Magazine Cover Contest

Back in June I entered a facebook photo competition to try to get my "patchwork necklace" onto the cover of The Crafts Report Magazine. There were 249 entries in the competition which were narrowed down to 64 by the magazine. The 64 finalists were grouped into groups of 4 and everyday for 24 hours on facebook people were able to vote for their favorite  photo from each group. My image was up for voting on July 1 and out of my group of 4 I won! Now I am in the final 4 which is pretty amazing in itself because There were some really beautiful pieces in the running! The final 4 have been grouped into 2 groups of 2 and will be up for voting again on July 9th and 10th. I am up again on the 10th. I would love to win, but even if I don't it has been an honor just to be in the final 4. Below is an image of what I have submitted to the contest. It is made from sterling silver, brass and copper that has been roll printed or hammered cut into small pieces and soldered togehter to form each "quilted" piece. I would love it if you would help me get to the final 2 by going onto The Crafts Report Magazine's facebook page and "liking" the photo of my necklace on July 10th.

Tomi's Secret Sculpture Garden Project

Thomasin Durgin, a member of the Etsy Metal Team that I belong to, has purchased an abandoned and vacant lot in her hometown and decided to turn it into a Secret Sculpture Garden for the children in her area. To help her raise funds for her project members of the Etsy Metal Team have joined forces and are working on garden themed charms for a charm bracelet that will be sold in the team shop with 100% of the proceeds being donated to the Sculpture Garden. Below is the charm I made for the bracelet. It is 2 intertwined leaves made from sterling silver. For more info on this project and to donate click here.

Etsy Metal Blog Carnival

Etsy Metal is a talented group of metal smiths from all around the world. Every month we hold a blog carnival where we all blog about the same thing and attach links to each others blogs so everyone who reads one can read and find everyone elses too.This month's Etsy Metal Blog Carnival is

Topic: "Nobody's Perfect!"Care to share a piece of your work that did not turn out quite as beautiful as you had planned?
Perhaps you have an interesting experience that went awry...

I have quite a few items I can post about for this but I have picked to blog about my "happy accidents". Boy do I have plenty of things that went awry and have ended up as scrap but these 2 pieces were lucky! They were almost scrapped as well but things worked out for the best in the end.

Happy accident #1

First is a one of a kind ring that I designed. Yes, I said "ring". After all I am such a ring person! I had a great idea to make a large ring from the green conichalite stone in the photo below. But by the time I had finished building the cage around the stone it measured approx 2 1/2" long and 1" wide. A bit too large for a ring even for me and I LOVE big rings! Needless to say it has become quite a fabulous pendant instead and is for sale in my Etsy Shop!

Happy accident #2
The other piece that didn't turn out quite as planned was this heart pendant below. I was going to make a "puffed" sterling silver heart that was hollow inside. I haven't reticulated sterling silver in a while so I thought I would give it a try again and give the silver some texture and it came out great! I then put the silver in the hydraulic press to give it its heart shape but when I took it out the sterling had a tiny little crack in it. It added some interest and was still usable so I attempted to solder the to halves of the heart together. That's when things went wrong. The little crack had turned into a big hole when the sterling started to melt while soldering it! I hate to waste anything so instead of scrapping the piece and starting over I came up with the idea to add a piece of copper under the sterling to make the piece stronger and so it showed thru the hole to give the piece more depth. The piece actually came out better than I had planned and I ended up keeping this one of a kind necklace for myself! I wear it all the time. Happy accidents are the best!

To read about what some of the other Etsy Metal members have blogged on this topic:

1. Silentgoddess - http://silentgoddess.blogspot.com

2. Gracebourne - http://gracebourne.blogspot.com/

3. The Silver Pearl - http://silverpearlmetalworks.wordpress.com/

4. 2Roses - http://jewelrytutorial.blogspot.com

5. Inbar Bareket - http://www.inbarbareket.info/blog

6. Anne Walker - http://creativeinclinations.blogspot.com/

7. Beth Cyr - http://bcyrjewelry.blogspot.com

8. wildflowerdesigns - http://wildflowerdesigns.blogspot.com

9.  TK Metal Arts - http://tkmetalarts.blogspot.com

10. Evelyn Markasky - http://markasky.blogspot.com/

Etsy Metal Charm Swap 9

This is my third charm swap since being a member of Etsy Metal. Etsy Metal is a juried group of metal artists from all around the world and every 6 months there is a sign up list for the charm swap. Last time around I curated the swap with Victoria Takahashi. I did all the blogging on the Etsy Metal Blog and Victoria received the charms, repackaged them and sent them back out the other swappers once they were all complete. This time around I am doing the receiving and Laney Clark has been doing a great job of blogging the progress of everyone's charms. All the charms are due by March 30 and so far everyone has finished and shipped their charms. I am waiting for one more package to come in before I divide them all up and resend them out again. I can't wait to start opening the boxes! Here are the charms I made for the swap:

They are hollow formed and made from copper, sterling silver and set with a vintage blue glass cabochon.  Eventually the charms will become a charm bracelet and will be for sale in the Etsy Metal  team shop along with a individual charm from each of the swappers. Keep an eye out for all the new charms to be listed soon!. In the meantime check out the team shop to see charms and bracelets from past swaps that are currently for sale!

Etsy Metal in Philly

This past weekend the BMAC show was held in Philadelphia. It's a wholesale show at the convention center that is only open to the trade. The show brought some of the Etsy Metal members to Philly and some of us had a chance to meet up and actually have some real face time instead of just chatting with each other online. Below is a photo of a few of us that met up for dinner on Saturday night. We had a great time and it was so nice to meet everyone! Now I am able to put a few faces with the names I have come to know over the the past year or so being a member of Etsy Metal!

Clare Stoker, Kirsten Denbow, Renee Ford and me (Michele Grady)

Students work

Last night 3 of my jewelry class students wore their finished pieces home. I am so proud of the wonderful work they are doing so I thought I would share them with you here!

Rachel finished her sterling silver ring that she set with a beautiful cameo.

Roxane wore 3 of her cute little copper and sterling cuffs. She stamped the copper then riveted the sterling silver flowers onto the cuffs. 

And Vicky is wearing her sterling and copper bracelet set with carnelian stones. I have a large class this time around (13 students)  and next week is the last class in this session so hopefully a few more students will have completed pieces that I can show off!

My studio - before and now (after)

I found these photos of my studio from back in January of 2011. This is the cleanest my studio has EVER been so I thought I would share these photos again. You can see the first post with these photos here when I did a tour of my studio. I have to confess that the only reason it was so clean was so I could teach a class that night :)

And this is what my studio looks like right now.

It usually looks like this when I work. Things tend to get strewn out all over the place but amazingly enough I can find everything I need no matter where it might be....usually :)  At least now it all stays in the studio. Before I was working out of tiny 9x10 room in my house and my jewelry stuff ended up all over the place. I would spread out stones on the dining table, have my paper work all over the computer desk in the den and have all kinds of things in the kitchen sink and on the counters as I was working.  Now I have a studio twice the size of the old room I worked out of and everything is located in my studio (computer, sink, table, etc) and it all stays in the same room.  I do happen to like my studio much better clean but making jewelry is not as glamorous of a job as it may seem!