Friday, March 30, 2012

“what’s New”

Welcome to our weekly “What’s New” post.
We have 17 new entries this week in our shops, really stunning jewelry.
Visit our shops and show us your love !

12
simplymega                                             formandfunktion
34
aroluna                                                     Rebecca Bogan
56
 Lichen and Lychee                             victoria takahashi/experimetal
78
iacua                                                          lsueszabo
910 
betsybensen                                           Danielle Miller
1112 
Michele Grady Designs                      2Roses
1314 
NRjewellerydesign                               Jen Lawler Designs
1516 
Evelyn Markasky                                 KathrynRiechert
17 
Panicmama Jewelry

I will be here next Saturday with new jewelry from Etsy Metal team members.
Have a great weekend !
Inbar

Thursday, March 29, 2012

EtsyMetal Charm Swap 9

We have arrived.

The charm swap deadline is tomorrow. Guess what? Every single participant in the EtsyMetal Charm Swap 9 has their charms finished and in Michele's hands! Michele has the charms all pre-sorted and is in the process of getting them ready to ship back to all of the players!

This was my first swap as a member of the EtsyMetal team, however, I have been involved in countless other art swaps over the years and none have gone as smoothly and as seamlessly as this one. I must extend a huge thank you to everyone for making the swap such a success! And a double thanks goes to Michele, my co-curator. I think we did a great job!




For this week's recap, here are updates from participants that were posted over the last two weeks:

Mark Kaplan's dragon charm:



Erin Austin's circle charms:



Tess Norberg's sea horse charms:



Reagan Hayhurst's leaf charms:



Winona's hazelnut charms:



Kirsten Denbow's birdhouse charms:



Ruby's twig charms:



Laura Pacino's copper flower charms:



Renee Ford's faceted gemstone charms:




Stacey's enameled charms:



My co-curator, Michele's charms:



Konstanze's cocoon charms



And here are all of the charms pre-sorted:






I plan to do a Charm Swap 9 wrap-up post next week which will feature each participant's charms so everyone can see all of the charms in a grande finale of sorts post.

Until next time...

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Members" News for April

Well, it appears that the month of April is a bit slower than most months here on Etsy Metal. I do have a few snippets of news to report though.


LSueSzabo
will be in the upcoming show Biotic Semiotics at the Allen Priebe Gallery at the Univ. of WI in Oshkosh, WI. The show runs April 4-26th. It is a multi-media national show of art inspired by nature. Here is the link where the show will be posted online after it opens. http://www.uwosh.edu/apgallery/allen_pr ... exhibition


LsueSzabo is also showing work in the national multi-media show Crafts Nationalat the Mulvane Art Museum in Topeka KS. This show runs May 5- Aug 19, 2012


LSue Szabo
and 2Roses are in the new Lark book "Heat, Color, Set, Fire" by Mary Hettmansperger, available in bookstores and Amazon now.

Kathyrn Riechert be participating in the Acworth Art Fest , located northwest of Atlanta, on April 14 and 15 .

Well, that's all the news for the month of April. Be sure to catch us in May- the art fair season will be ramping up and we might be in your area.

Sue

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Ask Auntie EM - The other "G" word...gold

Well, it's Tuesday and we are back again answering your questions in EtsyMetal's weekly blog post called "Ask Auntie EM". If you're new here, this is a weekly blog post written by Sue and Ann where we tackle your metalsmithing and non metalsmithing questions. Having trouble with your solder? Need some help with stone setting? Have a problem 2 year old? We and EtsyMetal's 100+ members probably have the answer. If you'd like YOUR question answered in the future, please email your questions to askauntie@etsymetal.com and we will get to it as soon as we can. If you'd like to read past posts, they can be found here.

I know we were absent last week, sorry about that. Both our lives got in the way of blogging. We are back this week, however, to answer another question and this week it's about working with gold.

I've been comfortably working in silver for a few years now, and want to start incorporating some gold into my work. Do you suggest starting with 14k (cheaper) or 18k (heard it's easier to work with)? Can either of these be fused? What should I know about soldering - do I really need Easy, Medium, Hard or can I get by with just one to start? Is it true or just a nasty internet rumor that you can use lower karat gold to 'solder' a higher karat (or is that vice versa)? What if I want to solder gold to silver - the different flowing temps of silver vs gold vs solder (gold or silver solder?) make my head swim. Any tips or general rules you could provide would be very, very helpful for someone who's terrified of turning gold into a puddle.

I think the answer to most of these questions depends on what you will be making. And, here, I'm going to be assuming you're talking about yellow gold. White gold is a whole different can of worms that we can tackle another day.

In general, I do think 18k is much easier to work with for a few reasons. It is less springy so bezels fold down much nicer than bezels in 14k. You will find it more difficult to bezel set a stone in 18k than in silver but it's a world nicer than setting that same stone in a 14k bezel.

I think you get much more bang for your buck with 18k. The color is much richer (especially Hoover and Strong's royal 18k yellow gold) than 14k and shows up much better against sterling silver. I think 14k can look washed out next to silver and the 18k really pops.

I don't believe 18k can be fused, I think the lowest karat that can be fused is 22k but I could be wrong about that. As for solder, I think that's up to you. Solder adds greatly to the expense of working with gold, that's for sure, but if you're well equipped you will have an easier time making what you WANT with gold and not making what you CAN with gold. That said, if you're going to just be adding accents to your sterling you may not need gold solder at all. I use sterling hard solder to attach gold accent pieces to my sterling pieces. You need to make sure you're using teeny pieces and heating correctly though because if the silver solder jumps where you don't want it....it'll ruin your gold. I usually use the color of solder that's easiest to clean up if it jumps where I don't want it on a two tone piece. Using gold solder is a snap. Gold solder doesn't "jump" like silver solder, it just melts right into your seam. It's terrific, you'll love it. You heat it the same, use the same flux and pickle. I would highly recommend using Firescoff flux on 14k gold. In my home studio I had a huge problem with my 14k turning pink whenever I heated it. I tried every different type of flux out there and nothing helped. The Firescoff completely eliminates the problem, it's a life saver. Higher karat gold doesn't have this problem but if you decide to work with 14k, do yourself a huge favor and get some Firescoff. Oh yeah, you asked about flow temperatures. It really depends on what you're making but just use them in order from highest temp to lowest temp and you'll be fine. I honestly never thought about it before and I would encourage you not to dwell too much on "what flows when" unless you're making something hugely complicated. Just start with hard and then move to medium and if you need to, use your easy. Remember, each time you heat your solder the flow temperature raises a little bit, up to a point, so you can use hard several times and then medium a few times...and so on.

As for the "soldering higher temp gold with lower temp gold"....that's just nuts. Don't do that, ok?

I hope that helps. Gold is terrifying to work with, I know. It's incredibly expensive and it feels so important to get everything right every time. Give yourself a break and play with a little at a time to get the feel for it. Make a skinny, little ring or a teeny pendant or add some accents onto a sterling piece. If you mess it up, you learned something and won't make that mistake again. Have some fun with it!

That's all for this week! Check back in next week and we will answer another one of your questions!

Friday, March 23, 2012

“What’s New”

Welcome to “What’s New”.
Every week I show the new jewelry our team members listed on Etsy.
Enjoy !

il_570xN.3067271682
sueszabo                                                  aroluna
34
SCJ Jewelry Design                             Gotham Atelier
56
Rebecca Bogan                                      e5jewelry
78 
Erin Austin                                              betsybenen
910
NRjewellerydesign                              silentgoddess
1112 
Juju by Sarah                                         Michele Grady Designs

I will be here next Saturday with new collection.
Have a great weekend,
Inbar

Saturday, March 17, 2012

“What’s New”

Blessings !
We are here again with new collection listed this week ןn our shops.
Visit our shops and show us your love !

12
aroluna                                                      e5jewelry
34
Erin Austin                                               Panicmama Jewelry
56
lsueszabo                                                betsybensen
78
citizenobjects                                        tkmetalarts
910 
VirginieMartinStudio                         victoria takahashi/experimetal
1512
silentgoddess                                          annewalkerjewelry
1314 
Gracebourne                                          SCJ Jewelry Design
1819
Lichen and Lychee                               simplymega
1617 
kirsten Denbow Designs                     Nina Gibson Designs

I will be here next Saturday with more beautiful creations from our members.
have a great weekend !
Inbar
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