since you been gone

oh, hi internet. i missed you! but i got an awful lot done without you. and now i have to go back to work. just wanted everyone to know i'm not dead. just that my router was broken. now i have to finish up some jewelry for the renegade craft fair and answer 164 emails. seriously. 164. not junk mail. i'll be working chronologically. i'm sorry. look here to see what etsymetal is doing for the one a week challenges. thank god i at least had cable, so i could watch project runway. this season is pretty interesting so far...

and yeah, i have kelly clarkson stuck in my head. stupid pandora.

we're all feeling slow

hmmm... i'm not done. (i've been super busy apartment hunting. but i signed a lease today!!! yay!!!!) rachelle and lora aren't done either. and i haven't heard from anyone else today. i'm headed out for the night. so we'll see who can get what done by tomorrow night. i'll be posting the pictures then.

sorry! (but not really. it's a beautiful night in chicago and i want to go sit outside with drink in hand...) see you tomorrow!

part two!

i only have negative 15 seconds. and flickr and i aren't very good friends right now.

without further ado, here's nina's!!! i remember this piece that she started a year ago. so so so happy she finished it!

and again, victoria's isn't working. :-( we will get to the bottom of this. hopefully by next week. again. go to her flickr page. now. you will regret it forever if you don't.

seriously.

jewelry makeover time! part one

i really had fun with this one. i think i will have to revisit this one again.

i have to be honest. i always have a huge pile of stuff in a box. whenever i cleanmy studio, i put all the scraps/old work/things that need tweaking into said box. when i'm stuck, i often revisit this box. and i usually get overwhelmed and put it away again. i pulled out a tangled mess for this challenge and decided to only use what was in the tangle. (well. ok, i also used some findings. but you get the idea.) can you spot my old work? i see an earring i stepped on, a bracelet that didn't pass the alisa test, and some stuff from my first craft show 5 years ago. note to self. why didn't i send this stuff in when i sent in my scrap list time?

i cut apart some handmade chain earrings that were far too boring for me. then i took this old pendant with 4 circles and attached the chain in 3 rows. i'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

rachelle finished a piece that had been on her bench for 10 months.

lora made over a ring that she felt never quite worked.

The uneven angle of the top isn't dramatic enough to make a statement, the arch thingie was a piece of a broken toggle that fit perfectly, but looks horrible in silver. I was thinking of threading some felt through it, or adding beads and baubles, but nothing ever felt right. So I cut it off!

before

after

victoria and nina dinoff's are coming up!

new challenge!!!

this one is going to be the last week i can participate in for a few weeks. i just know that my life is about to get insanely busy for a few weeks. if people still want to, i can keep posting challenges. or if someone else would like to take over for a while, i'd love it!


this challenge is from season four. it was one of my favorites!





Episode 8: En Garde!
Each designer is randomly paired with another designer and asked to select a team leader. Each team is asked to create an avant-garde outfit based on inspiration from their models' hair styles. They are given a budget of $300 and two days to create this look. The following day, each team is asked to create another, simpler, ready-to-wear outfit which embodies the "essence" of the avant-garde look they have been working on. For the second piece, the designers have a budget of $50. The leader of the winning team receives immunity in the next challenge, while the winning team and their outfits are featured in a TRESemme fashion shoot.





we've been taking some creative license with these challenges. but i think it would be fun to make an avante garde piece and also a ready to wear piece. (i suppose in jewelry we would call that a production piece.) but it's totally up to you and your time constraints, if you want to just make the avante garde piece.

see you wednesday for the makeover challange!

makeover!!!

at penland right now, a fellow etsymetal member, nina dinoff, is at a workshop called radical jewelry makeover. it's all about recycling and making jewelry out of old work. i was pretty jealous when i heard about it. my friend amy is a resident there and stopped in for a few days. see her blog posts about it here. there was a makeover challenge from pr season 2 episode 10.

Episode 10: Makeover
Designers created a new look to makeover a fellow contestant who then models the new look on the runway.

so rather than making over anyone, let's makeover an old piece of ours. or an antique/thrift store piece. or even just finish something we never could figure out how to finish. look through your scrap box, your grandma or mom's jewelry box or ask a friend if they have some old stuff they don't want anymore.

since i am ridiculously late getting this up, how about if we make it due wednesday. but i'll post the next challenge monday. is that ok?

finally!

omg!!! i've been offline for a few days running all over looking for a new home. and i came back to the most lovely piece by victoria of experimetal. but again, flickr isn't letting me saves pictures. (grrrr...) so go here. now. i'll wait....

go back and click on all the pictures!

holy moley! i'm glad this isn't project runway for real, because i would be auf'd and victoria would so be in. (um, bravo or lifetime, are you reading this? just give her $100,000 already. or at least start a show about jewelers.)

and here's mine. late again. i like it. it's my version of the long flapper necklace. i tried to make the circles a simplfied version of an art deco design. but it looks more art nouveau. i'm not so good with angular.

new post in a few with the new challenge. and then i'm going to get to the bottom of this flickr thing.

history lesson part one

mine is going to be late. i've been running around in almost all my spare time for the last week looking at apartments so i can move. and it's exhausting. ugh. i'll post mine tomorrow morning. i'm taking the morning off to work in the studio and get caught up on emails. don't think i've answered one since friday. oh, and i have a cold. wtf? who gets a cold in june? argh.

other people are better at time management than me, though.

here's rachelle's.

This challenge was to take inspiration from a famous historical look. Rachelle took her inspiration from greek goddess.This piece is a sterling silver and brass frame filled with iron wire, resin, and gold glass micro spheres.

and nina took inspiration from the greek goddess.


The earrings I made are inspired by ancient Greece, Mycenae. One of the motifs I saw while looking up the jewelry of this period was the coil. I used copper because that was what was at hand, and the geeks did use copper, but I see these coils in bronze or gold more likely.





lora hart meshed time periods together. (edit. i can't get lora's pictures to save right. not sure what i'm doing wrong, but go to the link. i really love that she used bronze! i'll try to fix this later. i'm sorry.)

One a Week jewelry making challenge based on Project Runway. Design a piece inspired by either Greek, Gypsy, Marie Antoinette, Punk or Flapper fashion. I chose a hybrid of Greek and Flapper. My necklace isn't quite a long as a flapper's, but It's my interpretation anyway. For the bronze pieces wet clay was arranged with my fingers (using no under structure) to give the illusion of the draped fabric used as toga's in ancient Greece.The coral stands in for Flapper-esque pearls, wired to symbolize a gladiator's chariot wheels.

i'll have mine up in the morning. and experimetal's too!