Back At The Bench.

The sun is out and shining! Finally! It feels like forever since I last saw the sun for this length of time. It's been a few weeks almost. So this morning, I took my little munchkin out to the pond to get some much needed Vit D.

We're back home and I've put the air conditioning on to keep the humidity at bay. 

I have actually made some new things at the bench this past week. 

Honestly though with the lack of sales in my shop, it makes me feel like giving up. Though on the flip side of that, I just bought some more tools and a book and silver tubing lol.

I figure I will keep at it. For now.

On my list of things to learn, I want to try my hand at setting another large faceted stone. I bought one a while back, so will have to take a picture of it before I try and make a setting for it. Hopefully this one works out without any issues and I can list it in my shop. I finally bought the Creative Stone Setting book, which might help me the second time round with this setting. I also want to give flush setting a go. I have the burs coming and I have a few very small stones I can practice with, I just need to make a small burnisher first. There are a couple of tutorials out there that show you how to go about making one. 

Above are a couple of simpler things I have made for my shop.

Thanks ladies for giving me your opinion on my new background. I am going to keep the Turquoise box for the big earring shots and the other background for everything else. It keeps things interesting in my shop.

Sadly I am almost out of silver sheet. Which isn't great, as silver prices are on the rise again. Should probably weigh my scraps and see what I have....I've got quite a bit again.

Really I should buy myself some ingots and crucibles and melt it down myself....actually I think I will buy them in a couple of weeks and give it a go!!

I have the scrap and I have the mill, so it makes sense doesn't it?!!

I guess I should go and make some lunch for all now, it's almost lunch time.

I will go and read some blogs now :)

Take care

Em ♥

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

For nearly 2 days now, it has been raining heavily. 

This time last year, there were awful flash floods over Brisbane (Queensland) and sadly there have been some yesterday. Not to the extent of the 2011 floods, but it's still disconcerting.

We have a lot of creeks around where I live, especially on the way into Town. About 20 meters away we have a creek that runs under our road out of our estate. It flooded our road yesterday....fortunately we have a small SUV and we were able to get through about 3 flooded roads yesterday on our way to Town. 

Right now, the rain isn't as it was yesterday. I just stepped outside to see how our creeks looking....it's okay. Checked out the local rainfall radar to see whats coming and it's only light rain. The heavy stuff is headed out to sea and some down south.

I used to absolutely adore rainy days like today. But since those floods last year, it tends to leave me feeling a little freaked out, when it rains like it has been.

Enough of the depressing stuff for now.....

Here is my little delivery of stones I received  Friday:

Some plume/riviara/moss agates and chrysoprase.

I want to get my hands on some Dendritic Opals and some Priday plume as well as a million others lol...but that will have to wait. The silversmithing funds are kinda dry right now :(

Oh and if I haven't mentioned this already...I am a very indecisive person and I change my mind a lot. 

I know I just changed all of my backdrops for my Etsy store jewellery, but I've gone and done it again haha.

I LOVED the turquoise box. LOVED it. 

But, if I am completely honest, it took focus away from the jewellery. Some of the pieces didn't stand out as well as they do on their own as the colour of the stones were so similar.

So I changed a heap of my pictures again.

Here is a before and after shot of one item...

As boring as the new background is.....the jewellery takes the spotlight perfectly. In the old picture, it still looks good....but it sort of melts into the box a little. If you have time, please take a quick peek at my shop and tell me if you like the new background??

Em ♥