Enameling on Copper Clay
Join Pam East as she teaches you special skills you need to design unique jewelry with copper clay, and add color, depth and dynamic interest with lustrous glass enamels. Pam’s step-by-step approach will have you creating beautiful, show-quality art jewelry in no time!
2 DVD set with 4 hours of instruction, PLUS over 20 minutes of bonus material and special features.

Enameling on Silver Clay
Learn step-by-step how to design beautiful silver jewelry and how to add lustrous enamels. Whether you’re a beginner or seasoned professional, this is designed to help you successfully create stunning show-quality art jewelry.

2 DVD set with 3.5 hours of instruction, PLUS over 30 minutes of bonus material and special features.

Available from Art Clay World and probably many other fine sources!

Details here: http://www.pameast.net/videos

The Perfect Match doming System is available from PMC Connection.

In honor of Handmade Weddings Week on my blog, All Things Metal Clay, I created this Treasury of wedding jewelry, bridesmaids gifts, invitations, a cake topper and more!

Flower Necklace, Silver Asym… IrinSkye $24	Bridal Jewelry, Ivory Pearl … AMIdesigns $24	Twisted Pearl Necklace, Doub… ABbling $56
Petite Chased and Repoussed … KSkilesJewelry $124	Robot Bride and Groom Weddin… AdoptabotWorks… $85	WEDDING DATE necklace – due … MyBelovedAndCo $49.99
Printable Parent’s Weddi… GotPaperDesign… $7.95	Dr Who Wedding Invitations -… Scrappingoodti… $5	Titanium & Ironwood Ring – M… jewelrybyjohan $219
Doctor Who Wedding Bands – T… SpiffingJewelr… $100	Custom fingerprint ring -Ste… fabuluster $225	Maid of Honor Gift, Bridesma… JessieGirlJewe… $35
mens cufflinks pacman geek g… LolaAndCash $79	Pink Bow Headband, Pink Head… MySweetieBean $9	Lemongrass Verbena Sugar Scr… BerwynBettysBa… $10
NEW LOWER PRICE 7 Butterfly … BerwynBettysBa… $15

Sponsored by send bulk email from excel.

Ring by Tom Herman. Copyright Tom Herman, reprinted with permission.

This week we’ll look at a book on wedding crafts, handcrafted wedding rings and jewelry for the bridal party and a gorgeous hand sewn,couture wedding dress!

For wedding rings, I made a list of the jewelers whose work I think is top notch, whose work I would buy. But I wondered, are my favorites the same as other jewelers? I posed the question on Orchid, asking, “whose work do you covet?” Nearly everyone on my list was mentioned once or twice, plus addition names.

Why ask jewelers? Because we appreciate technique and admire craftsmanship and design. The jewelry a jeweler would buy for themselves — something they can’t make themselves — that means it’s really good.

Let’s begin!

Tom Herman of 7 Fingers Jewelery
Tom does more with just seven fingers than most people do with ten. His work is all hand engraved and just gorgeous. Here’s his Rings page. I first saw Tom’s work as an appraiser, years ago.

James Binnon
James’s site, Mokume-gane.com, is named for his signature technique. He’s widely recognized as being masterful at the technique. Here’s a simple overview of the process: Mokume-gane is made by layering metals in different colors, laminating them in the kiln into a billet. Once cooled, the billet is sliced and then hammered to create patterns. But James’s explanation is more complete, read it here.
Amazingly, James also does patterned rings in stainless steel.

Eve Alfilé Gallery and Studio
Eve’s endless creativity and eye for selecting stones and pearls is inspiring. Visit her website and click Wedding and Engagement to see the selection.

That’s three for today! I’ll continue to post the jewelers this week, and into next, if necessary.

How about you? Whose work would you buy, if you were going to buy a wedding or engagement ring? Please post a comment, thanks!

I made this list! Blogger Rachel Gordon Singer included my Kindle book on today’s list of Kindle Freebies and Cheapies!

Thanks Rachel!

Check out the post here: http://www.mashupmom.com/five-kindle-freebies-five-kindle-cheapies-11414 And if you like free and cheap Kindle books, Rachel, a former librarian, posts a list daily, and she’s just added three new websites, focused on 99 cent Kindle books in three categories: cookbooks, romances and mysteries.

I was recently a part of the CEO Conference, facilitating a couple of round table discussions at this event for aspiring and current college student business owners.  One of the events at the conference is the business pitch contest.  So perhaps that’s why this app, from the folks at Make Mine a Million, caught my eye:

http://www.countmein.org/2013/04/21/perfect-pitch-mobile-app

Use it to perfect that all important elevator speech!

It comes in versions for apple and android.

Two companies make riveting tools.  Not that riveting is hard to do the old fashioned way, with a hammer, but if I can make something go faster, why not?

The tool basically cuts a hole through thin metal, so you don’t have to drill, and then you use a purchased rivet and the other side of the riveting tool to attach the rivet.  The purchased rivet will cost more than it would to saw pieces of tubing yourself, but hopefully the time savings balances that out.

Here’s a pdf from Metal Clay Findings, on using their tool, here.  And a video.

Beadsmith makes a similar riveting tool, called the EZ Rivet.  The main difference, as far as I can tell, is that the Metal Clay Findings tool comes in two sizes (of rivets) and also offers a long reach version, while the Beadsmith one comes in only one size (of rivet).

Here’s a video on using the Beadsmith tool.

Have you used these tools?  Do you have a review?

What about production techniques and the trade off between time and money?  What do you do?  Thanks for your comments!

What to read:

Metalsmith Arthur Hash, mentioned in previous posts, has designed some really terrific metalsmithing Tshirts and aprons.  You can see his store here.

Thinking about buying a Potter USA hydraulic press?  Arthur has an extensive review of it on his blog.

The Smaller Box blog has a terrific post (one of so many) called, “Is Etsy Hindering Your Customer Relationships?”

What to watch:

A friend reminded me about the terrific series, Craft in America, from PBS.

Artist Luann Udell has a video studio tour up, what a great idea!  It’s fascinating to see what she collects, and fun to hear the voice of one of my internet friends.  Maybe you could do the same thing with your studio.  Don’t like being on camera?  She’s not in this video, just the studio!

What to make:

I happen to have an enormous stash of buttons right now, so this tutorial for making a button bowl caught my eye.

When to tweet:

The Fine Art Tips blog has advice for us on the Best and Worst Times to Post on Social Media.

What to wear:  

Watching the finale of What Not to Wear, plus talking to my fashion friend who makes custom clothing, have me thinking about how to best up my game, clothing-wise.  I’m in a creative field and I think I should dress more creatively, while still looking professional.

I don’t have a link to share for this one, I guess it’s more of a question: what’s your take on how artists should dress?  Do you dress in all black, ala Vera Wang, and let the jewelry shine?  Do you have a “costume” you where when you go to your show openings?  What have you done to up your fashion game?  Please comment.  Thanks.

Photo credit: David Brahn.

Lorena Angulo has designed some really terrific Papel Picado style templates for Quick-Cuts. Check out her post about them, with lots of pictures:
http://www.creativetexturetools.com/news/2013/07/18/easy-way-create-slide-sheets

Gail Lannum shares pics of the beads she bought at Bead and Button, you’ve GOT to see the drusy shells!
http://gaillannum.blogspot.com/2013/07/bead-stash.html

Kirsten Skiles saws out lots of leaves and shares pictures of what inspires her:
http://leafylady.tumblr.com

Ever wonder how to re-set the rollers on a rolling mill, should they get out of alignment? Brian Meek has a demo on that:
http://www.alberic.net/Toolbox_Index/TabMill/tabmill.html

How’s Helga doing, post at-home residency? Let’s see:
https://www.laleipsigjewels.com/index.php/en/helga-blogs/15-observations/89-back-in-flow

How about you? What’s on your bench? What are you working on? As always, comments are welcomed and appreciated!

You know those tasks you hate doing, that bog down your process? One of the ones I dislike is creating those slide sheets with thumbnail images of each piece of artwork/jewelry that I’m submitting to a show.

I wouldn’t mind if I just had to create the sheet once, but every show requires a different grouping of work and I have to create a new sheet.

I kept asking all my tech friends, isn’t there software that would automate this? And if not, would you write one for me?

At last, Corey Ehmke found one! It’s called Contact Page, confusingly. Contact Page makes me think of a sheet of contacts, as in the names and info. for people.

What it does is create something like a Contact Sheet — what photographers create in the darkroom when they print a sheet of negatives by placing them in contact with the photo paper.

I had a reason to used it yesterday as I worked to apply for something on a deadline. Here’s what you do: create a folder, export your photos from iPhoto into a folder.

Open Contact Page and tell it, yes, these photos in this folder. It grabs those photos and creates a thumbnail sheet of them.

But wait, there’s more! If you’ve used the description and titles features in iPhoto, Contact Page will pull that info. in too!

And you can customize what info. you want it to pull in from iPhoto.

Then you have a choice of formats you’d like your sheet output into. There’s InDesign, Pages, pdf and Quark Express.

Once you export your sheet to the software of your choice, you can edit those captions further if you want!

And the sheet is gorgeous and perfectly formatted!

It’s super easy to use and I swear I’ll never miss another deadline with this software!

It’s $9.99 and available in the app store.

Maybe you’re better at Photoshop or InDesign than I am and you don’t need this software, but even so, it would save you time.

I hate learning new software, but there was no learning curve with this. It was super easy.