Stones, Gems, Cabochons!

I'm sitting here listening to the birds chirp in between the quiet thunder.  So relaxing and inspirational!  Something about interesting weather that gets the creativity flowing. :-)

Anyhoo, I wanted to share the final products of my resin experiment.  I learned that you can't stir the mixture too quickly or you will get air bubbles.  Well crap, but for a first try I think they were successful.  A few took longer than 24 hours to dry, but overall not too shabby.

 

I made a few others in heart shapes that I didn't want to keep, so I gave them to a friend in jewelry class for her daughter.  These are probably more than I will use anyway since my class is ending in a month and I have way too many new ideas. 

 

 The medical illustrator in me just HAD to make an eyeball with the clear resin!  I couldn't resist!  So technically I did not do this correctly since the eyeball image is not embedded in the resin....i printed it later and placed it behind the resin, but it will work.  I plan to make it into a simple ring.   Not quite as realistic as the acrylic eye I made in anaplastology class!

I am also trying to finish up a mother's day pendant for my mom. She picked out the stone the last time she visited Chicago, and I unfortunately can't remember what it is!  But I wanted to create a unique design for her and try something new. So I took silver wire and used it as a border around the hand-forged copper as well as used it for connections to the chain.  I still have to set the stone and will hopefully finish this next week.

Also, yesterday a jewelry classmate and I hopped on the CTA and ventured to Rosemont for the International Gem and Jewelry Show.  It was a massive display of beads, gems, stones, findings, wire--a beginning jeweler's dream!! Nearly overwhelming, but luckily I came with a budget!  I wasn't really sure what I was looking for, but if something spoke to me, then it went home with me :-)

 These were in the $1 bins and I was super excited!  I can make rings or pendants out of them! I've noticed that I am drawn to earthy and organic cabochons rather than sparkly ones.  I did choose one (the purple one at the top) that is more like a crystal, just for variety.

 These are my FAVORITE!  The greenish ones are Red Creek Jasper but the other one is unknown.  I just LOVE them!! I think I will make earrings and a matching ring from the Red Creek Jasper and perhaps a pendant from the other one.  Copper looks good with both of them, but I might use silver on the orange/white one to make it stand out more. 

So many new projects to finish before class is over!  Time to get into the open studio at night and on weekends!  This is my sanity's saving grace since I am working overtime for work as well.  And as I said before, rainy days are PERFECT for productivity and creativity!! 

The Pinterest Challenge!

I've seen this around the interwebs (mainly here and here) and have been meaning to share my Pinterest Projects with you all as well! Choose a pin or repin from one of your boards and CREATE it! Then document or blog about it, and (if you wanna be like me) pin your creation! Simple as that! And seriously, who doesn't like a challenge!? So, for all of you who are as horribly addicted to Pinterest as I am, let's conquer this challenge together!

One of my very first pins was of a mason jar turned soap dispenser. I fell in LOVE with this! So, when I went back home for a canning weekend with my grandmother, I stuck a few of her super old canning jars in my suitcase! A couple days later....ta da!



A few weeks later we were invited to a 30th birthday party extravaganza! I immediately remembered a fun gift that I had pinned earlier and knew I had to create it. Of course I put my own spin on it and added a classy bottle of scotch and some cigars (hidden in the back). :-) Next time I promise to take a few in-process photos so you can see how I did it....it involved a LOT of hot glue.



Well, my fellow Pinterest-ers, the challenge is upon us! I will be going through my pins and picking a few more to bring to fruition. Boom!

My LillStreet Adventure

I recently found out about the LillStreet Art Center in Chicago, and it happens to be only a few train stops from my apartment! This is GREAT for my creative impulses, but SAD for my pocketbook as I am pretty sure I am going to take up residence in that place!

The first event I took part in was the One Million Bones project that I talked about in a previous post. I ended up bringing a stack of anatomy books and spent the afternoon sculpting bones out of clay! It was fabulous!

The table was starting to fill up! They had a weekend goal of 400 bones.

Yep, someone even created some fuzzy bones to donate to the cause! Love it!

The only restriction we had was that bones could not weigh more than 3 pounds. Otherwise bones could be anatomically correct or left to the creative mind. I sculpted a vertebra that ended up with a rather long spinous process by the end! And I also sculpted the ear ossicles, in a much larger scale of course!

My vertebra with a well-endowed spinous process!

Larger-than Life ear ossicles!

I kinda rushed these ossicles at the end, but I think they turned out alright considering my lack of clay knowledge. I guess this means I will have to take a clay sculpting or pottery (or both!) class at LillStreet next session!

I actually just started a jewely/metalsmithing class at LillStreet. They are 3 hour classes once a week for 5 weeks. Last week was our first class and already I'm loving it! We learned the basics of sawing, filing and texturing metal. Here's my first creation!

Anatomical Heart pendant. Not to shabby for a first-timer!

I knew I missed the classroom atmosphere, but wasn't sure if more student loan debt another degree was in my future. This definitely feeds my creative hunger! Love to Lillstreet!!