vine and leaf rings - in wax

vine and leaf rings - in wax
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

The cute little babies will soon be complete! They are the fabulous victory brown wax that I love working with. Last night I invested them and today I just cast them in 14k gold! They still need to be cleaned up, patinated, and polished! They will be special wedding rings for a lovely couple in Japan! (They are getting married in Colorado though)

Keep an eye out for the finished product photos!!

Hand Model? Not paid anyway...

options
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

So there's nothing complicated about these rings. Just simple, hammered, organically fused. I like that they don't look machine made - they are supposed to b/c they were all made by me and my little hammer.

I've just had the set of 5 available, but I've sold so many single ones here in town, I figured I might as well sell them that way on Etsy too! I took this photo as the "options" photo - patina or shiny... and I just really liked it.

I wanted to be a hand model.. jokingly, kind of... but once I'd been working w/ my hands for a few years and then started taking photos of my rings on my hands... well, It was easy for me to see that dream was not going to be a reality. At least not in the paid sense!

The pumice does a tune on drying them out - as does the continual washing. The polishing and cleaning get nice dark bits stuck in the dryness cracks... I get little scratches and punctures and bug bites... hm... but hey - I still get to model for myself now don't I?

I just hope it makes you want to have some of these rings on Your hand, so you can be your very own hand model too :)

Metal Conversion Chart

metalconversionchart
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

I use the chart soo often to come up with estimates for doing rings in gold or platinum that I already have in silver. So convenient!
Its from Tim McCreight's The Complete Metalsmith - one of my favorite books ever! I honestly have read the entire book cover to cover and answers almost any question I have and its small and light weight.. If you don't have it, you should get it.

Its Friday!

new earrings!!!!!
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

And I just wanted to say that I love my new earrings by Stacey at Wildflowerdesigns. She is fantastic and so are these earrings. My favorite things about them besides the fact they just look awesome - the are SUPER comfortable - which is key to my earring wearing habits - they make a nice little noise, and all the different shades of blue as I'd hoped! Blue is my favorite color - but not just one shade - ALL blue is the best.
You can check out her shop for other similar designs, but these are mine and I love them.

Waterfall pendant

waterfall pendant
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

I'm super pleased with how this turned out for a variety of reasons. It is my first handmade tube setting - made from two strips of bezel wire soldered together... It was both harder and easier than I thought it would be! It was made in preparation for a more detailed commission that will have three different larger oval blue topaz. I wanted to do a kind of test run before I made the final commissioned piece - so now I'm even more excited to get the final one done!

This topaz is one I got a while ago - I normally don't do faceted stones and I normally don't do "coated" stones - but the rainbow topaz was just too pretty w/ the flashes of blue and green - I just couldn't pass it up! I'm glad I finally had a reason to use it! check it out in more detail

tall grasses pendant

tall grasses pendant
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

Oh this beautiful pendant - it makes me think of gorgeous fields of windswept grasses. I've had this pendant sitting around for a couple weeks, trying to decide if I was actually going to put it up for sale! But I'll still have the photos right?!

So it can be yours - check it out here.

the downed tree

28/365
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

Semi un-related to jewelry - but my love of trees is fairly apparent - so maybe its not all that un related! This was a large tree that came down and I am just totally in love with it. I am sorry that it had to fall - its root structure - not so good and couldn't stand up against a full day of heavy heavy wind. Now that is all down on my level - its amazing how it seems even bigger lying down than standing up! It turned out to be a nice spot to lie in the sun. And of course the tree bark texture is oh so much like my rings I can't help that I keep looking at it and analyzing all the little ruts and ridges! and luckily - no damage done - and we'll have free fire wood this winter! Thank you tree for coming down :)

Pisces for Jasmin

Pisces for Jasmin
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

This special little pendant was made for Jasmin - I really love how it turned out. The constellation pendants aren't always THE most fun to make, but the end product is always soo pleasing. I like the sweet little size of this one and the nice shape that it came out to be. I hope she likes it!!

CHARMS!!!!

CHARMS!!!!
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

EtsyMetal, my favorite group of friends, has gotten together and we are doing a charm swap - and these are my charms! We will also be selling one of the bracelets to a lucky etsy shopper - who wouldn't want a gorgeous charm bracelet with 15+ charms from their favorite etsy metalsmiths!? So be on the look out over the next couple of weeks in the etsymetal shop for the fantastic bracelet!

I'm personally turning mine in to a charm necklace as I would wear it more, and I'm super excited to have something so special from many of my talented and dear friends.

Casting bits all done!

casting bits all done
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

Got them all finished and appropriately put together! some ended up as earrings, but most as pendants. i made a new lotus stamp last time i cast and finally got to try it out and see how they positive stamped waxes looked! I love love love how they turned out! I made it to match my lotus screenprint that I had done, just did a miniature version in wax for stamping purposes. I need to maybe do some stamps in bronze or something as making the stamp in sterling seems kinda like a waste! A valuable stamp for sure!!

I also did a couple of new grass pendants. the vertical one is oh so delicious - I really am excited about that one and found a use for a tool I had in making the top little bits on the grasses - now they are a bit more like wheat or borderline cattails which I love.

The little tree bark pendant - simple and lovely texture w/ a surprise leave on the back for the bale - almost like the back as much as the front and you could of course wear it either direction.

More oms of course and in the back some dandelion wishes earrings to match the rings and pendants!

Slowly I'll get them added to my etsy shops - the oms and most of the lotuses will be in my yoga shop and the others will be headed to my all jewelry shop. Probably a lotus or two will make it in that shop also!

New castings!!

16/365
Originally uploaded by bcyrjewelry

Look at all those little crusty bits - investment caked tiny shinies, all waiting to be cleaned up and shown off to the world! There are some new things in there that no one else has seen yet! what are they you ask?! well, you will just have to wait and find out! But I am very excited about them - back to work!