New Pieces

Maybe the title should be 'Wordless Wednesday' - although by saying that I have definitely made it NOT a wordless day...........some of my new pieces for the show:

Full Speed Ahead

I'm trying to get ready for a show that is set to take place at the beginning of next month.......I have been working furiously making bracelets, necklaces, enameling pennies, making headpins........whew..........

Here's a little of what I've been up to:

Leather and Copper

I've been having a lot of fun in the studio using my torch and some copper wire.  I made some double balled headpins (quenched in water in between torching to retain the nice hot red patina on the end) and then tried to figure out what to do with them.  I had a length of braided leather that I decided to wrap them around - and here is the result - a tribal looking bracelet that can be for a man or a woman.

While I love the red patina on the end, I wanted some that were plain copper:

and then some with purple enamel on the ends:

And a couple more pennies............white with a layer of purple on the top:

..........gray with a purple layer:

...........and midnight blue with a spattering of red:

Autumn Colors (and some blues)

I was in the studio the other day with my nephew - we were fitting a necklace I had made for him - and he expressed an interest in trying his hand at torch firing some enamel on pennies.  After a short instruction period, he picked out a color (opaque orange - my personal nemesis for some reason), cleaned the pennies and proceeded to torch fire.  It was a resounding success.

His very first penny - very first attempt at torch firing enamel, and he's a natural!!!

The color got me to thinking about autumn and how quickly it's sneaking up on us - so I wanted to do some pennies that would look good in a "fall" jewelry piece. I have been wanting to layer colors in a staggered way - not the way I have been but in such a way that the layered colors will show on their own - and this is what I came up with:

And then because I loved how the pennies were turning out, I had to try a couple different colors..........

Turquoise Bracelet

Last week I made a few of these penny/turquoise drops using a domed, drilled penny (pre 1982), a turquoise disc bead and a handtorched copper headpin.........yesterday I made a bracelet using one of them and a couple other handcrafted pieces.

Like a few enameled pennies (turquoise colored, of course):

Some copper wrapped turquoise disc beads (using the torch fired copper/enameled headpins - red ones):

A lovely handforged copper clasp:

And then patinaed the whole thing (with Gun-Blu) to add to the "rustic" feel of the bracelet:

and the back of the pennies - the patina really adds depth, don't you think?

All the components on this bracelet were handcrafted - from the chain to the clasp, to the headpins and the enameled pennies.  I love it when a plan comes together!