Goings on - In the Studio and Out

My blog posts have been a little erratic lately - have you noticed?  I haven't been spending as much time in the studio as I would have liked.  This is always a busy time of year with the end of school.  It means shortened days (yesterday was the last), numerous commitments, endless carpooling, and too many appointments that I care to even think about.  And then I recently opened a new shop.  I've separated my jewelry under a different shop name - "StudioNaftali".   As I mentioned before, I'm looking to add more metal to my work.  When I initially started working in metal, I was doing sterling wire beaded bracelets which was a technique taught by Lynne Merchant (which would work wonderful with polymer by the way) and made very popular by Connie Fox.  I had never put them for sale in my Etsy bead shop and have now put a few in this shop.  I mean, do they really need to be kept in my studio closet?  I almost forgot all about them.  Crazy!  Their prices are really wonderful considering the silver market, design time, and work involved. 

Here's a couple pairs of newer earrings I added to the shop.  They are made with copper discs.  One is etched and the other has a textured sterling disc. 

They both are patinaed  Many moons ago, I bought a bunch of patinas from http://www.sculptnouveau.com/ with intentions of using it as another way to add color to my metal.  Just another one of those things I hadn't gotten to.  When I saw Missflickermedia's tutorial on patinas a while back I figured I would purchase it when I had some time to experiment.  Lo and behold, I finally got around to it and thought she did a great job.  It sent me back in motion.  I'm adding base metals as a way to balance the cost of materials.  Besides, the patinas can really add some nice color to these metals.   But that's all going to have to wait a few weeks because I'm going on vacation.   I'll be out of town for 16 days and will be closing my shops on June 28th and re-opening them up on July 14th.  Lily, myself, my mother-in-law and my sister-in-law will be going to Israel together.  We're all pretty excited as this will be the first time for three of us. 

And who would ever think that I'd be getting in touch with my my BAO teammate Triz for a shopping date?  Another one of my favorite stones is a Chrysocolla.  And when you have Chrysocolla mixed with malachite and turquoise, it's known as the Eilat (Israel) stone as this is where it is mined.  So, I'm meeting up with Triz to go shopping for Eilat stones in Tel-Aviv - as long as all the stars and planets are aligned. 

Below is a necklace which I set my first stone in a bezel.  It was a Chrysocolla. 

Oh yeah, and then to our surprise, we received 4 tickets to the Jimmy Buffet concert.  This was our 25th year and we thought for sure we'd be missing it as we didn't receive the tickets until 4 days before the concert.  For a number of years we've been renting an RV and taking anywhere from 10 - 12 of us. So this was the year of downsizing.  It was kind of like a flashback as that's how it all began - two friends from CT, myself and Mark.

And finally, every few weeks we have a color challenge with the BAO team.  So every chance I get to experiment, and it's usually for this challenge, I experiment with patterns.  I almost started to write the directions down for one of the patterns when it dawned on me to pick up my camera.  I've done this for tutorials, but NEVER for myself!  So now, when I'm in the process of discovery, I pick up the camera, and shoot.  And as they say, a picture's worth a thousand words.  SO MUCH EASIER!  So now I've started some folders of just pattern development.   Every now and then I poke my head out of the cave and say "huh"?  Have a great weekend!