Weekly Review: Concrete Handbook for Artists

There are many materials that can be used for jewelry and other artistic ventures. Many of these materials, such as concrete, require some research and education in how they work. This is where a book such as Concrete Handbook for Artists comes in. Written by Andrew Goss, this is a thorough technical book about many aspects of concrete, how it works, and how to best utilize this material for artistic pieces. This book is highly recommended by members of Etsy Metal.

EtsyMetal News 10.13.08

There is of course a lot going on this fall. We are all gearing up for the holiday season as well as many shows this fall.

Lynette Andreasen is in an amazing show - Contemorary Visions in Metal. The artist reception is this Wed. Oct 15th from 6 - 8pm. Unfortunately, she won't be able to be there, but her amazing work will be! Check out her shop and blog.

Danielle Miller is a 2009 Niche Awards finalist that is amazing!!!

Ash Hilton was featured in last weeks Sunday Magazine - which is the weekly magazine included in New Zealand's biggest daily newspaper with a circulation of 500,000! Congrats! That is truly fantastic!

Upcoming shows:

Oct. 18th
Kat Gannon will be at Haddonfield Fall Festival from 10:00am to 5:00pm.

Sara Westermark will be at Autumn with Topsail in Topsail, NC

We also hit some milestones recently:
maggiejs hit 500 sales and bcyrjewelry it 700! woohoooo!!!

Etsy Metal Finds

Have fun with these spooky finds!

Vampire Ring by RichmondArt

Devilishly Cute Baby Shoes by devilishgrin

Chris Parry

Chris Parry is a talented metalsmith from England. He works out of his shop in Kent (Gravesend), England. Parry creates amazing pieces from sterling silver and gold, many of them custom orders. You can see more of his work on his Website, his Etsy Shop, and Flickr.

Danielle's Bud Vase - Part 3

To conclude the making of my bud vase...

Now that I have all my parts, I have to make them fit together! I file neck so it will sit flush on the top dome with little or no gaps. This takes a while: taking a little metal off here...checking the fit...taking a little metal off there...checking the fit ...and so on...

Once I have the fit perfect, I mark where I want to neck to be attached to the top dome and cut a hole into it.

Then stitches or burs are raised with a graver to hold the neck from moving (I will show you this a little later) and it is soldered into place.

The next step is to make a seat for the vase to sit on. I air raised a shallow dome into my larger bottom hemisphere.

Then the top inside egde is marked for placement and burs are raised to hold the two halves together during soldering. This technique of raising burs to keep things from sliding around was new to me and I love it! When I was taught in school, we used binding wire...which sometimes distorts your work and sticks to it. :(

It is soldered upside down so solder can be added to the lip (which will be removed later).

It's together!

The lip is sawed off and filed.

Lastly, the piece is heated, pickled and brass brushed many times over to raise the fine silver to the surface and give it this final finish. TA DA!

WARTEN KANN SICH WIRKLICH LOHNEN!

vor langer, langer zeit hat Victoria, Experimetal, einen super vorschlag gemacht:

alle interresierten mitglieder von EtsyMetal machen einige anhänger für eine armkette (charm bracelet) und wir tauschen sie dann aus damit alle teilnehmer ein armband mit den anhängern von den kollegen haben.
mit grosser begeisterung haben sich fast zwanzig von uns bereit erklärt mitzumachen.

gesagt, - und endlich - getan!

jeder hat genug anhänger für alle andern gemacht plus ein paar extra für den EtsyMetal shop.

hier sind sie, trommelwirbel!!!!

Elizabeth Scott hat grosszügigerweise drei etra armketten für den shop gemacht & fotografiert:



- sie sind jetzt im Etsy Metal shop erkäuflich.

Ein sehr spezielles sammlerstück, da es nur drei von diesen armketten zu kaufen gibt!
die andern 15 stücke sind im besitz von den folgenden teilnehmern:

howlindoggie, ashleyjewelry, ninagibsondesigns, downtothewiredeigns, ninadinoff, maggiejs, themusesjewels, sudlow, kismet designs, discomedusa, alphabettispaghetti, experimetal (sie intiatorin selber!), nyhedy, esdesigns and bcyrjewelry

das ist eine einmalige sache!

some things are just worth waiting for...

Some of you may remember talk on the blog of the legendary Etsy Metal charm swap. The original idea came from Experimetal - you can see her natural ability for utterly brilliant ideas when you look at her work, and this idea was one of the best. Ever. No, seriously, I'm not exaggerating.

One of the things about being part of a team stuffed to the gills with such amazingly talented people is - you get like a kid in a sweet shop (candy store ;)). Where do you start? How can you choose what to buy? Me, I get totally short-circuited when I try to go jewellery shopping and end up with a wish list that's longer than my arm. Experimetal's idea was a charm bracelet, with charms from many members of the team. Each participating member made enough charms for all of the other members - plus one... They were all sent to one member to co-ordinate; and once they were all there, they were divvied up and each participant received one of each - including their own.

And this is the amazing collection that came through fifteen letter-boxes:



Aren't they just incredible?!

And - those "one extra" charms? Elizabeth Scott hand-fabricated a beautiful sterling chain for them, strung them - and made this:



- which is available for sale in the Etsy Metal etsy shop - HERE

It is an astonishing, astonishing piece of wearable art; a real collector's piece. Fifteen pieces from metalsmiths of this caliber all in one place is something that just doesn't happen every day. Represented here are:

howlindoggie, ashleyjewelry, ninagibsondesigns, downtothewiredeigns, ninadinoff, maggiejs, themusesjewels, sudlow, kismet designs, discomedusa, alphabettispaghetti, experimetal, (the instigator herself!) nyhedy, esdesigns and bcyrjewelry

and it really is a once in a lifetime one-off. Although... this was the charm swap Mark I. We enjoyed it so much that there are charms swaps Marks II and III in the pipeline.

Aren't you amazed? We're amazed! And those metalworkers above? They're amazing.