BACK AT THE COMPUTER - MORE NEW LISTINGS

I have been busy, busy taking photos and listing products on my Artfire site. Most are new listings, but a few are old listings with updated photos. I still have a long way to go...so may spread it out over a couple of days. Tomorrow I'm off to spend a few days with my sisters and looking forward to some bonding time with them.

HOME SWEET HOME!!! WIRE WRAPPING BOOK HAS ARRIVED!

AFTER SOME DELAYS, WE FINALLY MADE IT HOME. OUR SECOND FLIGHT WAS OVERBOOKED, SO WE SPENT THE NIGHT IN CHARLOTTE! UP AT 4:30 A.M. TO CATCH A 5:30 SHUTTLE TO CATCH AN 8:00 A.M. FLIGHT TO PITTSBURGH. BY THE TIME WE PICKED UP MS. LILY AT THE HOWLAND PET RESORT, IT WAS 12:30 WHEN WE ARRIVED HOME. LILY WAS SO EXCITED WHEN WE PICKED HER UP, AND SYD HAS NOT STOPPED MEOWING SINCE WE ARRIVED HOME. I AM UNPACKED AND EVERYTHING PUT AWAY, AND NOW CAN SIT DOWN TO READ MY NEWLY ARRIVED BOOK BY DALE ARMSTRONG, Wirework: An Illustrated Guide to the Art of Wire Wrapping. Til later. Anita

Playing For Change: Song Around the World "Stand By Me"

I HAD TO SHARE THIS WITH YOU...TURN OFF THE MUSIC AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BLOG AND TURN UP YOUR VOLUME - this is worth hearing...Two young men went around the world getting street singers to all sing the same song, and then they dubbed them all together into one version of that song. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did . http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Us-TVg40ExM&feature=email

Copper/Brass Shamrock Necklace

I've been busy, busy this a.m. I made my jumprings yesterday and cut them, and this morning started putting them together, along with the beads and findings I wired up yesterday. This is what I came up with for my latest shamrock. I plan to wear it next weekend when I do MY FIRST CRAFT SHOW at Yankee Lake in Brookfield, OH! Hope you like it. Anita

A LITTLE IRISH LUCK!

In addition to my earrings, I decided to make myself a little Irish good luck piece. Thus, I created this shamrock to wear for the St. Patrick's holiday.

I'm no artist when it comes to drawing, but this is what I came up. The wire work attached to it was pretty much free-form. I thought the green beads were a nice addition. I need to come up with a necklace to hang it from. Perhaps, just a piece of leath cord would do nicely! Thanks for looking. I will continue working towards improving my skills. Anita

LEARNING TO WORK IN COPPER

I promised myself I would try something new over the winter months, and although it's almost spring now (yippee!), I have begun to work with copper sheet. I love the look of copper, the colors you can achieve, so I purchased a 12x12 piece of copper sheeting, grabbed my scizzors, and cut myself out a square piece of metal. I cut the square in half to make to triangles and flattened and smoothed the edges with my chasing hammer. After this, I used the ball side of the hammer and created some texture interest into the copper by simple pounding. I attached a piece of copper wire at the top and folded the pointed top edge of the copper over the wire and hammered to hold it in place. I used a small file to soften the corners of the piece and then decided then to curl them under, for effect, as well as eliminating the sharp point from contact with the skin. Now, mind you, I know nothing about metal work and was simply going on things I had picked up from jewelry shows and videos I watch. So, IF ANYONE OUT THERE DOES METAL WORK, PLEASE GIVE ME SOME POINTERS!! To continue, I found some green tinted sea shells I had wire-wrapped previously and decided they would be a perfect addition to the earrings and added them to the top/front of the pieces. And voila, put on the earwires, and my earrings were done.....but, that was not the end. I decided I needed to purchase a butane torch to add to my metal working supplies and did so at my local hardware store, along with a piece of firebrick from our local brick and stone company for 50 cents. I was ready for my next step in metal work!!! But, I was a little nervous, so waited til my friend Jeanne (and fellow beader at http://gammiebrat.blogspot.com/) was over and while Jeanne worked on her resin beads, I braved the butane torch for the first time. Now, I am telling you this, because I decided to do some more work on the earrings. I fired them up, annealed the metal, and decided to put some waves into them. I also wanted to get some color into them through the annealing process, but must have waited to long and lost the lovely colors...definitely a timing issue there. But, did end up with my lovely copper earrings shown above...not too bad for a novice who doesn't know what she's doing!! PLEASE, TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK...I CAN TAKE THE CRITICISM, AS THAT'S HOW I HOPE TO LEARN. And...let me know if you liked the post.

p.s. - I added a third picture of some metal that I torched and I did get the colors I wanted - pretty, yes? So, I am learning...it's a process. Any ideas now what I should do with them. Jeanne suggested filing, smoothing, and making pretty fish out of them! Tell me what you think. Thanks for reading my post. I hope it will encourage anyone out there to try something new. It's a process and it's fun! Anita