New Look to Blog and New Website

Hooray! after much work by Jennifer, my graphic designer, my blog has a new look that matches my new website...I now have a cohesive look for all my online sites.
She also did a great job on my business cards.
The missing piece of the puzzle? My creations!
I've not been in the studio for weeks while the biz setup 'stuff' was being worked on.
But NOW- the fun begins--- in a short time, I will be making enamel pieces as well as sterling silver and copper items.
So many ideas swirling around inside my head. 'Course those ideas morph and change once I pick up the metal and tools...
I'm 'seeing' enamelled pieces with multi-sized holes drilled into them as part of the design. Maybe a "foxglove" inspired forged, drilled, enamelled pendant.
Yesterday I picked geranium leaves in various sizes to make some Precious Metal Clay items. Do you know how much time it takes to find leaves that are the same size?! They should make the prettiest little fine silver earrings...

Exciting Days

Feelin' skippy this morning. DH and I have been battling an awful chest cold 'souvenir' from his last biz trip...Today I woke up and 'forgot' I was sick so that means I'm finally getting well.
Exciting time in my life. I've been occupied with setting up my business- Golden Water Creations. Last nite I purchased my website and shopping cart. Graphic designer is hard at work on 'stuff'.
I will be placing a bank breaking sterling silver wire and sheet order (ohhh to have dreamed of this biz for so many years and be opening it with silver spot @$19.38/oz and rising....let's not mention gold prices, you won't be seeing much if ANY of that in my shop...)
but then let the fun begin... I hope to put on my 'creating' hat (Note to self: count up how many 'hats' a one-woman business wears...)
My mind is filled to BURSTING with projects: earrings, bracelets, book marks, magnets, note cards, table runners for Thanksgiving, flower hair accessories, garden silverplate items....I actually think it will be a problem just having 100 product "spots" in my GoldenWaterCreations.com shop. My Etsy shop will be stocked and re-opened with new product as well.

I learned alot in my photography workshop last month and my lite cube and gorilla tripod have arrived. Boy the gorilla tripod is cool invention...www.goby.com

As if the thrill of using my new jewelry torch isn't ENOUGH in one month---I will be taking an AWESOME 2 day intensive Enameling Workshop in Bellevue, KY later in September. How's that for a birthday present?

Stars 4th of July Necklace

Hot summer nite with fireworks exploding, that's the kind of heat and more that it takes to create these enameled stars. 1500 degrees.... here's how i spent my Sunday morning so far:

old glory 4th of july necklaces

So i had fun torching glass enamels this morning. Here are the Old GLory 4th of July necklaces i made. They are counter-enameled blue on the back. A country feel, in the style of dog tags.

Enamel continues to be my interest right now

Today I'm firing more enamel shapes, testing out the various colors of enamel I have. Ground glass enamel is similar to pottery glazes in that you can't tell what the color will be until the glass particles are melted.
hahaha Ray read my online note that I 'wood burned' the floor with the hot enamel pc last weekend.

I'm working on a pair of earrings for the 4th of July. gosh, it's almost here... i'd better get back to creating.
Here's a photo of Iris enamel earrings I made last year. I used a stencil technique to apply the white flower.

Can you believe 2010 is almost half over? Where has the time flown? Certainly during the last half of the year I need to do better time management so I can create more items.
I will definitely be doing more glass enamel play (hopefully without 'wood burning' the floor any more).

Capturing my garden blooms in photos is also of interest to me now. I will be attempting to learn photoshop. Man that is a complicated program. I'm most interested in the 'paint' effects.

Well, the day finally arrived: June 14th, 2010, after 4 months of live camera the Molly the Owl ustream production came to an end. It was an incredible experience. Many of us made friends through chatting on social stream. The May 29th picnic had about 300 people in attendance.

I had so much fun making owl necklaces and owl magnet sets and I'm so happy that they have "flown" to new home for fellow MODS, as we are called, so they have a remembrance of our time together.

Now that I have more free time, I'm starting to make some enamel pieces. Sunday I played around with shapes and fired up the kiln to see what the various glass enamel colors looked like post firing.
Gulp, one scarey moment: dropped a hot (1500 degree) pc of copper on the hard wood floor. Just like wood burning tool, the copper burned a mark on the floor. And darn, if I didn't drop it 2 more times before safely depositing it in the pickle bath.