It's the season for hearts - swirly whirly glorious girly hearts.
Does your beloved has a heart of steel?
Or is that you?
These are small Heart Art objects, available of course in my Etsy Shop. Click on each photo to go directly to the listing.
For the softer side...
Here are a few treasures that I've recently purchased or traded for. I really like these! If you want to see more of their work, click on their shop name, to the lower right of the item picture.
More jewelry on Etsy...
I'll be posting an oak leaf brooch tonight or tomorrow.
I promised sprinkles too. Here they are!
Family likes the cookies too, but really, it's all about the sprinkles.
(Stir and Drop Sugar Cookies from the Betty Crocker Cooky Cookbook. sprinkles optional)
I'm really a Metalsmith but I need something to keep my hands busy when I can't be at the metalshop. Here are a few of the things that I do around the house.
Click on each of the photo titles under the mosaic in order to get to the individual photos on flickr.
1. house craft clutter, 2. leaf drawing book, 3. Orange, red, and rainbow hat top view, 4. Orange, red, and rainbow hat sideview, 5. blue and purple minaret hat front view, 6. blue and purple minaret hat sideview, 7. 3rd Place!, 8. Pinewood Derby Cars Created with fd's Flickr Toys.
The top left shows my crafting clutter in my Queen's Corner. The top right shows a great design resouce book that I use often.
Hats- I crocheted the red & orange hat about a year ago, but never got a good photo of it until yesterday. The blue and purple one is new. I'm not sure what I'll do with them- give them to the local church hat collection, to some other hat charity or to the Waldorf school auction. My kids have plenty of hats!
The two bottom photos show our local Boy Scouts Pinewood Derby. If you go to the detail, you can see the car my son and my husband made.
***update*** after some Googling, I realized that I should be calling these hats "onion dome" hats, not minaret hats. I was envisioning the colorful pointy domes from Russian architecture. There are pointy domes at the top of some minarets, but in my minds eye, I was really thinking of the onion domes.
These are just about ready for priming and painting. The backplate is 28 inches long by 3 inches wide. 
Here's a great photo showing how texture on a hammer head makes for a great texture on your base metal. I love a hammer with some character. If you want to see the huge version of the picture, just follow it to flickr.
In between my commissions, I'm playing with jewelry and posting the results on Etsy. Here are a few new items.
Despite the high cost of propane (which irritates the heck out of me) I've got to start forging foliage for a railing. That means you'll start seeing more steel pieces on Etsy again in the next few weeks.
One commission complete and installed
Two more to go.
1. steel bamboo grab bars from below, 2. upper detail 1, 3. upper detail 2, 4. steel bamboo grab bars from aboveCreated with fd's Flickr Toys.
I'm always thinking up great creative blog entries about making art or raising kids- usually when I should be focusing on my studio work or sleeping. Then when it's time to blog, I can't remember, or maybe it doesn't seem so profound.
So here, I'll just show you the small beauties that I've been making in between the commissions, while I'm waiting for things to cool off, or in the 20 minutes at the end of the day when I can't start anything else, or during the times when the kids might walk in so I can't do anything dangerous.
1. Wrought Iron Maple Wall Art 12-1, 2. Hand Hammered Copper Oak Leaf Pendant, 3. Bronze Oak pendant 3-1, 4. Handforged Maple Leaf, 5. Copper Oak Leaf Pendant, 6. Elegant Tendril Hook Created with fd's Flickr Toys.
Another thing - Why is it that I never want to do what I should do. It doesn't matter what it is. If I should be doing it, I'd rather be doing something else. Pressure!!! I can't handle pressure!!!
The Pitch Pot
This is an 8 x 4 inch cast iron pitch pot filled with six to seven pounds of Northwest Pitchworks brand Pitch, sitting on a hard tire wheel. I use pitch as a backing material while creating my chased and repousséd pieces. After you buy the bowl and pitch, they can get to be a pricey investment. They do last forever.
Up until 2008, I always provided pitch pots and pitch for my workshop students to use during classes. The pitch pots were for sale, optional always, at the end of the class. I really wanted to make it possible for people to take the class, whether or not they could afford the supplies.
I broke even, but made no profit on these pots after I accounted for my time in preparing and transporting the pots. It was purely a service to my students.
Starting in 2008, I will no longer be able to do this for my students. Due to the rising cost of gas, fuel gas, metal and supplies in general, I simply can't make the annual investment in pitch and pots. From now on, students at my workshops will have to come prepared with their own 8 inch bowl and 7 pounds of German or Northwest Pitch.
I will keep several pitch pots and tool sets in my personal studio, for students who come to my own workshop for private or small group lessons.
In-progress in the metalshop
These are for a special request. The client wanted ball ends, for a hook that's more gentle on suit and dress coats. They just need a little clean-up, a few more hammer marks, some burnishing and some oil before I deliver them.
In the house, I've gone back to crochet with some handspun yarn from Kittygrrlz, a yarn spinner right here in Wisconsin, USA.
My daughter needed a hat for her doll.
My son needed a new hat for himself. He's getting older now. He wanted something unique and beautiful, but not too "weird." I mixed it up with some brown glossy cotton yarn at the top and bottom.
He even modeled it for me, sort of.
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