That horrbile year just couldn't end without a bang, could it?

I have absolutely nothing to write. I usually don't get so badly hit by deaths of famous people. Sure, I feel for their families, but it never gets so... personal. For some reason, this time it's different.
So the world lost not only a talented actress and writer, but an awesome human being in general.

Because I'm something of a mess right now, I'll just leave this here.
Aaand, of course:
She drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra.

Death's-head moth and the Thylacine.

Yay! I'm back to working :D I really hope I won't have to get back to physio again, and won't have another such a loooong break in making stuff. This remains to be seen, but fingers crossed! (Or, as we say it: thumbs held ;P).
The bad news is, I still didn't manage to make two pendants I really wish to be able to finish, because I keep running in technical issues with them. I'm after two attempts, and had to scraped both. But third time's a charm, right? I also have to finish a hinge bracelet I hoped to have made by now, but I run in a problem with one hinge and have to figure out the best way to approach this. In the worst case scenario I'll just redo the hinge, so this shouldn't take much longer.

And now for the stuff I did finish:
Death's-head moth( Acherontia atropos) cuff:

Etched copper cuff featuring Acherontia atropos

 I really like that cuff! While I also (surprise, surprise!) really like the pictures I took of it (and for the most part, all the pictures I took during that photo shoot), it looks better in person. Apart from the moth and the scrolls, there are also mu customary crescent moons on either end of the cuff.

Continuing with Acherontia-theme, there are also two pairs of earrings:

Etched copper A. atropos earrings with silver details.

 This pair is really delicate by my standards: while they're quite long, being 5.1cm in total, the moths themselves are only 1.3cm long (counting the element attaching them to the chain) and have wingspan of 2.1cm. They're small. And were a bit of a challenge to cut out, I must say. Especially the bits close to antennae. And painting the patterns before etching was also a bit tricky, but they turned out pretty nice. The elements with the moons are about 0.9cm in diameter. Again, small, for me.
The chain and moons are sterling silver, as are ear wires.

Etched copper A.atropos earrings with an ear cuff.

 In these pair, the moths are slightly bigger: they're about the same length as previous ones, but their wingspan is about 2mm larger. They were much easier to cut out, mostly because their shape is much simpler.The ear cuff is 0.6cm wide, and it's engraved. I did the engraving with hand gravers, and, let me tell you, there was a lot of sanding afterwards to remove all those accidental nicks and scratches... Hand engraving is... tricky. And unfortunately, there are no courses anywhere in my area I could take to get better at it, which is frustrating.

As I already mentioned, I planned to make two pendants as well, but they proved trickier than I anticipated. I'm still determined to make them work, so hopefully at some point I'll actually manage to make them.
Moving on to Thylacine- theme, there's a cuff:

Thylacinus cynocephalus on an engraved copper cuff.

I love this one as well, even though I realised only when I was processing the photos, that I didn't give it the second front leg... Oh, well, it's still pretty as it is ;). There are, of course, crescent moons on the ends of the cuff.

Then there are two pairs of earrings:

Etched copper Thylacine earrings with sterling silver details and tiger eye cabochons.

And these look somewhat weird on those pictures... They're actually rather shiny in person... I did retake some of the picture today, so I'll see if I have any better ones. Thylacines are famous for how wide they could open their mouths (up to 80 degrees!) so it would be a shame if I didn't show them with open mouth on any of the pieces... That being said, I might have overdone it...

Here the stones are unakite, and the pictures even weirder.

I swear, these are shiny. Those pictures are weird. I'm actually wondering if I shouldn't try to profile the head of the Thylacine on the right hand side a bit better, but I'm not sure how to do this (I'm thinking about using graver for that) but I'm not certain I won't end up with a bungled earring I'll then have to etch another blank for... These are the first earrings with a stone set as a part of the ear wire (for the lack of better term), and I really like how those turned out(aside from that one issue). I'll probably make more in this style.
 And finally there are two pendants (there were supposed to be three, but I've ran into some issues with the last one. It's not scraped yet, because I think I may be able to salvage it. We'll see.)

Thylacine on an etched copper pendant with a hematite cabochon.

 I must say, this one is probably my favourite piece among all this lot.  It has two bails at the back, and if you look closely, you can actually see in this picture where the chain is coming from, so to speak. Originally, I wanted to attach the chain to the Thylacine's snout an tail, but these are so small I wasn't sure I wouldn't melt the chain while attempting to do that. I really love this little guy :)

Etched copper and silver thylacine pendant

 Another gaping tassie tiger. Tricky to photograph, as it's difficult to prop in such a way so it doesn't slip. To take this picture I had to actually trap the chain under the stone. But it worked! I had to make the upper part of the pendant twice, as at my first I actually melted the silver moon. Generally speaking, soldering silver to copper is tricky, at least for me. I either end up with melted silver, or, after pickling, find out that the metals didn't solder together. I have problems getting to the point where everything gets nicely together, and nothing melts.
But I'm carefully optimistic I'm on to something, because the second moon soldered perfectly at the first try. And that, by the way, gives me hope for those pendants I'm yet to make successfully.

So these are the new finished pieces, and I have several still at the WIP stages. I already uploaded both cuffs to my shop, ant the rest will follow shortly, once I finished processing the rest of the pictures.

Oh, and one more thing... I also ran into a weird problem, maybe someone will have some ideas what to do about it. I have huge difficulties with getting anything oxidised. Everything is as clean as humanly possible, and yet I can't get LOS to work. The metal either goes crappy brown colour and refuses to darken further, or it goes black, but then everything comes of, and then it gets to crappy brown colour. It's not as if I didn't oxidised anything before, and yet I've got no clue what's wrong. The only thing I found that works is getting gel on an old toothbrush, brushing it, undiluted directly onto metal, running the piece under hot water and brushing it with brass brush. This usually works, even though it doesn't make sense. It should be to concentrated and create nasty, thick black layer that flakes off. But it's the only way I can get anything oxidised lately. I would stick with it, but it's so wasteful! Anyone have any bright ideas on that? Any tips? I would love it if you shared your thoughts, because it's slowly driving me bonkers!

Have a great upcoming week!
Kasia

Not a good post

This will be a rather personal, and probably long, post.

I haven't been around lately: due to serious technical and (thankfully less serious, but still) health-related issues I had to put my shop on hold.
And just as I'm getting back on track, I'm hit with the news I really didn't think I'll ever hear. News of something I thought was unthinkable. I was naive enough to think that reason will prevail. But yesterday UK decided to leave the EU. Today, I experienced the worst, biggest, and longest panic attack in my life. It lasted from around 10am to 6pm. I couldn't even walk my dog. I was physically sick, my heart was pounding, I was shaking. I'm not exaggerating.

British pound hit the lowest point in over 30 years falling 10% overnight. This caused economies around the world to experience problems as well. There's talk about another world-wide recession thanks to this. Scotland will likely hold another independence referendum, some in Northern Ireland are thinking about joining the republic. I'm really, really worried about situation in NI destabilising. It was relatively safe and peaceful here, but now... let's just say, that my dad was smugly asked by his coworker today if he knew what "cleansing" meant. That's... an implied threat of ethnic cleansing. If that isn't absolutely terrifying, I don't know what is.

My anxiety, one I spent a lot of effort to bring to manageable levels, is through the roof. I'm probably overacting in this (that's what anxiety disorder does to you, after all), but I'm actually pretty scared of going out of the house right now.

Legally, I'm in pretty good position: I have right to apply for permanent residency, and very good chance of getting one. That would solve eventual legal problems after UK finally leaves. What is really terrifying for me is the surge of nationalism all over Europe. Last time there was an economical crisis combined with nationalism in Europe it didn't end very well. I should know. I'm Polish, Hitler came for us first. I'm worried about radicalisation of people over here. Of xenophobes, racists, nazi-wannabes crawling out of whatever dark, dank holes they're hiding in right now. I'm worried about more people in Europe radicalising as well as said xenophobes gain something that can be considered a visible support. I'm worried about the future of EU: say what you will about it, but it brings a lot of people together, making war in Europe difficult. And that's a Very Good Thing.
The easier people can travel, the easier it's for them to meet others. And that leads to more open, more tolerant nations, less prone to getting at each other's throat.

Not to mention that this wonderful man called Nigel Farage already backtracked on one of the leave campaign main promises. They said the 350mln UK supposedly sends to EU (that's not exactly true) weekly, will go to NHS. Well, today, not even 12 hours after the leave vote was known, he already said that "he cannot guarantee this, that this claim was a mistake, and that people who voted leave because of that have made a mistake". Yeah, well, so... good job to those who believed anything that man spouts, and to him for admitting on public TV that they basically lied to people. He was totally unapologetic. Oh, and David Cameron, who started this whole damned mess, announced his resignation. Yeah, you made a huge mess, and now you're running away, leaving it to others to clean up. Not to mention, he started all of this, and then asked people to vote stay? The lack of integrity in this individual is astounding. I don't normally swear, but honestly, fuck them. Not literally though.

I also saw someone saying that they were "shocked and worried about UK leaving"... thing is, that was a person who voted leave. Maybe, just maybe, if the though of leaving the EU is shocking and worrying for you... maybe you shouldn't have voted to leave.

Oh, and majority of people between 18-40 wanted to stay. Most people with higher education degrees wanted to stay. All of Scotland and majority of NI wanted to stay. EU gives more money for UK eductation than UK government does. The trend for cutting education funds, and rising uni fees started when Cameron's government was elected. They already made it much more difficult for people from low income, and even average income families to access higher education than those well-off. Imagine how will it look after EU funds dry up. EU also protects UK environment. The government tried to find a way to find a wiggle room in directives before... after UK leaves, there won't be any to stop them from doing as much damage as they want. And one of the people running for the next Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, seems like a climate-change denier to me. This will go so well.

I saw someone sum it up today perfectly: if Donald Trump and Marie Le Pen congratulate you on something you did and think it's a good idea... it's probably time to think long and hard about your actions.

There's so much more, but this is getting really long, and I'm just... I'm swinging between terrified out of my mind, to depressed, to completely apathetic.

So here it is. Probable economic crisis, a signal for all nationalists in Europe that they're not alone, implied threats of violence, climate-change deniers at the helm, unprotected UK environment, and generally, just a crap-load of bullshit. And that's just today. And the world seems to be going to hell.

New stuff and the big plunge.

Recently, I've become convinced that the day has shrunk. I mean, it's still 24 hours, but it seems like those hours are way shorter than before. I constantly lack time for... just about everything. There's just so much stuff to do!

I still did manage to make some new pieces, and I have another three designs in different stages of completion (two of those are rings! It seems I'll finally, actually, finish some!).

Here's the jumping fox pendant:

Etched copper jumping fox pendant with carnelian chip beads.

Originally, I wanted add just one, round carnelian bead, but after I cut the pendant, etched it, and soldered the jump ring it turned out that I didn't leave enough space between the tail and front legs for the bead to fit. So I swapped it for two chip beads (I was really happy I still had some left). I'm very happy with how the finished piece looks :)

Next, raven pendant:

Flying raven pendant with peacock pearl.

This one is one of those things I just can't take a decent picture of. It's so much nicer in person. And so is the pearl. I did mention in the last post, that I got a whole bunch of those. They're awfully pretty. I planned on making several pairs of earrings with those, and even started, but encountered some problems and left them for the time being. I still to finish them, though.

Fox earrings number one:

Sitting fox earrings

Fox earrings number two:

Fox and tree earrings

Wolf earrings:

Howling wolf and moon earrings

I'm really happy with the etching on those :) Lately, I keep polishing everything to a high shine, and as if poor light conditions weren't making taking pictures hard enough, as it turns out: I'm hopeless at photographing shiny things. This photo was taken with polarising filter, and there's still just bazillion of reflections! Have to come up with a way of photographing stuff like this, or stop polishing everything so much...

Raven earrings:

Calling raven and sun earrings

I had to get creative with the means of attaching both parts of earrings together here. All because I drilled a hole for (originally intended) jump ring to close to the edge in one of those, and was worried it may snap at some point. So instead of jump rings, I made head pins, flattened their heads, and soldered them to the backs of the earrings.And then made them into loops. So now there's no movement, nor rubbing between the loops and the earrings, and nothing should break.

Wolf earrings:
 I just love these :D I almost hope they won't sell, so I'll get to keep them.

And finally, swan couple pendant:

Swan couple pendant with carnelian cabochon.

Surprise, surprise, I actually remembered there's Valentine's Day coming up, and even made something with that in mind.
I spent ridiculous amount of time on the stone. for some reason I just couldn't set it- it kept rattling in the setting, I could feel it move, and it was so irritating! And then, I made one more, half-hearted pass with a burnisher... and it was suddenly set, no movement, no rattling, nothing.
This pendant is also something I just can't photograph. This picture I just about the only one I'm somewhat satisfied with.
I had real problems photographing all of that lot, I was even taking pictures earlier today, when there was a short moment when there was some light available. I haven't look through those pictures yet, so I don't even know if any of them are usable. I sure hope they are.

And about that big plunge... I recently had surprisingly good streak of luck (I was especially happy when one customer, after she received one cuff, immediately ordered another :D And now I have no bracelets left in store;P), and decided to invest the money I made in business course, aimed specifically at jewellery designers. It's starting 1st of February, and now I'm fervently hopping I'll see some results from it, because I keep thinking about all the supplies and tools I could have bought for that amount, and about that health-insurance thingy I'll have to pay later this year, and just the size of the investment is pretty damn scary for me. Here's hoping I'll learn something useful.

I also decided that I would like to see how having my own website would work out for me, so I'm brushing up my coding knowledge, as well as learning totally new things, and later on I'll be designing that website by myself. I know enough html and css to make one, it's the programming stuff that I'm entirely new to (and, obviously, I want it to be responsive. It should be... interesting experience). On top of that, I decided to wholly redesign my banner. I would have this done already, if I just could find a bit of time to do this. I'm also itching to start making layout pieces for that future maybe-website, but, again, can't find the time to do this! I may be slightly insane to take on all that by myself, but that's just me ;)

And one more thing: I've set up instagram profile. I have  a picture of one of the rings I'm working on there, so you can check that out (and I'm too lazy to look for my phone and download that picture to my pc right now ;)

Have a great day!
Kasia

New Year's resolutions

First of all: Happy New Year! I hope it'll be awesome for you! (And wouldn't mind if it would be awesome for me too ;) I also hope it started for you as well as it did for me: on the first of January I've got my second biggest order yet! Here's hoping the trend will continue for the rest of 2016 :)

Are you in the habit of making New Year's resolutions? I'm not. But I've decided to start this year with making a list of goals I want to achieve with my shop, and seeing how this will work out for me. Apparently, as just about everyone seems pointing out, having an actual plan makes it easier to get there (wherever this there is for you). I've never did that, so I'm hoping that having a clearer, better defined view of where I want to be in a year's time, and what I want to achieve during upcoming 12 months will act as a big motivator for me.

Right now, my list consist of 7 goals, but, knowing myself, I'll probably add to it later. Those 7 are pretty modest goals (I hope I'll finally figure out where my elusive target customers "hide", and next year's goals will be bigger ones!), but here we go:

• being active on social media/blog more often, and regularly! As you well know I'm guilty of abandoning them for long stretches of time, and I plan to fix that tendency this year!
• and while we're at it: making a weekly schedule telling me when to post on those media. That should help me with the regularity thing. If I even bother to look at it ;) I'm guilty of ignoring schedules, plans, lists, and anything that helps you stay organised. I'm too chaotic for my own good.
• making at least one new piece every week.
• I hope to be able to make at least three sales a month. I'll have to think about this one, and then make another list of things I'll do to try to achieve that! Three sales isn't much, but seeing as now I'm making one a month, or none, that seems like a reasonable improvement.
• introduce rings, probably made to order. This one shouldn't be difficult, as just today I ordered some supplies for ring-making:)
• find those elusive dream clients of mine. No idea whatsoever how I'm going to do that. That one also requires another sub-list, and ties in tightly with the 3 orders a month one.

• the last point on my list states (almost exactly): to treat this whole mess more seriously. The whole mess is, of course, my shop. This again comes back to being more organised, and keeping track of things.

I hope I won't ignore that list. But I'm not an organised person by nature, far from it. I'm that absent-minded stereotype people think about after hearing about someone creative. I mean, I once spent a whole day looking for new garbage disposal bags, only to find them in the oven the next afternoon! Not to mentions brand-new socks in the fridge. Or getting lost in subway with one entrance and one exit, and coming out the same way I got in. And it wasn't my first time crossing that particular one. Basically, I went into a tunnel and went out the way I went in. Let me tell you, I was really surprised. For my defence, I did drop my keys and had to pick them up.
So, as you can see, being organised, or even knowing which way I'm going, is not my strongest point.

However, I'm really determined to stick to that plan, and make it work. I hope I'll see some results in the next 12 month. And I really hope my recent stroke of luck will continue for a while longer: I've got my biggest order ever at the end of December, and, as I've already mentioned, second biggest one yesterday. That's what I call a very positive end to the old, and equally positive start to the new year!

I wish you all the best! I hope 2016 will be a very happy year for you!
Kasia

I'm baaaaack ;)

Well, I haven't visited here for a while. And it's all fault of that adorable little creature:

The culprit!

This is Luna, and she's a weimaraner puppy, 5 months and 2 weeks old. And doing anything with her around was rather difficult until recently. Obviously, I can't take her with me when I work, and she wasn't very good about staying on her own. Fortunately, however, she finally seems to realise that spending some time by herself isn't the end of the world, and that she shouldn't try to eat camera tripod when I'm taking pictures, so I'm back to jewellery making. Unfortunately, I totally missed the Christmas-shopping period almost completely :( Oh, well... By the way, that's how she looked when we first got her:

Give me a moment to squee at my own dog ;P

Ok, now for the jewellery stuff...
I got a bunch of lovely stones, finally decided to get some silver sheet, and also got some pewter to practice casting a bit.
The first two things I made with my new cabochons are mixed metal pendants with bronzite. Until very recently I didn't even know bronzite existed, and now it's became one of my favourite stones. It's awfully pretty!

Running wolf mixed metal pendant

Background is made from copper, trees are bronze, and the wolf is sterling silver. The stone (isn't it lovely?) is prong set into a copper "bracket"- the metal part doesn't extend on the back of it - mostly because I wasn't sure I would manage to solder all those little prongs next to one another and wanted to save myself the time and trouble.

This is how it looks like on the back. Generally speaking, I'm pretty happy with it, only I wasn't able to file one of the wolf's paws as much as I would like: it's tiny, and the file couldn't reach everywhere it should've.
And the second pendant:

Fox and tree pendant

The metals sequence is the same here: copper on the back, then bronze, and then silver. After soldering the fox, I decided that its snout is still too wide, but there's nothing I can do about it now. Anyway, the fox was a pain to saw, file, and finish, because it's teeny-tiny: only 1.3cm long, and 0.5cm tall. Terrible.

Back looks the same as with the previous one. I was worried I wouldn't like the look, but it's actually not bad.
Both pendants come with 51cm/20in sterling silver chain.
I have three more bronzite cabochons, three rainbow moonstones, two labradorites (finally got my hands on some!), and a string of lovely peacock pearls. I'm really excited about working with those!

Apart from these pendants, I also made bat earrings, combined with an ear cuff:

Bat earrings

 By  the way, I'm actually really pleased with that picture! There's a surprise.
They're rather delicate, the bats being 1.3cm wide and 1cm tall. The earrings are 4cm long (without counting ear wires).

And that's how the one with the ear cuff looks like when worn. Not the best picture, but enough to get you idea. I really like them, and probably will make a pair for myself :D

And finally, there are also two new cuffs ( I really like making those!)
One's with an Eurasian Lynx:

And the other with a reindeer:

And that one really surprised me, because it sold not even a full day after I uploaded it to my shop! I could definitely do with more of surprises of this kind!

I hope I'll be back soon with more new stuff: I have several designs ready, now I only need to make them into reality :)

Have a great day!
Kasia

Otterly important post!

Sorry, couldn't help myself ;)
I decided to take a break from casting, and finish several designs that were waiting to be done. Two of those were otter-themed, hence the tittle ;P

Let's get straight to it. Remember the wolf cuff from previous post? Well, it's finished, added to my shop, and waiting for a new owner.

Running wolf cuff

I liked the running wolves idea from my previous wolf cuff, but this time I wanted one wolf as a focal point on the bracelet. I'm pretty happy with how the whole piece turned out.

There are also crescent moons on either end, and scrolls accompanying the wolf. I'm also somewhat surprised I managed to take pretty decent photos at the first try. That's a first.

I also made a second cuff, one I wanted to make for quite some time, but always something other got in the way. Well, I finally made it: Megaloceros giganteus (Giant Deer or Irish Elk, as it's commonly known) cuff!

All hail M. gigantetus!

I had to make that one a bit wider than usual: 3cm(~1.2in) instead of 2.5cm(~1in), because trying to fit all of those antlers on thinner one would be a total pain. I must say I really love the texture on etched parts on this one! It's sooo pretty.

And there are also crescent moons on this cuff.

Apart from those two, I also made my first ever pair of stud earrings (complete with making and soldering ear posts), and a pendant with my first ever flush setting!

And so, we've come to these otters I mentioned in the beginning of that post.
Here's pendant:

Otter pendant

You could call it experimental piece: aside from flush setting, I also had to do a lot of sweat soldering here, and that's something I'm pretty hopeless at. I'm really happy that it took me only two tries to solder both parts of the otter to the washer.

Noticed the belemnite fossil in this stone? That's a mesozoic rock right there!

I also managed to solder back piece at the first try, without any of the already soldered part coming undone. That's a big success for me. I have something of a love-hate relationship with soldering: it's either going great, or I can't solder anything, with already soldered joints falling apart, even though the part I'm soldering is squeaky clean, and already soldered ones are as dirty as possible, with ochre pastel smeared all over them.

I'm also very glad I have watchmaker loupe at home. Those are 1mm CZs, and trying to set them without one was a nightmare. After I remembered the loupe and used it, it all went a lot faster and easier, as I was able to actually see what I was doing.

And here are aforementioned earrings:

 Unfortunately, I made three attempts at taking good pictures of them, and failed miserably at all of them.
These earrings are also a bit experimental themselves, as I decided that butterfly backs soldered to the back parts of them would look really weird (plus, I wasn't sure I would be able to do this without melting them), and decided to make "built in" butterflies myself.

 It wasn't as difficult as I feared it would be, and they work just fine. The only problem I have is with the wire I used to make ear posts. It's 0.6mm, and I would prefer 0.7mm, (but I didn't have any) to make them a little bit stronger. I know that, theoretically, ear posts should be made from 0.8 or 0.85mm wire, but I, for example, can't wear 0.85, as they're too big, and even 0.8 ear wires are a bit too big, and wearing them is really uncomfortable, and can even sometimes hurt. I know majority of people do just fine with standard ear wires, but I decided to make them smaller on the off chance someone with problem similar to mine should buy those. 

I also had the weirdest, I think, experience while soldering ear posts: I managed, and I have no idea how I managed this, to pierce through copper with sterling silver wire. Let this sink in for a moment. I took a piece of copper, melted solder all over it, heated it, dunked the end of wire into flowing solder, started to heat the earring part I wanted to solder that wire to, and touched the end of the wire to the copper piece. It didn't stick, so I tried this again (and I already had one ear post soldered, so I knew this should work), almost got it, but my hand shook and it again didn't stick. I decided to pickle the back, clean it, and try again... and then I noticed that I had a lovely, 0.6mm hole right in the middle of my earring. I didn't overheat the copper part. I'm just talented like that.

I must say, I'm awfully fond of these earrings. I'm thinking about making something similar for myself. Actually, I'm trying to think of a way wolf earrings would look good made in this style.

To make sure everything works as it should I wore them all day before I even oxidised them. They stayed in place, so that's good. 

And let's finish with a mild rant: I wanted to buy fire bricks, to create nice, insulated area for melting metal. Because I wanted  to be able to melt it a little bit faster, and waste a little bit less gas. So I went to the only place I know off that stores (or, should I say stored) firebricks, and... nothing. Null, zero, nada. Not a firebrick in sight. And, as I already said, that's the only place in my town that ever had them. I got, as you can imagine, a tinsy bit angry. Now I'm left with 2 options: option one: not having that nice, insulated area; option two: buying bricks via internet, and paying king's ransom for shipping. Grrr.
I hope that maybe they'll restock firebricks in near future. That's just another thing added to my recurring rant called "why can't I get this in Northern Ireland?!?". For example, good silversmithing classes. I could apply to university (and fail miserably) or... or... or... fly every week to London, I guess. Sigh. And now firebricks! People have fireplaces and things like that. Firebricks should be a little bit easier to find than a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Ok, I'll stop that rant now.

Till the next time!

Kasia