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...

some daughter time and 2 new brooches

Both girls were here together last week for a visit. That happens so rarely anymore since they've both flown the nest, and in the last couple of years, the state... but I still managed to get my weekly brooch done for the past couple of weeks. Brooch #29 was a quick one. I used a scrap of fine silver I had cooked up in a precious metal clay class a few years back, and added some sterling petals along the edge for a simple little sunflower.

For brooch #30, I used the Montana agate from the previous post, pairing it with a .22ct rose cut diamond, and a cool little stick pearl. Mostly sterling, with an 18kt gold bezel surrounding the diamond, and 14kt gold rivets through the pearl. I'm really pleased with it, and the backside of the agate brings into crisp relief what appears on the front as the fuzzy insides of the stone.

Does anyone else see a cartoon character here...?

***

oops, I did it again... and brooch #28

well.... I bought more stones today. I walked in to my friends stone cutting workshop ( ie: candy store) to pick up a couple of stones she had recut for me and I walked out with this...

...oh, and I got to look through her rough and ordered cufflink pairs, in petrified woods, fossil coral. So PLEASE BUY MY CUFFLINKS this Fall, I should have a slew of them!  ; )

Meanwhile, I'm eyeing that Montana agate in the center, that'll make a beautiful pendant, or maybe brooch #29 or 30... stay tuned for that.

Meanwhile, I created brooch #28 after looking through some old sketches for another project, and making a few changes. Mainly adding the little gold balled rivets scattered about.

the brooch measures 3" across

etsymetal brooch-a-week challenge

brooch #27

Brooch #27 is actually a commission piece for a friend who picked up this neat little Japanese netsuke or ornament of some kind. It's either carved ivory or faux ivory set in a bamboo "bezel". The rabbit depicted, has a red eye and I added a deep red garnet in an 18kt gold bezel to the sterling bezel surrounding the piece. The placement of the garnet, and the addition of several 14kt gold balls makes for a pleasing a-symmetry.

Measuring aprox 1 3/4", it'll make a nice conversation piece when worn!

etsymetal 2013 brooch-a-week challenge

three new hires and the half way brooch...

I recently hired on 3 new staff to help take up some of the work load...

budgie in particular is feeling the need for a short vacation.

Here he is promoting the halfway point in etsymetal's brooch-a-month challenge

brooch #26

The lime green stone is called Atlantisite, it's made up of serpentine with purple bits of of stichtite. It's found in Tasmania. I liked this particular stone for it's shape, and the few little spots of stichtite. I knew I would pair it with amethyst somehow. In this case, I've used an amethyst bullet, 4mm in diameter to pick up the purple in the Atlantisite. Lots of texture and oxidation help to pop the stone.

You can see the amethyst bullet pokes up and out of the frame. The pin mechanism allows the brooch to be worn at various angles.

off to work then...