45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50

I've taken a loooong break from blogging and there's a 6 week back up of brooches...

With 2 weeks left in the etsymetal brooch-a-week challenge year, here are brooches #45 -50. 

#45 is a lightweight sterling silver dotted "wreath" in time for the holidays. Well, it was in time for the holidays when I completed it 6 weeks ago...

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#46 features a dark Montana agate set in sterling with three 14kt gold rivets

#47 was a commission using the customer's ocean jasper and coral. It's designed to be converted to a pendant as needed!

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For week #48 I created a little Cherry Creek jasper tweeter perched on a stick pearl

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Brooch # 49 is a lovely taupe fossil palm cab.

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#50 is a piece of Hell's Canyon petrified wood paired with a lovely little golden South Sea pearl

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This week's brooch is already in the works, Montana agate paired with a very pretty Oregon sunstone...

Home Sweet Home

The brooches march on...

Hard to believe we're approaching the end of 2013 and there are only 6 more brooches to be made for those of us participating in the etsymetal brooch-a-week challenge. Not so bad when you think that those stalwarts in the brooch-a-day challenge can barely see the end of the road yet...

brooch #42 features a beauty of a Morrisonite cab with a pinky rhodolite garnet

brooch #43 incorporates a pink rose cut tourmaline and gold rivets

 brooch #44 is a cherry creek jasper in a clean, modern shape

Picked these up while walking the dog today. Add a ribbon and a straight pin and this could be brooch #45. hmmmm...

(Fall is definitely my favorite time of year...)

more temptation

There was another mineral and gem show at the Canby fairgrounds this weekend...

My friend Linley and I moseyed on over. Well, Linley moseyed, I approached with long, purposeful strides, my antennae twitching...

The first thing we spotted, was a table about 15 feet long FILLED with hand cut beads. There were gemstone beads, jaspers and agates, just about every cool stone in the world cut into beads. About a bazilloion of them at least... and this was day 2 of the show. What must day 1 have looked like??

Each and every bead was cut, shaped, drilled and polished by a very nice retired gentleman who obviously delights in his work! Not cheap, but definitely worth every penny. 

I chose Hidden valley jasper, bird's eye rhyolite, Morrisonite, holley blue agate, Montana agate.

I have no idea at the moment what I'll do with them, maybe just keep them around as playthings...

I found some really nice Montana agate cabs...

 

...and some Cherry Creek jasper. the top stone is already in process of becoming this week's brooch.

In an earlier post about my trip to central Oregon to dig for polkadot jasper, I mentioned that thousands of years ago the area drew Native Americans who used the jasper for tool making. To remove the material, they would build hot fires next to the rock to cause it to split off. The heat caused the jasper to turn pink. This cab is a remnant of that activity. The two small pieces I found I decided to hang on to as artifacts so I was delighted to find this cab, cut by the mine owner who was also at the show selling.

Of course I also bought a few slabs to add to my collection of those from which I'll do my own cutting one of these days, but I had to share this one. An old timer told me it was fossil algae! I'm sure there are cooler things in the world... but what??

All in all, it was a very good day... as well as a business expense...

a new fossil... and 4 more brooches

I had a nice drive out into the country this morning on a picture perfect Fall day. My goal, to pick up the rock slabs my stone cutting friend Greta had cut for me from some of the rough I had picked up during last month's rock hounding expedition. She has an awesome rock saw that can cut through the big chunks.

While I was there waiting on the last cut I, of course, started poking my nose into all her boxes of rocks. You wouldn't believe how much stuff that is...

I saw this slab of fossil fern wood and asked if she'd sell it to me. Lovely Greta, I'm sure she realized that she has about 3 lifetimes worth of rock to work with so into my goodie bag it went... I never leave Greta's without many things I had no idea I needed until I saw them...

The thing that really caught my eye were the layers along the edge. A lovely blush along with taupe, a darker stripe, and cream. I can see a few pair of drop earrings as well as some very cool cufflinks in that edge.

Something not noticeable in the photos, is that in all of those voids, there's the sparkle of tiny druzy quartz crystals. I'm really looking forward to cutting into this!

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And since it's been a month since my last post, here are the four latest brooches in the etsymetal brooch a week challenge.

Brooch #38

A beauty of a lace agate, semi transparent so you can see into it and the botryoidal formation, those very organic looking globular forms. I've designed it so that it can been worn as a pendant as well as a brooch.

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Brooch #39

This is a piece of ocean jasper with a small pinkish rhodolite garnet.

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Brooch #40 

I think this one can hardly be called a brooch, more of a pin, it's a teeny little thing, 

and is a piece of Picasso jasper.

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Last week's brooch, #41

 is a large piece of mookaite from Australia, paired with a little yellow citrine.

Right now I'm working on this week's design, but I'm not quite sure how it's going to all come together yet, so I won't say more... not yet

Last of the summer roses, another batch of brooches

In Portland, summer is tip toeing into Fall. Days of rain interspersed with hot sun. The tomatoes are about done and the cooler, wetter, weather is causing them to split. I just cut the few remaining blooms from my Evelyn rose. they are sending off the most wonderful fragrance...

I've finished 3 new brooches since my last post 3 weeks ago. 

Week #35's brooch is a sterling silver and glass combination modeled by a lovely little kudu gazelle.

Week 36 features a narrow turquoise... daintily supported by one of the hardest working members of my crew.

And week #37 focuses on another piece of turquoise, this one from Broken Arrow mine in Nevada. This frisky zebra colt was constantly in motion and hard to keep still for the photo shoot...

Bye! I'm off to smell the roses...

digging for rocks and just spending money...

This past weekend was a holiday so I decided to unchain myself from the bench and go have some fun... and the chance to do some rock hunting with a fellow Creative Metal Arts Guild member was just too hard to resist.

Saturday was spent driving over the mountain (Mt Hood) and into the high desert of central Oregon to a small open pit mine just outside of Madras, the Polkadot mine. And of course we were looking to score some nice polkadot jasper...

This is the mine site. It was 93 degrees that day. I don't know what the temperature was in the shade. There was no shade...

But the view was pretty gorgeous. I think that's Mt Adams on the right in the distance...

When we got there, we pulled out our chisels and hammers. I spent maybe 2 minutes trying to chip rock out of the earth and decided it would be a whole lot easier to just pick it up off the ground. Fewer chips flying around...

There are several small caves around the mine area. Hundreds of years ago, Native Americans came to this site to mine the jasper for tools. They dug these caves, and would build a fire close to the rock and when it got really hot, the rock would crack and pieces split off. The extreme heat would cause the jasper to turn pink. I found a few small pieces of pink. Carbon dating was done on the remains of a fire in one of the caves which dated it back 1200 years. So I consider my little pinks as artifacts...

Richardson Ranch was right on the way home. A rock shop with the biggest collection of rock piles I've ever seen. I bought these 2 chunks of birds eye rhyolite.

It was a long, hot day, and I was glad to get into the shower at the end of it. And to make the weekend just close to perfect, there was a gem and mineral show going on all weekend at the Canby Fairgrounds, about 10 miles from my house. Wow, I had no idea I needed more rock, I mean, I don't even have any lapidary equipment, but apparently that wasn't enough to stop me, I was there first thing the next morning...

Tiger's eye, couldn't resist. I'll cut this and leave it matte like these earrings.

On the left is holley blue agate, native to Oregon. The middle rock is gorgeous, I just can't remember what it is, and the rock on the right is Larimar, which is only found in the Dominican Republic

I bought an interesting looking end cut of bumblebee jasper because I liked the rough top. The other piece is Morrisonite, "the king of jaspers", another Oregon rock.

And brooch#26 in my etsy store  features a piece of Atlantisite. After I shot this picture, I broke this slab into 3 pieces, without meaning to...

All weekend I kept poking through my newly acquired rock collection admiring and arranging things the same way I did as a kid with my halloween candy.

An entire month's worth...

Egads! Has it been a month since my last post? Why, that's 4 new brooches! 

A month ago I had a small window of opportunity wedged between house guests going and coming. It was clearly the moment to cut up the old cookie tin I had stashed away for just such an emergency...

Don't let the heart fool you, those "ruffles" could put an eye out... Brooch #31

Pretty rudimentary, but quick!

These next three brooches took a bit more time...

Fordite set in sterling silver with 14kt gold balls dancing around the edges. Brooch #32. I have some other interesting fordite jewelry in the shop as well... For some reason I always think of The Jetson's when I see fordite...

Brooch #33 is a variation on brooch #10. Here I've added a pink tourmaline and a few more gold balls to dress it up.

Finally, brooch #34, a nice piece of fossil coral from Indonesia, and an extra lustrous coin pearl.

I'm thinking about this week's brooch and am not ashamed to admit that I have no clue yet...