Handmade Division "Talk About" September Edition

Every month, Handmade Division has a 'talk about' group blog event. (it's like a blog carnival if you're familiar with that)

This month's topic is:

Where do you draw your inspirations for creating from?

It's a pretty broad questions, and I guess I have to give a pretty broad answer! Like most artists, I draw inspiration from the world around me, mostly nature based though. I love trees and plants in particular. I also really like insects and have some ideas of insect projects I'd like to do.

I love the cosmos, the stars, nebulas (nebulae?), galaxies, outer space! I find it all really fascinating and easily translatable in to metal.

I've always been slightly interested in the human body, but since starting my yoga teacher training, have become more and more interested and inspired and have some ideas concerning internal systems.

And then on the total flip size, I love architecture and architectural elements. When I have the time to just play around, I am often inspired window shapes, buttresses, brackets, turrets, whatever interesting bits that seem to translate well in to a current stone or metal shape I'm working with... not that I've had the time to do much of that recently.

so the very easy answer - Nature! :)

make sure to check out the other participating members this month!

Andes Cruz
Susan Moloney
Alice Istanbul
Rebekah Meddles (Lunasa Designs Jewelry)
Jewelry by Natsuko
nanotopia
Bella-Bijou Jewellery
ArtJewel Designs
Lisa Hopkins Design
Thomasin Durgin
Abhaya Fibers

Ring Engraving!

I am very pleased to announce that I will now be doing my own engraving! I am super excited to have gotten an inside ring engraver. And that it is SO fun to use.

This is for in the inside of rings only, not the outside or on a flat surface. Standard engraving cost is $18 for one ring or $30 for a pair. If the engraving very simple, like just the date or initials (all one case, less than 8 characters total), it is $10/ring. The number of letters/words that can be engraved depend on the size of the ring and a little on which font is chosen. The block styles do take up a little bit more space. On average, I would say most ring sizes could handle at least 25 - 30 character spaces (counting the letters and spaces in between words) Larger rings closer to 40 - 45, maybe more. Makers mark and alloy stamps will be included if the engraving is very short and there is adequate space. If it doesn't seem to fit w/ the engraving, it may be left off. If you have a preference, please let me know.

I have 5 different fonts available. So far I've just been practicing on some cheap brass rings, so the samples are just really generic. As I do real rings, I'll photograph them and add them in so you can see different words/letter combos and numbers.

The dial it came with has 2 block styles - a larger, slightly italic upper case font - this one had been available before. I'm going to just call it simply Large Block Style And a smaller and more blocky all upper case font that reminds me slightly of Copperplate if you're familiar w/ that font - I'm going to just call it Small Block Style.

Large Block Style

Sample on 6mm wide ring

Small Block Style

Samples on 4mm width ring

The next block style is called Modern Block - and it includes lower case letters! Which I am very excited about. It kind of reminds me a little bit of Comic Sans, minus a little comic :)

Modern Block

Samples on 4mm ring

And then there are two different Script Styles - one is similar if not exactly the same as one I offered before. The other one is totally new.

Fancy Script

Samples on 4mm ring

Modern Script

Sample on 4mm ring

and that concludes my engraving overview!

Blog Carnival 09.05.10 "Back to School"

My final body of work from UGA

This month's installment of EtsyMetal's Blog Carnival is:

Back To School
Where did you go to school? Are you still a student? What kind of student were/are you? If you had the opportunity to go back to school, would you? Where and what would you study?

Hm... not sure how far back we're supposed to go with this question.... I went to elementary and middle school in Alabama - and moved to GA at the beginning of 8th grade. Went to high school at Lakeview-Ft.Oglethorpe Comprehensive High School (it has the longest name ever which I find hilarious, so I like to write it all out for humor value - LFO for short) I was a really good student. Then college came. I went to the University of GA and majored in Jewelry and Metalworking. I wasn't as good of a student in college - plenty of grades below an A - b/c I discovered what having a life outside of studying was like! And I also decided it was more important for me to learn what I needed to and not worry so much about getting a good grade. And being able to have so many art classes made me put my energy somewhere else than studying out of a book. Looking back now - it makes me think that college students between 18 and 19 should maybe just take the first year off of classes!

I guess one thing that I did love about particularly being in art school, is that I had the time and was supposed to make time, to just make something. I guess that is what I miss most is that I don't have as much time to do that now. I've become so business oriented, and since business is good, I make what my customers want me to make. At some point, I'll either have the time or make the time to get back to those creative roots I had in school where I was all about making something big and spectacular for no particular reason other than to make it!

Would I go back to school? Hm... I don't know, probably not. I love not having a structure of being required to be somewhere at a certain time every day all week long. Sometimes I do miss the learning aspect. I do learn really well as a student in a classroom environment. I learn better from a teacher than just reading something out of a book. The few anatomy classes I had during my yoga teacher training reminded me of that. But with such a more relaxed environment of lounging on a floor with a notebook in a yurt is much more fun than a sterile classroom in a desk. Some day I may change my mind, but I don't see it happening any time soon.

To take advantage of the fun of the blog carnival - make sure to check out everyone else's posts:
victoria takahashi - experimetal
caitlyn davey- discomedusa
Thomasin Durgin - metalriot
Danielle Miller
stacey - wildflowerdesigns
Ann Hartley
Konstanze - Nodeform
Jenny Baughman
Kathryn Cole