Last Class

Last night's class was the last one. We showed our projects(completed & otherwise) & talked about how they were a success or failure & why. After we did that, Kyle went over how to take pictures of jewelry. He brought his light box(tent) & set~up & took pictures for anyone who wanted them.Over the course of the evening I set my stone in my bezel cup, but I don't feel confident it is truly 'set'. I would work on it, it would feel secure & not rattle, then it would rattle, & I would start all over again w/ the burnisher. I finally put it down when it felt like it was done, we'll see! When it was my turn for pictuers I chose 4 of my pieces. The fist is my silver skull. The assignment was saw work. After I cut it out & filed it, I put it through the mill w/ a piece of lace. I strung this on a simple ball chain & wear it about an inch longer than choker length. The second piece is another cut out skull, this one in copper. I used adhesive to mask the skull & leave the eyes,nose & teeth open to acid for etching. The adhesive did allow some bleedthrough so the etching isn't as precise as I had planned. I can live w/ this because it looks 'ghostly' this way.This is strung on a thick leather lace w/ a knot. When worn w/ the silver skull it hangs just below it. I wore them together to a Dio de Los Muertos which is why I have them @ these lengths.The third photo is one of my riveted posts. I used mica & a steel heshi disk on the copper base. I hung the piece from a bone(chicken/wing) w/ copper wire links. I haven't finished this yet, I don't know if it will be a piece in a collage or a necklace. I'm leaning toward necklace but that could change,again. The last piece is a copper cross. It has a self bail that is soldered closed. It is strung on a leather lace w/ sliding knots. This is a gift for my nephew's birthday (next week, so don't tell him!) & will probably be worn everyday, only being taken off for basketball games. I wanted it to be sturdy w/o being overwhelming. He went through a couple of gemstone cross charms in the last few months & I wanted him to have something that wouldn't break when it got dropped.There is a little over a month until the next class starts. I will 'move up' to the advanced class so I will continue to be able to share w/ y'all. I will keep postingover the next month. I'm still working on my downloading situation. My computer has been cleaned of viruses & such, but the tech wasn't comfortable trying to work on the camera problem. He did try my camera on his tower & it did show up so he was able to tell me my tower isn't recognizing anything plugged in when I try to download from my camera or card(my tower will take both). I do have a friend w/ a hacker daughter, so that will be my next fix atttempt. She wants to learn how to string bracelets so we are going to do a little old fashioned bartering. I am taking pictures of work for the Yule fair, so hopefully I'll be able to share those soon.