Here is what I worked on tonight.  You'll have to forgive me for the terrible pictures.  The camera was being mean.

The thingy on the right is the silver pendant I made in class a couple weeks ago.  Here it is attached by jump ring to a happy new piece of obsidian that has been shaped to match it.  You can't tell from the photo but the obsidian is actually translucent and looks very groovy when held up to the light. 

The crazy looking thing on the left is the banded ring I started in class last week and have yet to finish. 

Here's another angle - again excuse the photo.

The giant scary prong looking things protruding from the ring will eventually get twisted and soldered together, hopefully creating a cool interweaving sort of affect.  

As for the pendant, I'm pretty psyched about how it came out.  I'm going to cut a few more shapes out of my piece of obsidian and hopefully get a nice matching ring or earrings or something.  Who knows what Thursday will bring and what new kinds of adventure I'll be having.  We'll have to wait and see.

Until then, cheers.

Well, I have to apologize for not posting much this week.  Being sick has zapped my blogging motivation, so I'm trying to pull myself back up onto the horse.  Not to mention, I just haven't had much to say and I don't particularly like blowing smoke up people's skirts.

Anyway, I had my first silversmithing course last night, so I thought I would post a picture of my first attempt at manipulating silver as well as my other rock shop projects from the week.  I warn you, it's nothing fancy.

I finished off polishing the agate I was working on last week and spent most of the Tuesday evening working on the circular stone in the middle of photo (another agate - guess I've just got a thing for them).  I'm pretty pleased with how both of them turned out.  I need to do a bit more grinding on the middle stone to take some worm tracking out of the surface, but overall it turned out quite lovely.  I'm cooking up some ideas for a silver setting for each of these in my head, but it will be a few weeks before I can pull any of it off (if ever).

The little silver pendant on the right is what I made last night.  It's small and simple and kind of uninspiring if you ask me, but there's still hope.  While everyone else was hammering their pendants to death trying to get interesting texture in the silver, I was searching the rock boxes for the perfect flat black rock to enhance my little creation.  And I think I found it.  The plan is to take that flat black rock and cut it into a slightly larger teardrop to echo the shape of my swirly silver pendant.  I'm going to lay the pendant on top of the cut rock and solder a nice sturdy hoop through the two of them.  The pendant will sway free of the stone, but lay happily atop it.  I'm not sure it's a genius idea, but I can at least imagine wearing it.  

What do you think?  Good idea?  Bad?

I'm excited to see how next week's class goes now that I know a little more of what to expect.  Anyone have a cool idea for a simple banded ring?

So here's my latest rock shop creation. This is a piece of Agate that someone left in the free bin. I picked it out because of the beautiful colors and hoped I could turn it into something magnificent. Well, I found out Tuesday night why someone put it in the free bin. Agate is a very hard rock and as such, very difficult to shape without it chipping, constantly.  

I spent a long time working on the grinders to get the shape just right. I'll have to take it back next week to finish off the polish. Then it will really shine and justice will be done for the magnificent veins of color running through it.

I have high hopes for this piece. I'm starting a silver-smithing course next week and I'm imaging a really nice pendant to house my new creation. Here's to hoping I have a knack for working with silver. Any design suggestions for the pendant would be greatly appreciated. I want something minimal to show off the beauty of the stone, but I want the pendant to be delicate and compelling. Does that make sense?

In our family, we love rocks. In fact, somewhere, sitting in a storage locker in Alma, MI we have bags and bags full of rocks waiting for us. We have rocks from the shores of Lake Michigan. We have rocks from the shores of Lake Superior.  I think we even have rocks from a trip to Lake Huron that the kids went on with their grandparents.

To say, we have a lot of rocks, is an understatement.

Last December as we got ready to move, I packed them into bags and labeled where they were from and put them in the "to storage" pile. And I remember thinking to myself, "Why am I doing this? What on earth are we going to do with all these rocks?" Despite my common sense telling me to go add them to the rock piles in the woods next to our house, I looked at those bags with fondness and hoped that someday I would know what to do with them. Then, I let them stay in the storage pile.

Today, I finally know what will become of those bags of rocks. Today, my friends, I became a lapidary junkie. Allow me to digress a moment. This past weekend we attended Kingston's annual Gem Storm hosted by the city's Mineral Club. While we were there, I decided to pay the $20 to have our family join the club for the year. They do rock hounding field trips all summer long and I knew it was right up our alley. To my happy surprise, they also maintain a workshop where you can learn several different skills, including cutting and polishing rocks.

Well, tonight I went to try my hand at this new found hobby and here's what I made.

I can't remember the name of the rock for the life of me, but isn't shiny and beautiful? I'm so proud of it. I left the workshop with a very deep satisfaction. And I'm giddy to think I get to make more. 

Necklace anyone?