Hand Textured Copper Tiny Dish

This was a fun one. I have a ton of heavy copper sheeting just loitering around, and today I decided to do something with it. Novel thought!

This tiny dish-to-put-things-into is about 2.75" by 2.20" and is textured in multiple ways. Hand hammered... check. Push holed... check. Hammered on top of the push holes... check. Dapping blocked... check.

I'll get it up on my site soon, along with a TON of other pieces that have been patiently waiting to be posted. I clearly don't have much time right now, but I clearly, CLEARLY, love working with metals every which way : )

Blue, Blue, My Ring is Blue...

So this ring has taken a while to complete.

While I carved the beast out of wax and had it cast months ago, I took my time to mull about adding a little something extra. 

I wanted to do something special, so I ultimately decided to flush mount a stone on the underside of the ring. A little pop of color. A little secret something. I rather liked the idea of a hidden surprise.

I drilled the initial setting and tried out an amethyst, a tanzanite, an orange-y garnet, but nothing looked quite right.

Then, joy of joys, I found the right stone! I found a clear blue aquamarine at my go-to stone guy's place downtown in the jewelry building. (Yes, there's a jewelry building here in Portland. Building is from the 20's. You get buzzed in and everything. Coolest thing ever).

Anyway, though the stone looked wonderful, the damn thing wouldn't fit. I tried every which way to get it to seat correctly. After many attempts, I finally got jiggy with the setting bur and tried a little expansion in the width. Bingo! It snapped in last night and I spent several hours burnishing it into place.

So, yeah, smiling about this one! Just put it up on the Etsy site - https://www.etsy.com/shop/ParksAndOlive with a couple other new pieces. Have about 40 more completed pieces that just need to get photographed and uploaded, ack! So, stay tuned! More good stuff coming soon!!

Bands of Gold

Created for a special order that came in from Australia, my first wedding bands!! Happy little project... ok big project! But very fulfilling.