Making sterling silver headpins without a torch

The other day I was making headpins and I ran out of gas for my little torch. Since I'm making headpins on the kitchen counter, next to the counter is the cooking appliance. I thought to myself, let's try it, why not. And it worked beautifully! Below are a few steps with pictures on how to do it with your regular cooking appliance.
Note: this is only applicable if you want to make headpins. It DOES not work if you want to solder :) But for a quick fix, if you ran out of gas and you're in the middle of the gorgeous pair of earrings and don't have any headpins left, it works :)

1. Cut your wire to size and put them in the flux (mine is some yellow borax liquid from the local jewelry supply shop). I prefer the flux to touch the whole pin, not only the part to be in the fire

2. Take the wire and hold it similarly to how I hold it in the picture, relatively vertical if possible, so the wire blobs up nicely in the middle. You see the bottom becomes after 1-2 seconds strongly yellow. Right after this it curls up into a nice round blob.

3. Take it away from the fire and inspect it briefly. If the blob is not in the middle, or is too small, or not to your liking, put it brieflyback in the fire and repeat the procedure. IF all is good, go to step 4.

4. In the meantime have hot (but not boiling) water in a jar of some sort, but make sure that the dish is not metal. I use a bowl that I bought yoghurt in a while ago. Then put a teaspoon full of pickle. The brand I use is in this picture.

5. As you finish with each pin, put it in the jar with the pickle. You see as the pins are in the container, they are all dark, ugly, oxidized. If you hadn't used flux before, it would be much much worse! Make sure that if you are using anything metal

to put the pins in the container, the metal does not touch the pickle. On the other hand, do not throw the pins in the pickle carelessly either, as the pickel is acid, and although it's not a strong one (yeah I tested it with my finger once, just coz...), it's still acid and not very healthy for your skin (or god forbid your eyes).

6. Leave the pins in the container for anything btw. 5-10 minutes (at least in my experience), until the headpins are nice and white. They are all coated with the film that will be removed during polishing stage.

7. Take out the pins from the pot using anything but metal. I have a copper thong just for this particular task.

My way of polishing the pins is with a Lortone tumbler. Use stainless steel shot of different forms, add a few drops of dishwashing liquid. The US folks recommend Dawn, but as the rest of the world might not be equiped with Dawn, you can use any regular liquid. I'm using in general Palmolive, as this is the one I have in my household. Before that I used a no-name liquid that you buy in the supermarket in larger quantities, as it's cheaper. It worked just the same.

Leave the pins for about an hour or so in the tumbler, and when ready, take them out, rinse well and enjoy using your new home-made pins :)

Briolette Yellow Jade necklace and earrings

The battery of my digital camera is on dying, so I've bought a new one from Ebay. It's not here yet and in the meantime I'm suffering (the camera powers down every few minutes), so it's a toughie right now to take pictures. However I managed to take some shots of the latest jewelry I made during the last week. For some of the pieces I used beads purchased last weekend.

Yellow Jade Necklace and earrings

I made this set last weekend using some gorgeous yellow jade beads and a wonderful 

briolette I bought from 

an Etsy supplier. Gotta love that briolette!

You can purchase the necklace and earrings separately, or as a set. If you buy them as a set, you will get an additional 10% discount from the whole. Offer valid only when purchasing through the blog. Free shipping goes either way.

30 Euros - Necklace only

13 Euros - Earrings only

38.7 Euros - Necklace and Earrings set (10% off from buying separately)

Are We There Yet?

Have you ever had the feeling that you will never get "caught up"(whatever that means)? I'm having one of those episodes now, as I go to the office each day and try to finish what I was trying to finish yesterday! I haven't really had time to post a lot of new Fall jewelry since getting "caught up" means getting orders out, doing paperwork, and organizing new gemstones and components as they are coming in. So today, I don't have many pictures to put on the blog. I'll be glad to get some more help for the paperwork and organizing as soon as I can find someone. I love to travel and have a short Hilton Head trip coming up, but lately getting away hasn't meant getting away at all, but rather working furiously before I go, taking work with me, and being met with a deluge of things to do on coming home. Of course, it doesn't help that I have to work hard to mollify kitties Cluny and Cuervo who feel that forgiveness for my travel is a lengthy process that requires a lot of treats and petting and brushing on my part (although I do have two different people come over every day while I am gone to make sure that they are fed, and one who stays to play with them for an hour or more!)
The jewelry today is (above) a labradorite bracelet featuring sterling silver and pretty borosilicalte lampwork beads, (below) an opal bracelet made with blue Peruvian opals, smoky quartz, and sterling silver. The second strand is a chain of sterling with charms hanging at intervals. The last bracelet today is made with yellow turquoise - a stone I don't use that often. A customer wanted a bracelet and some other pieces made from yellow turquoise and I started getting interested in the patterns and shades of colour in these oval stones especially. With Suzette Celestin's lampwork beads and Karen Hill Tribes chain, this is one of my favorites although I'd never been very keen on yellow turquoise before. It's not on the turquoise page, but on a new page on the website that features gemstone bracelets that contain gemstones that we don't really have a category for otherwise, such as charoite, sodalite, rhodochrosite, unakite, and yes, yellow turquoise!

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labradorite jewelry

First Place in 2008 Celebrating Beads, the jorney of... contest!

WooooooooHoooooooo!

Last night at the Bead Gala in the US Navy Memorial and Naval Heritage Center in Washington, DC my necklace Mid Summer Night's Dream was announced as the First Place winner of the 2008 Celebrating Beads, the jorney of... International Juried Jewelry Design Competition (seed bead category)! I'm happy! :)

Gemstones shopping

Ok so  yesterday I decided to indulge myself, so I went to the local gemshop and bought all these goodies, plus 5 meters of sterling silver chain. It was all quite expensive, but I came out with some nice things from there. Rose quartz, all sorts of agates, a couple of glass briolettes, moonstone, jade, two sizes of amethyst and  lapis (the most expensive of all the batch except the silver chain). I guess I won't be visiting that shop at least until Christmas anymore. I need to get going and make some stuff out of all this, and sell, so the hole in my credit card is smaller :)

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Fire Mountain Gems and Beads 2008 Beading Contest

FMG 2008 Beading Contest winners were announced a couple of weeks ago. Not gold, not silver, not bronze, I got just Judge's Favorite Award for two necklaces (Midnight Flowers and Shahrazad), and Golden Rose Necklace made FMG final.

Here are the links to these items:

Midnight Flowers Necklace
Shahrazad Necklace
Golden Rose Necklace

Art Activated at the Torpedo Factory

Visual art came alive at the Torpedo Factory during the Alexandria Festival of the Arts! On September, 13th, TFAC artists demonstrated pottery on the wheel, painting, enamel work, printmaking, and much more.


Guests got creative with the popular Champagne Cork Chairs Workshop and fiber art activities, while the Alexandria Archaeology Museum joined the fun with a history-inspired drawing activity. Storytelling and flute performances, art-inspired dance vignettes, and so on. It was a really exciting event!

Art Activated at the Torpedo Factory

Sapphire: September's Exotic Birthstone

Reminiscent of the notorius "Star of India", admired by kings and queens, given as an engagement ring from Prince Charles to Princess Diana, the sapphire has an imperial and exotic pedigree. Persian rulers believed that the sky was the reflected blue of sapphires, and many believed that the Ten Commandments were originally written on sapphire (although in both cases the word sapphire likely referred to lapis lazuli). In the middle ages, the sapphire was prized by wizards and savants alike for what many believed were its magical powers and efficacy as a lucky charm. At times, because sapphires are known to change from a blue during the daylight to a purplish or violet blue during the evening, sapphires were used to test a woman's chastity. The legend goes that if a sapphire turned blue-violet, then the lady was unfaithful while remaining a steady blue meant that she was true. Poor women who were unlucky enough to be tested under the evening light! Sapphire belongs to the family of minerals known as corundum (just as the ruby does). While the word "sapphire" most likely came from the Greek language, the word "corundum" comes from the Tamil language (spoken mainly in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu in India). The sapphire gets its blue colour from iron and titanium dioxide. Corundum is the second hardest stone (the diamond is the first) registering an 8-9 on the Moh's Scale of hardness. Most sapphires are heat-treated today to obtain their dark blue colour, a process which really only mimics what Nature would do more slowly.

I love to work with sapphires, especially when the sapphires are of a larger size. I was fortunate enough to find some largish faceted rondelles that you see in some of the jewelry here. All the sapphire braceletshere can be found on the Cluny Grey Jewelry page of Sapphire Bracelets including the bracelets which also feature lampwork beads and mother of pearl. The sapphire earrings can be found on the Sapphire Earrings page.

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