I can not believe that almost a week has gone by since my last post.  Last Saturday I did find and bring home quite a bit of petrified wood.  I have been so busy re-doing some jewelry that I haven't even taken a good look at the wood.  Tomorrow it is off to Santa Fe again to close on some property.  A move to Santa Fe is in the future hopefully sooner rather than later.  I'm posting pics of the jewelry that I modified to use a different type of closure.  Seems that people want an adjustable closure, so I added a lobster clasp and some extender chain as opposed to my hand-crafted toggle clasps.  These pictures were made before I changed out the clasps.

You can probably tell that I am partial to lapis.  I love its deep blue color.

I also love this beautiful pistachio green jasper.  I found this at Quartzsite, AZ a couple of years ago and bought all that I could find.  I had never seen any stone like it before and haven't seen any since.

And, of course, turquoise. 

I plan to work in the studio next week.  I want to work on some new designs, but have several rings to make for a gallery in Texas.  That takes precedence.

Petrified wood hunt.

I'm going to a ranch today a little south of Santa Fe, NM to look for petrified wood.  Hope I can find some pieces that are jewelry making quality!

I have been making earrings the last couple of days.  I made the bezel mountings for the two Cherry Creek Jasper earrings a year ago and then never finished the rest of the earring.  I really like the colors in the stones.  They look like little abstract painting to me.  One of my friends said they remind her of some of Joan Miro's paintings.

The other earrings I made are one of my most popular pair of earrings.  They are mixed metal of Argentium silver, copper and brass.  The shapes are domed using a 20-ton hydraulic press.  Because I make so many of these, I had a cutting die made that uses the press to cut out the domed shape.  That saves me a lot of time since I no longer have to saw out each individual shape.  They still need filing and sanding, but that isn't too bad.  The name of the company that makes my cutting dies is Sheltech.

 I designed a new pair of earrings a few days ago.  I may start working on those tomorrow if not tonight!

Went into my studio to work today and couldn't find the piece on my workbench that I was last working on.  Took a look in the pickle crock pot and there it was, but instead of being shiny silver, it was gunmetal black!  There was no other metal in the pot, so I could not understand how that could have happened.  Deciding that something had contaminated the pickle, I picked up the ceramic part of the pot to dump into my used pickle jar and discovered that the metal part of the pot was all rusty and corroded inside!  How that happened, I don't know.  The ceramic part didn't appear to have a crack in it.  At some point though, water or pickle water got into the metal part of the crock pot.  The pickle in the ceramic part of the pot looked very clear and clean.  So I'm still not sure how it was contaminating the silver in the ceramic pot unless it was via condensation on the lid leaching somehow into the pickle.

It's a mystery and my jewelry piece that I had accidentally left in the pickle all night was ruined.  Needless to say, I'm purchasing a new crock pot tomorrow and starting over.  This time I will keep checking the metal part of the pot for problems.

Has anyone else experienced a similar situation with their pickle pot?  

After traveling around for a good part of April and playing catch-up upon returning, I have not been able to spend much time in my studio.  I have several items in progress though and thought I would post one of my stone heart charms.  The charm is a rhodochrosite heart set in Argentium sterling silver.  It has a swivel lobster clap at the top of the charm so it can be switched around to whatever you might want to wear it with--a bracelet, zipper pull, purse charm, pendant--you decide!

You can purchase this and other jewelry pieces of mine on Etsy.  My Etsy store, TexturedMetalDesigns

I just purchased Bill Fretz's DVDs on "Forming Hollow Rings".  I had not made rings in a quite awhile, but had a desire to make myself some attractive, casual rings that I could wear every day.  

I have been fortunate to take one of Bill Fretz's classes in person on "Basic Jewelry Hammering and Forming" at Rio Grande Jewelry in Albuquerque, NM.  So I thought I would try the ring DVD.  It's a great instructional DVD.  As a result, I have made 3 rings beginning with the spinner ring that I posted earlier.  The next two rings I made were take offs from the spinner ring.  I thought the same type of ring would look great with stones on them instead of a spinner. 

This is a flared, wide band, textured ring with a 4mm Rhodolite stone.

 This ring features an Ant Hill Garnet.  Do you know why it is called ant hill garnet?  Ants actually mine these rings.  They bring the rough garnets up from below the ground and deposit the stones in the ant hill when they are building or repairing their home.  These garnets come from the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.  They are a gorgeous deep red.

 

Sterling Silver and 14K Gold Spinner Ring

I have been making more rings.  Yesterday I made an Argentium sterling silver ring with a 14K gold spinner.  This ring is known as a spinner ring.  I textured and oxidized the wide band.  The ends of the ring are flared with a dapping punch to keep the spinner from falling off.  I enjoyed making this ring and intend to make more of these in the future.

Reticulated Silver

I love textured metal and almost always use texture in at least some of the metal I use for a jewelry piece.   Reticulated metal is one of my favorites to use for that organic look.  It reminds me of tree bark or of the mountains and valleys where I live when the sun casts shadows on them.  Oxidizing reticulated metal and dressing it up with a spot of 22K gold makes an eye-catching pendant as seen in this pendant/necklace I just finished.  

Harold O'Conner, of Salida, CO, is a master of reticulation and granulation.  I was fortunate to be able to take a workshop with Harold a few years ago in Taos, NM.  Reticulating silver is definitely an art in itself.

Fusing with Argentium Sterling Silver

One of my goals this spring is to practice fusing on Argentium sterling silver, with special attention on granulation.  After reviewing Ronda Coryell's 4 set DVD on Argentium, I decided to give it a go.  Making and fusing the three 12 gauge round wire rings together went rather well.  Applying granulation to the fused ring was a little more challenging.  The idea is to apply the granules with flux a few at a time, letting the flux dry before attempting to add more granules.  A heat lamp speeds up this process.  After 4 attempts, I was finally able to get all the granules fused to the ring.