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My Fun at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show 2015

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 http://theafghangemjewelry.com/ Last week I was able to go to the last day of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show.  My two friends, Sandy and Jennifer, were patient as I walked through one hotel lobby.  My new knee is giving me problems in the bending/walking area and it will be quite a while before I am able to race through more than a few vendor's setups…..but next year watch out!   Eye Candy! One of the booths had spent some time color coordinating their beads. I spent quite a bit of time enjoying all that beautiful color.  At another booth, I found petrified bamboo.  I’d never even thought of what petrified bamboo would look like and it was lovely.  Sorry no photo.  http://www.manizone.co.uk/spiritual-exercises-understanding-spiritual-gifts-spiritual-p-1275.html The other excitement was finding Australian black opals.  My Dad always wanted to go the black opal mines and I thought it would be cool to have a stone since I've recently been to Australia.  S

My Trials of Setting a Stone in a Bezel or Success is Sweet

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Front of Pendant or Back of  Failed Pendant Described Below This is a story about my trials, frustrations and successes of making a pendant from Goldie Bronze metal clay and setting a stone in bronze bezel wire. Many of you won’t be interested in the details here but I’m hoping it gives you an idea of all the stages and work that goes into making a piece.  Last weekend I decided to make a pendant, finish it and then solder a bezel for the stone.  I practiced wrapping the bezel wire around the stone, cutting the edge straight and soldering the edges together.  Then I practiced soldering a bezel on a piece of sheet metal with my acetylene torch.  It melted the bezel.  I changed to a butane torch and that worked.  I tried to solder the bezel to the finished bronze pendant with bronze solder and melted the bezel.   Next I moved to silver solder and that did not work either.  It was time to go to FaceBook and ask my jewelry buddies for help!  I finally decided (right or wro

Serendipity or The Benefits of Knowing Many Techniques

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Today I was going to show you beautiful bronze earrings with sterling posts that I had soldered to the earring.  The earrings were going to have Mojave Stones in a bronze bezel and I was going to feel so smug about putting all those things together.  Instead I’m going to share what really happened! First I need to tell you that a client wanted earrings to match a necklace I made a year ago.  I said I would try.  In order to even come close to success I would need to practice by making several similar pair of earrings.  After this experience, my advice to myself would be:  make the earrings at the same time as the necklace.  There are too many variables possible. I still had Goldie Bronze hard and soft clay left from the original necklace.  Rio Grande carried bronze bezel and bronze solder so I ordered that.  Next I made the earring backgrounds from the Goldie Bronze clay and I added leaves and flowers and stems.  After sanding they looked good.  I had not used my kiln la