No longer down.

I am back on the up again and not so down and out about my jewelry adventures.

Yay!

I have an addictive, but also fickle personality. When I find a new hobby, I generally tend to dive in head first and very full on. But because I am fickle, I can easily give up or get bored of a hobby too. So I was very worried over the weekend when I started to get downhearted about jewelry making. This is my most expensive hobby so far and I would feel really bad if I were to give it up now after all my hubby and I have invested in it. That is why I had to vent in my last post. Sometimes you just need to be brought back to reality. That things are going to go bad whether you like it or not, but you have to get over it to move on.

Well all that being said, I made a new friend over the weekend in the jewelry world.

Fire scale.

At first, I didn't have a clue what it was. (But I was very excited at the same time as I had gotten quite a good shine/polish on my silver!!) So I did the first thing I thought of, I posted my questions about it at starvingartists.com

And the next morning I had plenty of replies explaining what it was and the options I had to remove and in future prevent it from appearing. I was very relieved. Starving Artists has helped me several times and I would recommend it to others as they are a very friendly/helpful bunch!

So this week my shopping list is:

Bead Caps - thanks Amy
for pointing me in the right direction, I have found a supplier of those flower ones here in Australia! Yippee!!

Sterling Sheet.

Firescoff. Found 1 place I can get it here in Australia online!

And I really really would like to get myself a disc cutter too......but I will have to wait and see.

My mum has kindly offered to purchase me a rolling mill and all the crucibles etc and go halves with me. She has loads of silver I can smelt (antiques dealer so has loads of cutlery old jewelry etc). I don't know that I will take it up tho, as I would rather see some return from my hobby before I spend on more tools of that expense. Plus I would need to get help on how to do it all correctly too.

And last but not least, I am mulling over going to Gold/silver smithing school. So many choices to make. But that is what keeps me involved and interested!

Oh and my mum gave me a very very old (from the 70's) enameling kit, I torch fired a copper domed oval with green opaque enamel and I have a great idea for doing more, so I need the disc cutter in order to do circles. I will dome them so I don't have to counter enamel things.

Phew! That was another long post. I need a cup of tea :)

Sigh.......*warning* long post ahead.......

I am having a bad day.

The Gem Show was pretty lame. Don't get me wrong....there was lots of 'stuff'. But all the cabs were either small and blah/same old, or they were overpriced compared to where I get mine from.

Husband ended up coming with me and he pushed our daughter round in her pram whilst I browsed, though it was really hard to see much really. The aisles were slim and there were a lot of people there hovering for ages over the tables, so it was hard to get a decent look see.

Then we passed several stalls of 'handmade' jewelry. They were made with lovely stones. Very simple and basic settings, no chains with the pendants. They were selling them for very very cheap. Instantly that puts my husband in the 'you need to really drop your prices' & 'you need to make yours shiny and professional looking like theirs' mode.

It really pisses me off when I am compared to others, especially when you don't know whether they are making these pieces themselves (my opinion was they weren't), how long they have been making them, how much they source their materials for and so on....

All the jewelry was polished to a really high shine, which I struggle to do as I haven't got a clue what I am doing in that department yet. Cut a long story short, the gem show ruined my whole day. I am very easily defeated.

All the way home and then some, we discussed what I should do. When I got home I immediately looked up these 'handmade' jewelry sellers to see whether they truly were handmade by that seller. And just as I suspected, no one said they were making them by hand themselves. They stated that they 'designed' them. You can tell from the fact that all these sellers were selling very similar pieces, just with different stones. The settings and prices were the same and no one sold pendants with chains. And they had hundreds of pieces.

Basically I figure they are sourcing their pieces from countries like India or Thailand and then selling them on. So yes in a sense they are actually handmade, but not by the person selling them on. And hence the price being so cheap, because they got them on the cheap.

Tonight I decided that I have to learn how to get a high/er polish on my jewelry and tried it on a ring waiting to be set and I actually had some success, it turned out 100% better than my other stuff and looked a lot more finished.......so I started to feel positive about everything again.......but now when I have set the stone, it rattles :( I feel like screaming! (I am pms'ing as well). Hubby thinks I just have to push the bezel in more...so I might give it another go tomorrow....but now I am too down to bother.

If you got this far....wow! I feel better having written down my thoughts. I feel better knowing that I can get a much better finish now.

But I can't however, get the bezel setting to be smooth.....how long does it take to smooth the bezel down with a burnisher? Could I be going at it till I get serious cramp? Or should it not take too long?? Can anyone help?????

Can anyone offer any tips when it comes to polishing to a high shine??

I feel so lost sometimes and give up too easily.....