August 2012

Hello and happy August 11 to you all.

This month has been filled with family visits, eating out at resturaunts,and of course, working on my jewelry creations.

I have been busy with some copper bracelets and enjoying my handiwork.

I have some items in the tumbler now.  One I forgot to tumble before I did the patina, so I will be interested in how it holds up after 8 hours.  If it needs it, I will just redo.  No big problem.

So what new techniques am I learning....I have been doing some work with Conchos and trying to figure out what to do with the centers.  Here are a couple of photos of what I have come up with....

This bracelet sold as soon as i posted it and then I got a special order for a similar one.  wahoo.

I have a couple more but apparently I have not taken photos of them yet.  hmmmm.  Later today I will.

I made a couple really cute necklaces as well.....

This one I made as part of a hardware item challenge.  The round links are Shark pex crimp tubes,  I cleaned them, then gave a nice patina, wire wrapped them together and addded a few beads and a copper chain.  Made a great necklace. 

It was a great challenge. 

Here is another one I made this month....

Ohhh La La.  Gorgeous transparent red hearts, gold color wire, double looped and wrapped.    One of my favorites. 

I dont want to show you everything here, so come to my website...
The Jewelry Lady

Thanks.

Jan

July 26, 2012

This month has been a great one, except I was dissappointed that my son and family were not able to come up to help us celebrate Independance day.  We were really looking forward to seeing them. 

Hubbies family was able to make it tho and as usual we had a great time.  I did manage to get several new jewelry items made, sold quite a few and all in all it was a good month.

I have a new facebook challenge group I started last month and this months challenge was rings.  I tried several new styles and i think they turned out great.

This one was multiple wraps around the mandrel.  turned out pretty nice i think

This one was 2 wires with a third wire woven back and forth and a pearl added in.  love this one. 

Another one with a woven third wire.  This one sold off my finger.  The stone is Brazillian Jade

This one could easily become my favorite ring to wear.  it is very smooth and elegant looking. 

The challenges are great fun.  I am really enjoying them.

Check back soon to see lots more stuff.

So far our summer has been wonderful. 

We took off in the travel trailer the first week of June and  headed down to Illinois.  We stayed at a really nice campground....http://hitidecampground.com/  for a week.  We were backed up right on the creek. 

I took jewelry projects to work on, but did not even open the bag I had them in.

Our oldest granddaughter graduated from 8th grade this year and they had a great party for her.  Lots of relatives and classmates came.  We had a really nice time visiting with everyone.

I learned how to make chalk with the 2 youngest grandkids.  Messy but fun. 

But back to the jewelry end of this....

I started up a new page on Facebook for some fun projects/challenges to get us out of the rut and make us think out of the box. Our first challenge is just finishing up...making jewelry out of hardware store finds.....and I must say, we all came up with some great ideas. 

Here is the link for that page....Smokin Hot Jewelry Monthy Challenge Group

Here is a photo of one of the items I created....

I have also gotten involved with a few of my jewelry making friends on a new venture for a web site to sell our items on,   I should have more info on that as it evolves.  In the meantime we have made a facebook page for that called "the wired stone"...here is a link for that page.  http://www.facebook.com/TheWiredStone

Some very creative people here.  To see my creations on that page, go to photos and click on my album....here is the link....Artisan Jan Garbacz Photo Album


That is all the news for June.  Thanks for stopping by. 

Just Chit Chat

One off my latest creations. 

Hello, It has been a while since I have blogged.  I had a lot of family health issues this past winter which took me away from home for several months to help out.  Who had time for blogging!!

After I got home,  I had a lot of foot issues,  which also was bothering me while at moms, and ended up discovering i had tons of torn cartilage in my ankle, and now I am 3 weeks out of surgery. 

Still painful to walk on but better for sure. 

In the meantime a new owner took over the flower and gift shop in town,  She loves my Jewelry and now has a lot of items in her shop for sale.  I made quite a few pearl pieces for her brides and mother of the brides, and yesterday picked up even more pearls. 

I have been running a sweepstake on my facebook page and have had 2 winners so far. 

I am charging shipping on the items, and one was a credit of which the winner spent more so that was great, and I have gotten about 100 new likes on my page.  Potential new customers.  Gotta love that.

Have a great day and keep smilin.  Makes people wonder......www.thejewelrylady.org

How I made a hand forged copper bracelet.



This is what my copper jewelry starts out like.  A flat piece of 24 gauge sheet metal.  The steel block you see is  a cutting tool.  Place the selected size over the metal, and hit repeatedly with hammer onto the cuttng thing..  I am sure it has a name, I just cant think of it. lol.  This will make a nice round disc.





After much work, this is the final piece.  The long piece of copper was made from water line tubing, which I hammered until it was flat,  then I took the flex shaft tool with a sanding drum on it, and sanded down the ends and rounded the corners, and sanded the front and back as well to give it a brushed look.  Then I took the texturing hammer and beat it till it was the way  I wanted.  Then took a small piece of fine grait sand paper and looked for any rough raised edges.  OHHHH, before i sanded anything, I drilled holes in the end.

The Disks were hand sanded to remove any rough edges from the cutter.  Then drilled, (i plan on getting some metal punches very soon), then re sanded.  Yes, i should have drilled before sanding in the first place.  Lesson learned.

After sanding I got out my texturing hammer and hammered till they looked the way i wanted.  Then got out my wooded dapping block, dapping tool and hammerd till they were shaped the way I wanted. 

Then I laid out the pieces, Determined the length I wanted and used hand make copper wire jump rings to attach them together. I made a rustic looking squareish hoop, textured with hammere, and a great open spiral hook, again texturing.  and making sure there were no sharp edges anywhere.

I had spent quite a bit of time trying to do some engraving of names on pieces before doing this and I could not get it right.  The plan was to have someones name engraved on the center with a grandchild name on either side on the first disks.  I am dissapointed that I could not get it right.  But I will keep practicing and eventually it will look good and not amauterish.

Thanks for reading my blog.  Have a great day, and Keep on Creating. 

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