the other night i was getting ready to go out and really wanted a long necklace. i couldn't find any, so decided to do what any self-respecting craftster does and make one! i dug through my toolbox and strung together all my old band ring practices from my first metals class and voila!





all night i sounded like sleighbells.

i picked up some blank coffee cups at the thrift store and made some improvements for the last newbie swap.







(i borrowed a few pics from my partner, jl409. hopefully she won't mind.)

finally posting all the amaaaazing things i got in the mail from Jana. i seriously LOVE everything--thanks SO MUCH!!
anyway, here goes lots of pictures. heh.

lookit everything!!


this right here is the key to my heart. i can NOT wait to crack this open and try it out. i just ran out of coffee, too.


next is some coffee-cinnamon bath salts that smell sooooo good. f'rreal..i wish you guys could smell them. it's like breakfast in bed....in the bath. haha.



then i opened up this cute blinged out box. for a second i couldn't figure out what the numbers on the cards meant. duhhhhh. you have no idea how perfect this is--i have a big collection of sandpaper scraps and pieces from working in my studio that i can never keep in order. everyone's gonna be so envious when i get back to the studio.


headbaaaands! i'm headed to the beach this weekend, so these will be perfect. they're hanging out with my other scarves right now.


this one just happened to go with what i was wearing, so i obviously had to try it out.



ahhhhh--apron so i can finally stay sort of clean in the kitchen. i LUFF this!! and reversible?! so cute. (i am actually wearing shorts even though it looks like i'm not, i promise. haha.)


finally this little guy. how precious is that?!!!


he's made himself very at home on my crazy bed.



this swap has been so fun. thanks sevsonlygirl for organizing and especially thanks to Jana for being an AWESOME partner!!

right now i'm looking for a box to pack everything up and send out tomorrow, but in the meantime here's a little teaser:

this was included in my ap drawing portfolio. i was doing a lot of paper-making at the time and incorporating little bits of things into my paper. i figured if i could do it with leaves and stuff, why not a photo. the boy in the picture is my cousin, patrick.

voila: patty smith, the "paper-boy"

the photo is completely inside a piece of hand-made paper, and the back is solid hand-made paper. the drawn additions on top are done in charcoal pencil.

(this is my first contest entry ever, so i hope you guys like it!!)

this was done for my glass casting class.  the assignment was the idea of "storytelling," and i've always loved the idea of telling your family history through quilts; however, my family has never quilted--we've crocheted. so i made some castings of small crochet pieces and incorporated them into a blanket that was all hung on the wall.



some in progress shots:



the details are hard to see but the side facing you is flat and the underside of the casting is an exact duplicate of crocheted yarn.





details of the individual castings on the piece:







the glass is actually clear and the white crochet is just around the edges--the color showing through is from the blanket they're hanging on.

i just finished up an advanced jewelry/metalsmithing class and now that the semester's over i actually have time to put up some of my work. sorry for the long post, but i didn't want to flood the board with separate posts. thanks for looking and enjoy!, c&c welcome.








cast and fabricated brooch based on the idea of replicating cancerous cells
sterling silver with liver of sulfur patina and blue zircon








forged spoon
copper with liver of sulfur patina and burnished edges










dripping ring series, lost wax casting
sterling silver with orange and blue zircon

Very cool- I'm sorry I missed this when you originally posted it...

thank you! i actually forgot all about this post. it was one of my first.

I recently stenciled a shirt for my bike gang, the Lady Parade. We take our name from this marriedtothesea.com comic. (obviously our motto is "hats off!" heh)

front:


back:


apologies for the crappy macbook pictures.

i'm finally getting around to photographing all my new work, and i realized i never properly documented my projects from earlier semesters. this was my first project in the metals field, so bear with my tool marks and wonky forming.



the assignment was to take a 6x6 inch piece of copper plate and make a wearable piece without cutting anything off the original piece (piercing, folding, hammering, bending, etc. to transform the plate metal.)