enameling

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Heart of Blues Takes Flight ~ Pay it Forward February

{Have you ever heard about a situation and it just breaks your heart and you feel like you HAVE TO do something about it?A few months back I met a lady, Lovely Reckley, and she told me how she goes to four different schools in Abaco and feeds 85+ children that would have otherwise had no lunch. For some of these kids, this is the only meal of the day.Lovely even takes food to some of them when school is out.That really broke my heart. I mean, I know there are kids all over the world that are starving, but when I realized there were children right under my nose it killed me. I kept wondering what I could do. I thought about offering to help cook, but cooking for so many mouths really overwhelmed me. Then I realized what a COMMITMENT this awesome woman had made to these children…..EVERYDAY!!!At Christmas, instead of giving gifts I gave a donation to her organization (and to our Humane Society) instead of buying things that people really didn’t need.But it kept tugging at my heart. So, I decided for the month of February I would post several heart themed items to my blog. They would be for sale, and I would give 25% of the cost of the item to Lovely, to help with her costs.I may post an item everyday or I may post several items a week…..I am really not sure, but 25% will go to “Feed the Children” in Abaco, Bahamas.I CANNOT imagine going without food, or only having one meal a day that I had to rely on someone else to bring to me, and these children shouldn’t have to deal with this either, so please help!}

Happy Monday!
I am late posting today, but better later than never.
Today’s item is an enameled copper heart with filigree wings.
I am calling this piece, “Heart of Blues Takes Flight”.



From wing tip to wing tip the pendant is two and a half inches.  When it hangs on a chain, it hangs about an inch and three quarters.


I am really enjoying incorporating other metals into my work.  I have a bunch of filigree (which I think is coated brass) that I bought for who-knows-what, and never used it.



It can be soldered onto other metals, cut and enameled!  So much fun!
This piece is $44, and 25% goes to Feed the Children Abaco.  That price is for the pendant only.

I will be posting it in my Etsy shop…..{HERE}…..soon, but if you go there and it is not there, drop me a message because my internet connection is really slow right now so it may take a while to get it posted.
Thanks for stopping by!

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Experimenting……

Over the last few months I have been experimenting with some new materials, trying out new ideas, taking some online classes.
I am not doing any Fall shows like I normally do.  Instead I thought I would have an open house in December with lots of new items.
Here are some sneak peeks from classes I have taken and some new products I have tried out.
This heart charm was from an online class I took at Beaducation, in PMC. 
I had worked with PMC (Precious Metal Clay) before but hadn’t really pushed myself to make anything like this.  It is 2 hearts joined with copper spacers and brass hex nuts, then riveted.

The class gave me a lot of confidence with the PMC and some great ideas for new pieces.
I put the piece in Liver of Sulphur to age it, and then was sorry I did since before that the metals were bright and there was a lot more contrast.
I am still happy with it!

I have also been playing around with some enameling.

Those are some of the first beads I made.  I am using Barbara Lewis‘ kit and book, “Painting with Fire”  and it has been very helpful.
Yesterday I got into a bit of an earring making spell.
Here are two pairs….I cant show you everything….need to save some for the open house!

I love the enamel earrings, below.  They remind me of the ocean.

I’ll pop back in soon to show you some more experiments and some new things!
Have a great week!