August Component of the Month at AJE!

I have had the good fortune this past year to be a part of a wonderful group of artisans and designers over at Art Jewelry Elements for coming up on a year!  Time flies!  Speaking of that,  I hope you are having a fabulous summer!  It is hard to believe that we are only a few days from August...in only a few short weeks, many of us will be sending the kids back out the door to start a new school year...yikes!  I am about to have a 12 year old in the 7th grade, and it is blowing my mind, just how quickly he got there.

I signed up, way back at the beginning of the year to do a component of the month...August is my month.  Since I am relatively new to creating jewelry components, I was excited but a bit intimidated by the gorgeous lampwork, metal work, clay, polymer, bead work, etc. that came before me!   It took a while to figure out what exactly to offer, but finally decided on some of my Molten Morsels.  These mixed metal pieces are inspired by workshops I have taken with Stephanie Lee, Deryn Mentock, and Richard Salley...they incorporate copper sheet, in this case, layered with molten soft solder and embellished with brass elements. I was drawn to this style and use of soft solder from the very first try.   I love the vintage, or even ancient feel to them.  I can't wait to see what the team here at AJE will create with them.

Sorry for the yucky photos...these suckers are hard to get just right, and the brass reflects off the silver metal.  These have a light antiqued patina on them, but there so many other possibilities...I personally am going to be trying some Vintaj patinas I have stashed away!

Would you like to be a part of the August design team?  It is easy!  Go to the AJE blog and leave a comment on this post...     http://artjewelryelements.blogspot.com/2013/07/august-component-of-monthmelismatic.html

Here's how the giveaway, challenge, and blog-hop will work (please read all the information carefully!)...

• I will give away 1 component to each of 3 winners selected randomly from those who leave comments below this post by midnight,  Wednesday eastern time. I'll choose the morsel and add connector holes, so you'll be surprised!
• Please include your EMAIL address in your comment so that I can contact you ASAP should you win.
• Please (PLEASE) only leave a comment if you can commit to creating a finished piece and blogging about it on the reveal date.
• The names of the 3 winners will be announced on Thursday, August 1, 2013.
• The blog reveal will be on Saturday morning, August 31, 2013.

Good luck!  Oh, and be sure to come see the creations by the team and guests for the July components...that reveal is Wednesday, July 31! I can't wait!

Focus on Life ~ Week 4, Create Art

Sally's prompt for the week was "Make Art".

I do 2 things that I consider artistic...I make jewelry and I sing! I do both of them everyday, and while I might consider my daily jewelry making "art," most times the singing is anything but!  I sing in the car with the radio, loudly. I sing with Ben's video game theme music...drives him really crazy!  I sing around the house, whatever comes into mind.  I sing in my head...just mention a song and it will be with me all day!  I sing at church...I am lucky to be a member of a professional choir that sings Solemn Latin Mass weekly.  But this week, I pulled out a few of my old scores from my opera/classical singing days and sat down and ran through a couple of them.  Was it making art?  Probably to no one but myself!

The other art I made, I didn't actually start during the week, but I finally got around to finishing up a few more of my Molten Morsels...I embedded bezels and set some stones.  Not sure if I will sell these as is, or make something from them.

pink coral

carnelian

faceted garnet

Wow, a whole month done...only 11 more to go!