I don’t have much time to write today but I did want to post about the beautiful pair of earrings I received in the mail today from Renate Starke-Krammer for the Thanksgiving Treasure Earring Exchange. Aren’t they beautiful? These earrings were created with etched bronze, copper and glass beads. Thank you, Renate!! I will always cherish them!!

I teach wireworking in the Washington, DC metropolitan area. Lately, I have become a little restless from only teaching wireworking and decided to add some metalworking classes, such as riveting (I think my students are restless too and are ready to learn something new). I feel it’s a natural progression for many wireworkers to move towards metalwork after awhile and blend these two techniques that look so good together!

My jewelry path began 5 years ago with a class at Michaels. It was a stringing class and it was my first jewelry class.  I didn’t know anything about jewelry making. Thinking back, I remember the instructor telling us to get out some crimps and I had no idea what a crimp was. There were two kind ladies sitting next to me who told me what crimps were used for and gave me a few. At the end of class I can tell you with full confidence my bracelet was the ugliest, most poorly made bracelet in the bunch. Though, for whatever reason, I was not discouraged. If this had happened to me when I was in my teens or twenties etc, I would have just panned the entire idea and think I wasn’t artistic enough. Though, this particular evening at Michaels, as the ladies next to me told me how beautiful my bracelet was, I knew it was goofy looking, but I didn’t mind. I was hooked. I wish I still had the bracelet today.

I eventually got the hang of stringing ( and mastered crimping)! and loved using lampwork beads in many of my pieces. To this day, I still have a huge stash of beautiful lampwork beads. One afternoon, about two years later, I was surfing the internet and stumbled across Connie Fox’s website and her incredible wire jewelry.   I was smitten and wanted to learn wireworking and make beautiful wire jewelry too. Finding Connie’s website that afternoon was fate and working with wire will always remain the constant and primary medium I work with. I am committed to wire for life:)

A few months later, it so happened that Connie Fox was to teach at Bead Fest and thus began my wireworking path. Again, wireworking did not come naturally for me. I just wasn’t getting the hang of it. I never completed the class project and the section of the bracelet that was completed was in desperate need of help. Even though I had the right tools and pretty lampwork beads, it just wasn’t happening. My friend, Roseanne, who also was taking her first wireworking class with Connie that day sold the bracelet right off her wrist a few weeks later. She was a natural!

I was so determine to learn wireworking that I spent countless of hours and many, many months working with copper and practicing making loops, spirals etc read jewelry making publications and learn everything that I could.  I can say with confidence I have finally mastered  wireworking. I  still find the designing aspect of jewelry making very challenging. I think my wireworking strengths are more with the mechanics of wireworking. I tend to keep my designs simple, and prefer my jewelry pieces to be made mostly of metal and wire. I love the look of metal..it looks beautiful on it’s own.

Now, to fast forward to the present, I am enjoying working with metal!  I have been interested in riveting for some time now and was lucky enough to take an all-day riveting class with Connie at Bead Fest Wire last year. Besides the class being a great introduction to riveting, I actually got to use a flex shaft for the first time and no longer fear I am going to drill a hole through my finger when I use one!

So, this is where I am at today. Doing more metalwork, but wire remains the constant in my life. I will never abandon it. I have noticed when visiting blogs of my jewelry artist colleagues, they too are going through a progression and wanting to learn new techniques….are you?

Jeanette

Sorry everyone that I didn’t list the fonts. The one I am not fond with is called Esprit..1/8 size but stamps more like a  3/32    http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/berthold/sayer-esprit-bq/light/
The other font is pretty, again 1/8 but stamps like 3/32 is called Popple BQ Regular http://new.myfonts.com/fonts/berthold/poppl-exquisit-pro/

I believe my friend is selling her kismet set at $162 a set…

I still would like to stamp something out so that you can see the font….later tonight.

I received my new Infinity Stamps alphabet set, and I don’t like them. It’s not the quality or the way they are made, I am not happy with my font choice. I have an upper and lower case that I am willing to sell if anyone is interested, and at a pretty good price! I just don’t want them to go unused when I know someone could enjoy them.
I also have another set that I don’t really need, only used a few times. And then I have a friend who is selling her upper and lower case Kismet font (beaducation). I don’t mean for this to sound like a sales pitch, but I can’t think of any better way to spread the word.

If any of this interest you, please contact me.

Gotta run,

Jeanette

I never did mention anything, but I too have a tutorial included in the latest Easy Wire. I think many of you have already seen this bracelet, but here’s an image if you haven’t.  Browsing through the magazine I recognized so many names, it’s cool many of us ended up in the same publication.

I feel like I have a million projects in the works which I really need to complete before I move on to other things. But I find it challenging to do so because there is always something else grabbing my attention and wanting to do..such as RIVETING! I absolutely love to rivet and it’s fairly easy to do if you have never tried it. I made this bracelet tag lastnight, perhaps I hammered it a little too much, but again, I love the brass with the copper. I think you will be seeing more riveted jewelry pieces from me in the near future.

Well, I gotta run, have a great day everyone!
Jeanette

The kids are so excited to go trick or treating! Mommy loves candy too, I can’t wait to look in their bags when they return.

The earrings for Leslie’s Thanksgiving Treasure Exchange have finally gone in the mail! Today was the deadline..talk about cutting it close. I have three more swaps that I am participating in, so I need to get busy.

Hope your night is full of Halloween fun.

Jeanette

I am participating in an art chain called the Fabulous Art Exchange. This weekend I received my first gift from artist Susi Dupuis with Artsy Fartsy. Susi makes wonderful plastic jewelry by using plastic containers like the kind you find in detergent, shampoo and coffee lid containers. Her passion working with found objects developed after taking a class with found-objects genius, Bobby Hanson, the tin can artist. Interestingly, we may have been in the same class. I too took his class when he was teaching locally in Virginia. Susi lives just 45 minutes away from me and she also mentioned in her note that she took one of my classes a while back. Small world. Please check out Susi’s etsy shop to see more of her incredible jewelry created with found-objects. Thanks so much, Susi, I love my bracelet and earrings!
I made a pair of earrings for my recipient of the Fabulous Art Exchange which I hope to get in the mail today. I am a little behind the eight ball. The earrings consist of brass, sterling silver and green Amethyst gemstones.

I have one more piece I am working on for Leslie’s Thanksgiving Treasure exchange and then I return to my two charm swaps……
Have a great day, everyone.

I really enjoy making jewelry components..working on small individual pieces and using the file to shape and smooth the edges of the metal. Stamping words and designs into the metal is fun also but after spending so much time on this piece, I discovered after photographing it,  I used the letter “G”  for the letter “E” in the word “imagine.”  With this particular font, these two letters look very similar to eachother and they were not in their correct spot in their case. Darn Darn Darn!! Thank goodness I wasn’t stamping on silver. An area I NEED to perfect when it comes to stamping, patience and double checking everything before I whack the stamp with the hammer!

Oh, and here’s a little helpful hint about enlarging holes made with a metal hole punch pliers (if you don’t own a drill or flex shaft) . If you would like to enlarge the hole you punched into the metal, you can use a bead reamer and it will do this nicely for you. I just used the Diamond bead reamer. I enlarged the hole size from only being able to fit a 16 gauge wire to fitting a 14 gauge wire, which is a more suited gauge for connecting this component to whatever I decide to create with this piece. A thicker gauge wire will help prevent the jump rings to come apart if snagged on a piece of clothing etc.

I haven’t had a chance to make the changes the necklace I made (mentioned in the previous post) though I need and want to this weekend.

I hope everyone has a nice weekend! I think it’s going to be another wet weekend for us, which makes a perfect weekend for working in the studio…and movie day for the kids.

Jeanette

Teagan is the Star of the Week in her Kindergarten class this week. Every week it’s a different child. For star of the week we made a poster all about Teagan to bring into her classroom and share with her classmates. Every day she is to bring something with her to school to share with the class, something that is special to her. I asked if she wanted to bring the stamped “Teagan” necklace I made her, but she said no, that’s not special enough! Instead, she filled her backpack with a barbie doll that turns into a three musketeer, a stuffed duck animal  and something else

Anyway, to celebrate being star of the week we had a “spa day.” I took her to a neighborhood salon and she had a manicure and pedicure (of course her feet are baby soft and no scrubbing and scraping was needed) She choose florescent orange for her fingernails and purple for her toenails.

We grabbed a bite afterward at good ol Subway which was conveniently located next door to the salonn and shared a yummy turkey sandwich. We brought home a yummy chocolate chip cookie for brother Sebastian. It was a fun afternoon.

On the creative front I am working on a wire piece with Christine Damm’s wonderful polymer beads from “stories they tell. which will be a gift for my mom. Whenever I make a new piece of jewelry, I need to see a photographed image of the piece and look at it from third persons view for me to “really” see the piece. In doing so, I can see if there needs to be adjustments to the design or where it needs to be tweaked. For this piece, I need to do a little tweaking and hope to share the entire image of the necklace by Friday.

And lastly, I am certain by now this is old news, though just in case you haven’t heard, Cindy Wimmer with Sweet Bead Studio is having an awesome blog give away you won’t want to miss. Check it out.
Jeanette

]]> http://jeanetteblix.com/spa-day/feed/ 9 http://jeanetteblix.com/getting-the-ship-afloat-again/ http://jeanetteblix.com/getting-the-ship-afloat-again/#comments Thu, 15 Oct 2009 14:55:38 +0000 Jeanette http://jeanetteblix.com/?p=824

Yes, I have been absent from my blog…the week began with Sebastian being sick and having strep, the heater wasn’t working, the garbage disposal went on the fritz and the list goes on from there..I will spare you the rest:) So, I have been spending most of my time getting everybody and everything back up and running and things are looking up.

I am really excited about starting some of the projects that I am involved in. I am participating in two charm swaps (with the Charmsters Group), both need to be completed by November 30th. One theme is the 12 days of Christmas. I am doing “eight maids a milking.” I need to make 12 of them. The other charm swap is called, “words, words, words”-creating charms with words by either stamping, etching, using epoxy or whatever the person chooses to work with. One can choose any words they wish…I imagine many of them will be inspirational.

And lastly, I am excited about the earring swap I am doing through Leslie with Bei Mondi. A group of us have been paired up not knowing who has who, sort of like a secret Santa.  So, I imagine my creative energy will be going into these projects for the next few weeks.

I have no photos to include with my post today…just a journal entry. Have a great one.
Jeanette