This is an 8" long copper serving spoon with a leafy foldformed handle and three fine silver rivets (although the pieces are also soldered.) I've been wanting to make a spoon.   Sometimes an idea just won't go away, like a song you can't get out of your head.  This one may or may not cure me-- not sure yet if it's out of my system or just the first of a series of (hopefully improved) spoon trials.   I don't want to rain on my own parade but there is room for improvement.

The other day I bought some crazy things in a thrift store to use as forms and stakes for shaping metal.  One of those things was a wooden Mancala game board.  If you're not familiar with Mancala, click here to see what the board looks like.  When I saw it, I thought "spoon!" and so I paid my two bucks and that's what I used to form the bowl portion of the spoon.

This is the type of shopping I love to do.  It's a kind of MacGyver shopping viewpoint where the intended function of an item is moot, and all you see are shapes and raw materials.  If you aren't old enough to know about MacGyver, a link probably won't help.  Suffice to say, it makes any shopping trip a creative adventure.

Maybe next week I'll be back to posting jewelry.  Thanks for sticking with me to find out :-)

Last week I posted a half finished piece and here it is finished, as promised.  It's hand cut copper with a thick sterling silver bezel to frame a corrugated metal "stone."  The bottom is finished with wire-wrapped moss agate.

This week I'd like to get back into some serious fold forming, so my goal is to have something fun to show for it on next week's post.

A little exciting news.  I'm scheduled to demo foldforming at the Columbus Arts Festival on June 2, 3-4 p.m.   It's a huge outdoor event (so wish us good weather!) If you're local, I hope you'll save the date and find me there.   I'll post more about it as we get closer.

That's about all I have for today... make it a great week!

After a few days of downtime this week, I'm back in gear.  But let's not get crazy.  I caught myself trying to rush-finish a piece today so that I could post it in time.  Well guess what?  It's not March anymore, and I can post a half-finished piece if I want to :-)

The middle section is a piece of copper corrugated in multiple directions.  It's sitting inside a sterling silver, textured ring (literally a ring band that I made a couple years ago but never used.)  The long, skinny piece at the top will be a bale of some type soon.  I have some ideas for the rest... I'll post the finished piece next week and hopefully catch some natural lighting for a better photo.

I've done a few bangles too, if you'd like to see some finished jewelry.  

In case you missed it, Katie Thompson was the giveaway winner for the March One-a-day challenge.  She chose this piece and I shipped it on April 2, so she might have it by now:

Katie is so sweet.  She said, "Thank you so, so much! I am blown away! March 9th's necklace caught my eye right away, and I would be so honored to wear it! Really, it is just such a great design, your eye follows the ripples, it's like looking down on sand dunes and makes me think of far-off places :) I also like the way that part of it casts small shadows on itself while the rest is so bright. Thank you for sharing your gift with all of us!"  

That made my day :-)

In other news...

Mineral, Fossil, Gem, and Jewelry show
A couple of my pieces will be on display this weekend April 7-8 at the Mineral, Fossil, Gem, and Jewelry Show.  They will be part of a display to promote the Cultural Arts Center here in Columbus.  Unfortunately I'll be out of town, so I won't see them.  These are the ones:

I've made a few new bangle bracelets but I can't locate my camera right now.  Maybe I'll post them next week.  The camera is probably right here somewhere, but you should see this studio.  Time for cleanup.  

New foldforming group page
I started a new Facebook group for foldforming yesterday 4/3/2012.  The new timeline layout on Facebook made our original page pretty unworkable for collaboration.  The group page format is so much better.  Here we are just one day later and the group has 87 members.  Not bad!!  If you are a metalsmith with an interest in foldforming, join us in the new group! 

I had a blast with the 2nd annual One-a-day jewelry challenge.  The best part was having so many lovely people visiting to see the pieces; I really enjoyed your interest, comments, suggestions, and good wishes.  During March, readers visited from (ordered by visit frequency) United States, Canada, Italy, United Kingdom, Greece, Russia, India, Egypt, Venezuela, Brazil, Croatia, Australia, France, South Korea, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, Columbia, Germany, Hungary, Kuwait, and Lithuania -- with an average visit duration of 59 minutes!  That is pretty awesome.

And now for the giveaway... 

The winner is...
Katie Thompson!!! 

Katie, I will contact you for your mailing address. Your prize choices are days 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 14, 17, 21, and 25.  You can click on those days to view full posts OR scroll down to see the entire month's photos.  The giveaway choices are shown with an asterisk (*) by the caption.   

Here is a review of my March 2012 One-a-day Challenge.  Watch a short video or just scroll down to see the photos.

I post on Wednesdays, so please stop back -- and THANK YOU for your support this month!