Felting with Britta !

Britta just sent me this pic va facebook.
Here are her incredible arm warmers that she made out of the raw wool!!


THE BAG OF WOOL I BOUGHT ! ! ! ! ! ! !


Britta getting started on the felting process. First you lay out the wool with all the fibers going in the same direction, then you layer on more wool but with the fibers running perpendicular to the previous layer. You will want to continue this until you have at least four layers. Now you get some water boiling and mix in some bar soap shavings. Now you take a cut and gently poor the water on the wool until it is evenly wet, not sitting in a puddle though. Now you slowly and softly start rubbing the wool, sometimes it helps to use a baggy over your hand while doing this to have less friction until the wool begins to felt together and become stronger. Now you just keep rubbing and rubbing, flip it over and rub it some more. Eventually you have to dump the now cool and very dirty water out of the tray and put more of the boiling water on to keep the wool fibers shrinking together. Also be prepared for this process to take FOREVER...one of the needed tools for this is definitely patience.


Top left is Britta's tobacco bag that she made out of the felted wool, some beads/shells, and a zipper. The little bag with the brass button and the pair of arm warmers I made are not as tightly felted. The wool texture is easier to see in mine, but they are not as strong...I'll have to keep working on my felting.


Here I am with all of my completed wooly projects !

SKETCHES from NZ

HERE ARE MORE ! ! ! I've continued sketching since being home...too many ideas to be able to store in my head.


Ideas for rings, pendents, reconstructed sweaters, wire and glass sculptures and who knows what else...but it's all on these papers. Hope some of them come true, I'm going to be back on the 12th of May and then hopefully will be able to immediately start working on some of my favorites !

it's going to be interesting, some of the current ideas involve experimenting with different metal wires, solder, glass and copper foil, a rock polisher, and a sewing machine (which might be the biggest of my problems) SO EXCITED & READY TO GET STARTED

Missing it

Right now I'm in New Zealand and am really missing getting to make things. Every time I walk by a jewelry store/ art gallery I have to go through it and take the business cards of the artists so that I can research them later. Also I've began gathering junk, and Eric (my friend that I'm traveling around with) keeps making fun of me...I have been gathering a ridiculous amount of shells, sea-or in my case, lake glass, and seeds. Also I keep the random coins that I've been finding from other countries. I need to start sketching or something... Maybe I'll even be able to gather some of the fern plants and can cast them in the future. Ugh, who knows...

HUGE Stained Glass Project

AFTER ABOUT 148 HOURS, the window is completed...well at least my part of it. My dad still has to get it into the frame support and installed up in the kitchen. Hope that all goes well, I'm out of the country and will be missing all of that.


Here is a photo of the back of the window after my dad and I had flipped it and I completed soldering together the back.


Here is the progress after almost 12 more hours of copper foil work!!




These photos were taken after 16 1/4 hours of copper foiling, and 94 1/2 hours of total work on it. I have finished foiling the tree on the left, some sky, grass, mud bank, and a little bit of the bridge.



After 78 hours and 25 minutes of work I finally finished cutting out all the glass and took all the tape off! Now time to start wrapping each little piece with copper foil...



I believe this is about 74 hours in.


the grinder was full of glass mud again and had to clean it out for the second time.

My fingers were so trashed at this point and ached a ton, so took a few days off.


The bridge is complete thank goodness :)Starting the pine trees FINALLY !


First bleed!!! I'm proud of myself.





















The bridge rock is taking forever. The glass I picked for the stones is opaque and I haven't been able to trace the lines and just been using the "guess and check" method.


Here is a picture of the grinder! I had to clean it out, all the water was being absorbed by the glass dust. YOU ARE LOOKING AT GLASS MUD!!! See the different colored layers from when I was grinding down different pieces of glass!!

Finally getting somewhere!!! I think at this point I have around 35+ hours into this piece. That is counting the time to draw out the design and pick the glass!!




Here I'm cutting and grinding the glass to have a perfect fit. Such a slow freaking process!





Here are the two blue prints I completed, now time to start cutting glass!!!


Here I'm drawing out the design for the window on our kitchen floor!



SO this stained glass project is going to take absolutely forever! It is going to be a 53" by 26" half round window that is going up in the kitchen of our new house! My dad is paying me to make it!!

my faves from HIGH SCHOOL, time of the Wolverines (part #4)

MY FAVORITE SERIES OF PIECES BY FAR ! A combination of found object casting with lost wax casting!!!

All of these pieces are rings made of sterling sliver, most of which I've oxidized. They are very sculptural and most (I think all of them) are too fragle, sharp, and even heavy/awkward to wear. These are still some of my most treasured art works that I've made.

This ring was made from casting a real leaf. This piece is very fragile and the one that I'm MOST PROUD OF. After I finished casting and cleaning up the ring, I soldered a tube setting on the leaf, oxidized it, and set a mystic topaz gemstone in the tube setting.


Here is part of a Holly-hawk seed pod and wax band that I sculpted, then cast into sterling. This piece has also been oxidized.


Here is a piece of Milkweed seed pod and wax that I cast into a quite unique ring. After I cast and cleaned the ring, I oxidized the seed pod to bring out the details and epoxied in little (micro) colorful, metallic balls.


This ring is my Wheat Ring, again it was cast out of wax and a piece of weed/wheat that I found. It is 100% silver and the wheat has been oxidized.


This is my Topless Ring... all cast sterling silver and oxidized.

my faves from HIGH SCHOOL, time of the Wolverines (part #5)

P.M.C. (precious metal clay)

So this process involves this "clay" metal that we rolled out with pens and then stamped patterns into. Then we cut out the shapes we wanted and poked holes in them with toothpicks for the jump-rings. Then we heated them up with the torch until they were glowing red, and after they cooled they were done!! Heating them up with the torch cooks out all/most of the clay particles so only the metal, in this case sterling silver, is left.

I hung all of the necklaces on waxed cotton cord, and the bracelet as well.


Gift to my lovely Mother

my faves from HIGH SCHOOL, time of the Wolverines (part #3)

DOMING to the max

This piece is very complicated...I had to saw out the band to fit the top ring. I also had to form the top ring and file it down with a half round file so that it fit the band. Then I formed a sterling dome and soldered it into the top ring. The last step was to soldered a tube set into the center of the dome and set the peridot gemstone into it. Then to give it a bit more sparkle, I used a diamond bit tool on the dremel and tapped in a texture in a band around the top ring.


This ring was made with sterling wire, sterling sheet, and brass sheet metal. I punched out and domed one brass disc and one silver disk and soldered them together, then I cut it in half and soldered it to the inside of the larger sterling dome. Then the whole thing was soldered to the sterling band I formed.


Here is a ring I made out of sterling and a slice of a wooden dowel. The decorative feature on the ring consists of three sterling domes I soldered together and then continued to drilled a hole through them and soldered a sterling wire though the hole and glued it into the wooden band. To make the band I cut off a slice of a dowel rod, then drilled out the center and stained it. The reason it appears so rustic is because I never cleaned off the fire scale from the torch, I just sanded it down a bit with some sand paper.


Here is a little sprouting seed sculpture! The pebbles holding it up are made up of three sterling domes, the seed is made of two brass domes soldered together with a sliced piece bent back as if it were sprouting. The stem is made of sterling wire with one copper leaf soldered on.