New Earring Monday '15: Weeks 7 & 8

Welcome to New Earring Monday, everyone!  I'm just back from the Bead Cruise (more on that here soon), but luckily I had made up some extra earrings beforehand so this post would be already to go.

These little guys aren't anything wild and crazy for me, just more fun with happy papers and UV resin.  For a couple of these (the ones with the darker purple, pink, and yellow florals) I used the decorative portion of some flyers that were left over from a fall luncheon event that some of the local boutiques put on.  I loved the colors and the design so I asked folks to save the extras for me to play with!  (See, this totally justifies my hoarding tendencies.  Right?)

I made these up to put in Unearthed Arts before Valentines day... thinking florals, reds, pinks, and purples.  Here are some of the coordinating necklaces too!

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Misadventures in UV Resin: Or What to Do When Good Resin Goes Bad

I really enjoy playing with UV resin in my jewelry designs... if you've been following me you've seen several posts to this effect including one that gives an overview of the whole process that you can check out HERE.  As with anything, sometimes things go a little awry.  My husband is fond of saying "natural product, results may vary," and while that's true, sometimes the results just aren't acceptable.

Take for instance this little guy:

See how at the top it's oddly shiny, almost silvery?  Through some trial and error, I've discovered that the resin layer was basically pulling away from the sealed image underneath... probably due to my starting with too thick a layer of resin.  Another common issue that I've had is air bubbles appearing from nowhere and ruining a pendant or other piece.  This can happen even when you think you've been super careful and removed them all.  Frustrating!

Sometimes you can fix the problems that arise just by adding another layer of UV resin and curing again.  This often works when you've had air bubbles that are open at the top or other  surface imperfections like dimpling.

Unfortunately, sometimes the problem just isn't fixable.  Maybe you've got an air bubble completely trapped in the resin, or maybe you've got the silvering affect like in the picture above.  Either way, no amount of extra resin layers is going to fix what has gone wrong.

While I've gotten better at being patient and using VERY thin layers of resin, things still sometimes go wrong.  I thought I'd share a couple of tips and tricks that I've learned along the way in hopes of helping other jewelry designers problem solve and even salvage what you might think was a lost cause!

1. Make sure you have no air bubbles before you try to cure your pieces.
• I usually start by running the tip of my metal awl around the inner edges of my bezel.  It sounds weird, but tiny little bubbles sometimes like to hide sneakily in there and this can help draw them out.  
• Next I run a lit match over the top of the piece to pop any visible air bubbles.  This sometimes draws out some of those sneaky ones that you don't see.
2. Keep a VERY close eye on things when you first put them under the UV light to cure.  
• Even when you think all the air bubbles have been popped, I've found that they still sometimes try to form around the edges of the bezel.  If you see this start to happen or see the resin start to separate from the sealed image, pull your piece out IMMEDIATELY and try to peel the resin out of the bezel.  This can usually be accomplished without ruining your sealed image underneath.  
3. When imperfections do sneak through, see if there's a creative way to mask them.
• Think about if there's a way you can add something on top of the imperfection to hide it.  I've used small flat backed crystals or metal charms in an extra layer of resin to some good effect.  If you use charms, just be careful of how you place them so that UV resin doesn't get under them where the UV light can't reach to cure it.  Here's an example of a pin I just made where I had that shiny thing happen in one little area.  I've circled the spots where you can just barely see some shine:  
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4. Don't throw it away!!!
• Even when you think all hope is lost and there is absolutely no way to salvage a metal bezel, you don't have to toss it.  Try this trick:  in a small saucepan no longer used for food, bring a small amount of water to a boil.  Add in your ruined bezel and turn the heat off.  Let the bezel soak in the hot water then carefully fish it out and the resin should have softened enough for you to remove it.  (I used my handy dandy awl for this too!)  Those little bezels are not cheap, so this is a good trick to know!

Do you have any other tips and tricks for dealing with UV resin?  I'd love to hear them because there's always something new to learn!

New Earring Monday: Weeks 49 & 50

Since we are so close to Christmas and solidly into winter weather now, I thought I'd tie into that for New Earring Monday this week.

I've got two variations on a theme again... this time I'm playing with some post style earrings for the very first time.  We keep getting inquiries at the Unearthed Arts gallery about post-style or non-dangly earrings so I decided to give it a shot.  I bought a pack of Nunn Design ornate mini circle earrings in silver plate and started to play.

Hoping to get a few holiday items done this year before the holidays are over (memo to self, start working on holiday items MUCH earlier next year!), I pulled out my Christmas scrapbook papers and my UV resin and here's the result.

First up, I went a little more subtle with these little sleighs paired with some small fluted gemstone dangles.  (So, these don't fully fill the no dangle request, but they are much smaller than most of my other earrings.) The black and cream color scheme makes these appropriate throughout the winter.

My second pair is more obviously Christmasy since I filled the bezels with Christmas trees!  For the little dangles I used some small dyed green agate rondelles paired with silver plated spacers.

I took both of these pairs to Unearthed Arts last Friday (along with another pair I'll share in the next New Earring Monday reveal) and I hope they will get snatched up quickly.

I think I'll definitely order some of the other post style earrings in my next Nunn Design order... including some without the loops for dangles.

New Earring Monday: Weeks 45 & 46

I'm often guilty of getting pieces of projects going and even knowing exactly what I want to do to complete them and then not getting them done.  I'm sure I'm not the only one who falls into this trap.  It's usually a case of running out of time before a big event and then just not getting back around to those partially thought out projects afterwards because something new (shiny!) caught my imagination.

Well, the theme for this week's installment of New Earring Monday is catching up on languishing projects!  So now at least two projects from the item of misfit projects have been completed for your earring viewing pleasure.  

I made the little resin drops when I was prepping for the Art Wander back in September. I even picked out the Czech glass beads to go with each set, but actually digging out the sterling silver wire seemed to be the rate limiting step and they just didn't get finished in time.  Next, I thought I'd revisit them before the opening reception for my show at Unearthed Arts... but a need for more necklaces trumped earring making.

Well, finally, these little lovelies are finished and seeing the light of day!  It's not that they were that complicated... I just had to get around to them.  I just took these over to Unearthed Arts and added them to my show.

Do you have projects that have gotten shunted off to the side?  I'd love to hear what they are and how you get inspired to return to them!

New Earring Monday: Weeks 43 & 44

I'm busy getting ready for the opening reception for my show at Unearthed Arts this Friday night, and finishing up some new earrings is a big part of that process.

A while back I made a slightly mis-matched pair of earrings with some great scrapbook paper and UV resin.  They seemed to resonate with a lot of folks, so I decided to make some variations on that theme in both copper and silver.  Apologies for the photo quality, I've been gone more than I've been home and of course the day I need to take pics to get my post up on time it ends of being gloomy!

New Earring Monday: Weeks 41 & 42

I've been playing around more with UV resin and fun papers lately, so for this week's edition of New Earring Monday, I thought I'd share a couple of new pairs with more fall feeling colors... and a couple of necklaces as a bonus!  All of these are in the gallery at Unearthed Arts in Waconia.

AJE Earring Challenge - Weeks 41 & 42

Wow, this year keeps on flying by!  It's time for the Art Jewelry Elements Earring Challenge once again.

It's the end of October and fall is officially in full swing.  To celebrate my favorite season, I thought I'd share a couple of pairs with a fall theme.

For the longest time I kept trying to cut a perfect one inch circle to put in my smaller bezels.  Why?  I have no idea...cutting circles is super hard!  I finally took the time to find the correct sized punch for those little buggers and now am having some fun with the TierrCast bezels that have been in my stash for quite some time.

Week 41

Week 42

For both of these pairs I cut some fun fall scrap booking paper with my new punch and then poured in UV resin over the top (after sealing everything, of course).  The orange leafy pair sold at the Art Wander, but I've added the pumpkin pair to my Etsy shop.  You can see the listing HERE.  

More Fun with UV Resin - Sparkle Time!

I haven't been blogging as much because life has gotten a little busy with trying to prep for the shows I have coming up this fall.  I'm not sure you ever feel like you have enough pieces made so I've just been working, working, working to get more new things made.  Wish me luck!

I tend to work in batches of things...it's just how my brain works.  So last week I spent some time playing with UV resin and some raised tag pendants from Nunn Design.  I had one specific pendant I wanted to make but didn't want to pull out all the supplies for just one thing.  So, to make the most of my efforts, I decided to try out some of my new Nunn Design Silhouette transfer sheet designs.

I love the way the shine of the metal pendants shows through the color and you see the silver or copper where there is white space on the transfer sheet.  I'm not really sure what got into me, but I decided to try adding some flat backed Swarovski crystals into the resin.  I wasn't entirely sure that it would work if I just set the crystals into the uncured resin, so I started with just one.

I was super excited when I took it out from the UV light and discovered that the resin had covered enough of the crystal's edges to keep it secured... success!  After that little victory I might have gone a little crazy adding crystals to some of the other pieces.  Here's a look at the pendants that I made.  Sorry for the bad lighting...it was a quick iphone pic while I was working.

Pendants in various stages of progress.

I guess sometimes you just need some sparkle in your world... and I just kept going in that direction as I completed my designs.  Here are a few pictures of the finished necklaces that have helped me get my glitter fix!  On some of them the crystals got a little more covered with resin than is ideal, but it's a learning process and they still have plenty of sparkle for all you magpies out there.

These feel a little different than some of my other work, but I feel like it's a little collection within my whole body of designs.  I still have a couple of pendants that still need to be made into finished necklaces, but I'll call this progress!  Next up, I plan to tackle that big purple butterfly.

The Cookbook Collector - Inspired by Reading

So, it's time for another installment of the Inspired by Reading Book Club!  You can find out more about the group and see the reading list for the year over on Andrew Thornton's blog HERE.  We are always looking for more folks to play along.  You don't have to make jewelry either, any creative response is welcome!

This month's selection was The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman.  Once again, this book club has encouraged me to read something that I never would have chosen on my own... and, once again, I'm glad that I did!

Unfortunately, I've learned a valuable lesson about writing my posts for these design challenges... I need to sit down and write my impressions of the book right away and not wait until I have made my jewelry piece.  I guess I really should already know this because as a reader I tend to mostly remember if I loved or hated a book (or if I was indifferent) and forget the details.  So, since I finished the book almost a month ago, my thoughts on the book may be a bit more blurry and disjointed than I would like!

The main story centers around two sisters, Emily and Jess, who couldn't be more different.  Much of the focus is on their relationship with each other, their dead mother, and living father but it spirals out to include their significant others, friends, and coworkers.  The point of view is constantly shifting among the characters (and between Berkley and Boston) as the story moves towards its climax.  I have to admit that the split narrative made it a little tricky to zero in on a direction for my piece of jewelry, but I digress.  Threads of quickly rising dot coms (and the eventual bust of that bubble) combine with the pursuit of rare books and saving the trees.  The plot lines all mingle together as we get to know the various characters (some far more likeable than others) and start seeing the connections between them all.

At first I though I'd do something with trees but I didn't have quite what I wanted in my stash and I delayed a moment too long on buying a super cute tree from Jade Scott.  On to idea number two,  it might feel a little simplistic for the many threads in the story.  I'm going to try to cut myself a little slack though, because my memories of the book are already fading and I've been on the road more than home this month.

I decided to focus in on the idea of all of the handwritten notes and things that Jess and George find as they start going through the amazing cookbook collection that they acquire.  I had some scrapbook paper with very small handwriting all over it on a creamy, antique-looking background so I decided to put that in the bottom of a fancy copper plated bezed from Nunn Design.  (For those of you who have been following me, this is the same bezel style that gave me fits during my project for Paris to the Moon.)  The resin gave me a little bit of grief again this time, but I did fairly thin layers and was able to smooth it out pretty well.  I love that the back of the bezel is decorated too with a leafy design that made me think of the sketches and doodles that they found in the books.  

I kept things pretty simple and added some copper colored shell pearls and Czech glass rondelles in a cool metalic and sage color.  Copper plated chain and lobster claw round things out for a sweet little pendant necklace!

This is a blog hop... Check out what the other members of the group made too!

Mary Harding

Jeanne Steck

Sarajo Wentling  - (You are here!)

Mary K. McGraw

Andrew Thornton, Laurel Ross, Amy Roadman, Terri Greenwalt, and Connie Parsons

   

Paris to the Moon - Inspired by Reading

I mentioned a while back that I was joining in on another new design challenge... Andrew Thornton's "Inspired by Reading Book Club." Today is the big reveal for the group's first book selection!

This month's selection was Paris to the Moon by Adam Gopnik, a collection of essays chronicling the author's time living in Paris with his wife and young son.  Even though I knew it was a series of vignettes and not an autobiography, I was still expecting a stronger story arc running through it for some reason.  I'm not a huge short story or essay person, I like being able to immerse myself in the story...to really get lost in it.  With these essays, I kept getting pulled out of the story as he switched from topic to topic.  My other gripe was that he used an awful lot of French with no explanation.  I'm too lazy to break out the French-English dictionary every couple of paragraphs and felt like he should have given more explanation of the French terms or at least a little more context to help the reader out.

I have to admit that while there were some scenes in the book that captured my imagination, I had a hard time translating any of them into a piece of jewelry with the time and beads that I had available.  Maybe since I've never been to the City of Lights, it was extra hard for me to visualize things in my mind's eye.

I don't want to give the impression that I hated the book or anything... that's not the case.  It certainly wasn't my favorite and it wasn't without flaws, but it did have some interesting chapters.  Some of my favorite bits were the author's quest to find a New York style gym in Paris, his description of the children trying to catch rings on a stick while riding the carousel, and the chapter about their short time as off-peak members of the pool at the Ritz hotel.  As a librarian, I also found the part about the library interesting and sort of horrifying... it sounded so rigid and dysfunctional!  

I ended up making use of a Parisian-themed collage sheet from Nunn Design and some of their copper plated bezels, links, and chain to make a cute little bracelet.  I also broke out the rubber stamps to find the Eiffel Tower I used on the larger middle link.  I used UV resin on all three of the links and added a couple of Czech glass beads in shades of green for a little dash of color.

I wanted to use one of the fancy copper pendant bezels that I bought for a coordinating necklace but, unfortunately, I botched the resin job not once, but twice.  Thank goodness I was able to pry my resiny-mess out of it before it completely set!  That would have been an expensive as well as frustrating mistake!

In the end, I feel a little like I copped out by making a piece that is fairly generic "Paris" instead of being "Paris to the Moon."  I think that translating from the written word to a visual medium was much more challenging for me than using a photograph or painting as an inspiration.  I'm taking May off from the book club challenge (too much going on to face the super long fantasy novel!) but I plan to be back in action for the June installment.

Please check out what everyone else created in response to Paris to the Moon and consider joining the fun if you are creatively inclined!

Mary K McGraw 

Mary Harding 

Sarajo Spurgeon Wentling -- You are here!  

Jenny Davies Reazor

Judy Campbell 

Andrew Thornton, Laurel Ross, Terri Greenawalt
Sharon Palac
Michelle Mach

Resin Update

I spent a good portion of my day off this week working on turning those resin-filled and covered pendants into full-fledged jewelry.  I haven't finished with all of them, but I thought I'd go ahead and show you what I've made so far.

I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out...take a look.  I will try to get these up on my Etsy site soon (along with more pics of each necklace).

The honey bee necklace below is my favorite of the bunch.  It was also the most work from start to finish!  The little dangle hanging off the pendant is a piece of aquamarine that I wire wrapped.  It's the first time that I tried wrapping the wire over the top of the bead and only the second time I've attempted a spiral swirl.  These are some of the best looking and most consistent loops that I've made in a long time (I know I'm way more critical of my work than anyone else will ever be!).  I guess practice really does make perfect!

           

I had an odd little moment while working on the bee necklace.  I realized that all of the glass and the aquamarine were all from some of my very early jewelry projects.  In fact, the amber colored glass and aquamarine were both from the project that taught me how to make decent simple loops in the first place.  It was a necklace adapted from a design idea from Fire Mountain Gems, and I made it way back in 2009.  You can see the inspiration design HERE.  I still wear that necklace (although the sterling silver jump rings are in serious need of polishing at the moment) and it just seemed kind of neat that some of its leftovers were joining up in this new design so many years later.  

I think that this isn't too shabby for a day's work!

Experiments with UV Resin

In December 2011 I took a class that taught me the basics metal stamping and using UV resin with what they call transfer sheets (more on that later).  The UV resin can be used in layers to fill pendant bezels and is a little less scary than other resin products because you don't have to mix two parts together in perfectly equal proportions like you do with epoxy resin products.

My favorite pendant from class.

Anyway, I was pretty excited about playing with these new techniques and bought a lot of supplies to do just that.  Is anyone shocked?  I made a couple of pieces early on and then mostly shoved these supplies to the side as I started trying some other new things.  I've had a couple of ideas rolling around my brain for a while that involved digging the resin back out.  Today, on this sunny but cold Sunday, I finally had time to pursue them!

Any time I have to bring out something out of the ordinary like a special tool, paints, or my rubber stamps I try to make the most of that effort and work on several projects at once.  My main project involved some cool scrapbook paper with a honeycomb pattern, a brass bee charm, and some flat back crystals... but I figured I should make the most of having my resin supplies out so I made a bunch of little pieces.

I'll show you what I made then talk a little bit about the process.  Here are the finished pieces.

Resin can be used in a variety of applications for jewelry making, but I was focused on doing just two things.  For some of my projects (the four on the left of the photo above) I cut out scrapbook paper and glued that into the bottom of my bezel finding.  The next step is to use a sealer over the top of the paper to protect it from the resin and to keep the colors from bleeding or blurring.  Once it is dry you are ready to carefully pour the resin into the bezel.  Often you need to do this in a couple of layers.

The rest of my projects were using components that have a raised platform design to them (the three on the right up above).  I used transfer sheets on top of that flat surface, sealed them, and then poured a layer of resin over the top.  It's kind of amazing how the viscous resin will follow the edge of these pieces and not drip over if you carefully rotate your piece.  Since the transfer sheets are printed on a film, once you apply it, you can see through anything that looks white when it is on its original backing.  If you paint behind the transfer sheet you can see that color come through to varying degrees depending on your design.  The ones I was using were black (or dark blue) and clear so I chose to leave the metal background as is for a cool effect.  I love how the silver and copper pop through!

For both applications, once the resin has been applied you want to make sure that there are no bubbles and that the resin is spread evenly across the piece.  The neat trick I use to get rid of those pesky bubbles is to take a lit match and move it back and forth just above the surface of the resin.  A cool chemical reaction causes any bubbles to rise to the surface and pop.  Just make sure to have a little cup of water nearby to douse the match and don't get so involved in looking for bubbles that you burn yourself!  (Sadly, I speak from experience!)  Once you are happy with how it looks, you just put it under a UV light (like the ones they use at some nail salons) for a few minutes to cure.  In theory you can just let it cure in direct sunlight, but Minnesota winters don't really work for that too well!

A few of my pendants curing under the UV light.

After the first layer of resin had cured, some of my pendants had either air bubbles or uneven surfaces.  Luckily, you can often fix those little imperfections by adding another layer of resin and curing again.  For my honeybee pendant, I had a couple of air bubbles and marks that I couldn't get rid of in this fashion.  Fortune smiled upon me though since I'd been planning all along to add items into the resin.  The judicious placement of the bee and crystals allowed me to hide those problem areas!  See for yourself:

The bee's wings and the tops of the crystals actually peek out of the resin giving it a three dimensional feel that is fun.  I wish the crystals were a little less covered, but I had to add an extra layer of resin to even things out and they got a little submerged.  You want the crystals to be out of the resin as much as possible to maximize their sparkle.  Since I wanted the crystals to seem like honey droplets, it's not a huge loss.  I'm just learning here so things aren't going to be perfect every time.  

Since I'm pretty much relearning how to use resin, and it can be a bit temperamental, these pieces took up the better part of my afternoon.  I know that I will get better at it as I keep experimenting and playing.  I feel good about my day's work and I have some great new handmade pendants to go into my jewelry designs!