My first keum-boo jewelry piece ... a Twilight tribute

I came late to the Twilight fan party, but I'm definitely here and can't wait for the next film in the series, Eclipse.  (Team Edward here!)

So ... once I was booked into a keum-boo class and knew I had to create a jewelry piece as pre-work for the class, the Twilight series was the first thing that came to mind.

My tribute to Twilight is a round box bead strung on a sterling silver ball chain.  The texture, although so subtle as to hardly be recognizable, is a forest of evergreen trees over which a full moon shines.  The moon is a bezel-set rainbow topaz cabochon, and the 24-karat gold foil keum boo burnished onto the surface is a cloud drifting across the sky.  All around the rim of the bead are the words Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse.

I was able to achieve some amazing oxidation colors on this piece ... it looks like the bead is about to burst into flame with the bright coppers, purples and blues, especially on the back.  I polished up the text to highlight it.  Next will come a coat of Renaissance Wax  to protect the patina, which would be heartbreaking to lose.

... And the award for Most Beautiful Holiday Cocktail goes to ...

The Winter White Cosmopolitan served by Bonefish Grill in Bonita Springs, Florida.  What a feast for the eyes ... as well as the palate!

Ingredients:  Stoli Cranberry Vodka, Cointreau, fresh lime juice and white cranberry juice -- garnished with floating cranberries.  (Almost) too lovely to drink, although I did force myself.  :)

Thin excuse for a blog post, I freely admit.  Just looking for one more excuse to say Merry Christmas!  And may all your winter cocktails be white.

Classes and glasses!

Although I've got some new metal clay pieces in the works, I seem to be having a problem these days finding time to finish them ... so I've turned back to glass cabs again.  I found a stash of unlisted pairs and put them online this evening.  Hope you like them!

Took two wonderful classes recently ... textures with Barbara Becker Simon, and keum-boo with Mary Ann Devos.  I am about a finish a keum-boo box bead with a Twilight theme; I just need to oxidize it.  I learned how to make tear-away textures, photopolymer plates, and hand-carve with the proper tools on the proper materials.  Fun -- and I can't wait to get going on all these new options right after the holidays!

Speaking of holidays, I'd like to take this opportunity to wish you all the happiest, healthiest and most peaceful of holiday seasons ever.  Thanks for taking the time to read my blog ... I appreciate it!

Steampunk + Resin = Something new and different!

Wow, I see it's been quite a while since I posted a blog update.  High time!

Speaking of time, I really wanted to try another steampunk jewelry piece.  I also wanted to experiment with UV resin.  So I combined both into my latest piece which I had so much fun making, I'm thinking of turning it into the first of a series!

I've called this Slow Growth.  It represents the passage of time while a botanical goes through its life cycle.  The frame of this piece probably speaks for itself, as do the assorted watch innards gracing the center of the pendant.  What may be harder to identify in my photo is the gold-colored skeleton of a leaf under the watch parts.

I'm really loving embedding items in resin.  It speaks to my background as a miniaturist.  Things embedded in liquids have always held a strange fascination for me.  In my dollhouse days, it might have been faux ice cubes embedded in a tiny glass of faux iced tea.  So many parallels between two such contrasting crafts ...