Having Fun with my Dapping Block

My brother got me a great dapping block for christmas this year, and I have been playing with it quite a bit. For those of you who don't know, a dapping block is a usualy made of steel and/or wood. It allows you to form domes out of circular cut metal.

You may have seen this creation posted on FB;

I just love these new little stacking rings; simple but attractive. They are a good 'every day' accesory wether it be one or three together.

A Couple Rings for RAW

Cute. Simple. Small.

A familiar design...Chocolate Coral

Fossilized Coral Cocktail Ring

This weekend, when the snow descended upon us, I hunkered down in my studio for a few hours. I worked on the piece I plan to donate to the annual Greenhills fundraiser and a new ring.

Ever since joining the flicker group Ring a Week (RAW) I have been making a lot more rings- and loving it!

Front...

Back...

More Photos of this weekend's addition;

This ring features a patina finish and has a brushed texture. I absolutely LOVE this fossil. The colors, the shape, and it's history are just irresistible to me.

I bought the fossil as a pair, so my options are either to list this on Etsy and sell another ring (made to order) or to make a matching necklace (to keep for myself, naturally!). What do you think I should do?

Varscite Ring

 I recently joined a group on Flickr called 'Ring a Week' and the challenge is to make 1 ring a week for a year. It is a personal challenge and 'there are no rules'. I thought it would be fun to join, but was worried that a ring a week would be unrealistic for me personally.

So I was happy to read that you can still participate in the group, you just use different tags (RAW2011 instead of RAW52) in your photo. Funny thing is that in January I've already made new 4 rings, and here I am posting about another!

Back in December I made a stop to my local bead shop to see what was new. I found a stone I wasn't too familiar with called Varscite. I was immediately drawn to it's earthiness, pretty blues, greens, and browns. It reminds me of turquoise in that way.

There were three pieces available, and because I'm greedy I bought all three!

I am considering doing some kind of combination of the larger and smaller piece in a necklace, but so far I haven't found a way to make them flow just right in a design. In the mean time, I've made this lovely ring;

It is a statement piece for sure, a nice big 'ol cocktail ring. The back features an open band, I heated each end to form balls, hammered them flat and soldered them to the base. The front pebbles were also hammered flat and patina is used to add a little more character.
I love it, but unfortunately it is a smidge to big for me. So, I'm hoping it will find a happy home else where.

Valentines Sweetheart

It's that time of year when we remind the ones we cherish of our love for them.

I don't usually have holiday themes in mind as an artist. In fact, lately I have been avoiding very literal representations of things in my work (ex. love as hearts). But this years Valentines was different mostly because I happened upon a broken bracelet my girlfriend Laura gave me while back.

Side note: although this might not be my typical route to designing jewelry I find value in doing things 'not me'. It is kind of like playing, experimenting if you will...you never know what you might find out about yourself.

I was in my studio one late evening and the ideas started coming all at once....

1. Slice the silver hearts from the broken bracelet in half (they seemed thick enough to make 2 from 1)

2. Contrast the silver by soldering it to copper

3. Solder hearts on silver and use patina to add depth and character

First I started a copper pendant...I'd soldered the heart on and as I was filling away it immediately dawned on me that it would be great to make a similar ring.

Even though I don't wear rings a lot (I wear gloves at work), I like making them. This one in particular I liked, not only for it's modern feel but because the open ring allows for slight size adjustment.

I wanted to use the same idea in this ring. Similar in style to the pendant, I kept the tilt in the heart and the width of the copper similar for this ring.

Lastly, playing with a patina to make the silver pop. I wanted to make either a pendant or a ring. Since I have to restock my chain, I went for a ring. But also I have really been loving this ring, and I thought I'd do something similar here.

This whole style is a bit on the 'cutie' side, so I thought I'd call them 'sweet heart'. It was fun to pursue these, but in the end I don't find them very...'me'...I suppose because the hearts. I did like using the patina, I'm still getting the hang of its application and effects.

What do you think, was it worth the experimentation? Tell me your thoughts in the the comments below...