). The colors at the bottom in the tree line has more greens and yellows with a gray/violet mountain in the background. reg price 145.00 blog price 125.00



#243
This was the first one I did in this new series. It has an all silver frame with a pin back and pendant bail. The painting in this pin /pendant was mostly done while in my booth at the Cedar Key show. So it's an open air painting but of a totaly imagined scene. I started it with watercolor pencil and re-worked the clouds alittle with white gauche back at the studio. Again, it's hard to see the subtle colors in these photos because of the coating of epoxy. There are many layers of color with some pinks and violets in the clouds. This one is a bit bigger than a match book. About the size of box of dental floss . reg. price 95.00 blog price 75.00






This is a shot of the parts before building the pendants. The painting in the background is the one used in the piece above. Lot's of cropping and adjusting the composition goes into deciding what the shape of the frame is going to be. I like to use the rounded, asymmetric rectangles but I decided to try some regular ovals on this series . Just to keep it simple and focus on the painting instead of the metal work .
















#239
I can't resist making these weird shapes. Many more light greens in the grassy area and light yellows in the tree tops and nice pink on the left that don't show well in the picture. This one is in a bronze frame with a copper back. A little smaller than half a business card.
reg price 65.00 blog price 45.00













#241
This is a nice little painting in a simple bronze frame. About the size of half a business card. reg price 65.00 blog price 45.00





#240
Here is another one where I got into the metal work a bit more, adding forged silver elements around the bronze frame. Once again , you can't see the subtle colors in the clouds I think because of the epoxy resin. It's just hard to get good lighting with out reflections off the high shine of the coating. This is one of my favorites. I love to paint clouds and stormy weather. Throw in the ocean and it's perfect! About the size of half a credit card. sold