Holiday Giveaway Alert!!

It's time to do a giveaway.

What's in it for me? Your feedback about my jewelry.

What's in it for you? A pair of earrings, YOUR choice, from the three styles pictured below.  Each pair is valued at $30.  All earring wires and jump rings are sterling silver, also handcrafted.  Keep them yourself or stuff them into a stocking!

To enter:
1. Post a comment on THIS blog post before midnight on December 11th, US ET.
2. Tell me which pair of earrings you would like to win, and WHY.
3. Include your email address with your post.

Please also like my Facebook page, here.

If you want a second entry:
1. Post another comment on THIS blog post before midnight on December 11th, US ET.
2. Choose your favorite piece of my jewelry. Pick any piece that I've ever posted on my blog.
3. In your comment, describe the piece in your own words and include a link to the blog post that features it. 
4. In your comment, tell me WHY you like it or what makes it special to you.
5. Include your email address with your post.

The drawing
On December 12th, I'll draw a random name from among those who commented. Your
name will be assigned a number (chronologically, based on comment order) and the winning number will be generated from http://www.random.org.

If you are outside the U.S., I welcome your entries but will need to charge shipping if it's higher than U.S. postage.

 
Other news this week

Talk about neglect!  I don't remember the last time I updated my Gallery Photos page.  I spent today cleaning out, updating, and organizing it.  Please take a look when you have a minute.

My awesome daughter Kathy let me snap some pics this week.  Here she is modeling some recent pieces.  Kathy makes my jewelry look great, doesn't she?   :-)

I've been working a lot with pennies and nickels for Winterfair.  All the pics above (except for the pendant) are pennies or nickels.  And here is my fav so far -- the chain and clasp are handcrafted of sterling silver, the leaves are fold form pennies, and the ovals are hammered nickels.

Have a great week, and I hope to hear from you!

The Pickerington Antique and Craft Show this past Saturday was fun and successful.  It filled two very large rooms that were crowded most of the day.  My friend and booth partner Robyn Skowronski of Taylor Baskin Design had the most beautiful photos for sale.  She has a special talent for photographing animals; click to see this gorgeous cat.  And my personal fav is this wintery tree.   We mixed my jewelry with Robyn's photos, sold a lot of both, and met some really nice people.

Now I'm thinking uh oh, the Winterfair show is coming fast -- Dec 2-4 -- and now my inventory is low.  No cuffs left, no trees-of-life, running low on pendants.  Yikes, a lot of work ahead in the next couple weeks!

This is something I worked on during the past week-- my ad for the Winterfair directory.  Kathy Dlabick, Ohio Designer Craftsmen's graphic designer, was nice enough to give me a crash course in ad design.  My first draft was not great, but with her tips, I think it turned out quite nicely!  (Note that I'll have booth #1005.  Come see me!)

So now I've started on some new pieces to get ready for Winterfair.  These are a couple of new cuffs.  I'll also be working on penny jewelry and I have a few ideas for some new pendant designs.

It's time to really focus in the studio.  Have a great week and stop back again next Wednesdsay to see what I've come up with.

These are a couple of the new fold form cuffs I made this week.  They are light and adjustable.  I also made some leaf earrings and played with my new torch quite a bit.

There is one thing I don't like about the new torch.  I can't seem to learn how to spell acetylene.  I look it up every time.  Do you have any words like that?  Honestly spelling isn't rocket science but a couple letter combinations drop into a big black hole in my brain.   The other words I always have to look up are guarantee and omelette.  Seriously.  I just copy / pasted those words into this paragraph.

The pendant below is a fold formed penny with a sterling silver heart.  It's the first piece I made with the new torch and I was sooooo happy when it came together easily.  One of my biggest problems using the old propane plumber's torch was soldering silver to copper.  The solder just wouldn't flow.  That was a major problem because I love the look of silver with copper; they just belong together.  The acetylene torch gets much hotter, has a variety of tips (small to large), and is easy to manipulate around the piece.  Those qualities make all the difference. 

A new tool takes new skills.  I have used this particular torch before, and a couple others like it, but only occasionally in classroom situations.  I found an absolutely awesome resource for soldering techniques -- Lexi Erickson's Metalsmith Essentials: How to Solder Jewelry .  It was the best $14.95 I've spent in a long time.

Show alert!

Pickerington Antique and Craft Show- Nov 5
If you're local, come on out to the Pickerington Antique and Craft Show on Saturday. 
I'll be sharing a booth with my good friend and talented photographer Robyn Skowronski.  This is my first year doing the show but I hear it's always jam packed with cool stuff.  And I can't wait to hang out with Robyn! 

Gifts of the Craftsmen- Nov 13- Dec 23
Yesterday I also took a new batch of fresh-baked jewelry over to the Ohio Craft Museum for their upcoming holiday show, Gifts of the Craftsmen.  The two cuffs pictured above were part of the delivery.  More on this one later.

Well, I'd better get to work now.  So much to do for Saturday!