Monday, January 30, 2012

Back At The Bench.

The sun is out and shining! Finally! It feels like forever since I last saw the sun for this length of time. It's been a few weeks almost. So this morning, I took my little munchkin out to the pond to get some much needed Vit D.

We're back home and I've put the air conditioning on to keep the humidity at bay. 
I have actually made some new things at the bench this past week. 
Honestly though with the lack of sales in my shop, it makes me feel like giving up. Though on the flip side of that, I just bought some more tools and a book and silver tubing lol.

I figure I will keep at it. For now.

On my list of things to learn, I want to try my hand at setting another large faceted stone. I bought one a while back, so will have to take a picture of it before I try and make a setting for it. Hopefully this one works out without any issues and I can list it in my shop. I finally bought the Creative Stone Setting book, which might help me the second time round with this setting. I also want to give flush setting a go. I have the burs coming and I have a few very small stones I can practice with, I just need to make a small burnisher first. There are a couple of tutorials out there that show you how to go about making one. 



Above are a couple of simpler things I have made for my shop.

Thanks ladies for giving me your opinion on my new background. I am going to keep the Turquoise box for the big earring shots and the other background for everything else. It keeps things interesting in my shop.

Sadly I am almost out of silver sheet. Which isn't great, as silver prices are on the rise again. Should probably weigh my scraps and see what I have....I've got quite a bit again.

Really I should buy myself some ingots and crucibles and melt it down myself....actually I think I will buy them in a couple of weeks and give it a go!!
I have the scrap and I have the mill, so it makes sense doesn't it?!!

I guess I should go and make some lunch for all now, it's almost lunch time.
I will go and read some blogs now :)

Take care
Em ♥

4 comments:

Amy Nicole said...

Don't buy a crucible or an ingot! Get a long lasting charcoal block, (I used one that was an old one I had laying around) Use a bur and carve a rectangle in the block that is about 2" long and inch wide or so...put a bunch of scrap in there, torch on high and it will all melt together, you'll get a usable ingot. Start running it through the mill..anneal often! I wish I hadn't spent the money on the the ingot, the crucible, the freaking crucible holder....bah! :-)

Amy Nicole said...

oh forgot to say about 1/4" deep on the rectangle.

Gemheaven said...

Oh wow Amy ~ * jumping insorry ~ great tip ~ thank you for sharing!!

Em I bought some large crystals to practice with ~ but then lost them somewhere ...oops

*note to self ~ tidy bench

littlecherryhill said...

Awsomesauce! Thanks Amy!

Jo - I got a couple of freebie stones when I purchased cabs, so those will be my practice ones :)