Shiny Winner!

Time to post a winner of the November Shiny Giveaway for the Garnet Woven Heart Pendant...

Drum roll please...

~ Anonymous/Chris ~

*throws confetti*

Email me at freia.inguz (at) gmail.com within 7 days to claim your prize!

Thanks for playing everyone!!

Until next time. Later taters!! :D

Gold and Ruby Proto-type Earrings

I've had a project I've been sitting on for about... forever. Ok, maybe not that long, but several weeks anyway. It's for a pair of 14k gold and faceted Ruby earrings, similar to a pair of sterling Tanzinite earrings I made a while back. Unsure of exactly how to make pair similar yet different enough, without costing $1000.00, I've tried a couple things, but couldn't get it just right. No matter what I tried to do, the top wrap kept bothering me, but I wasn't sure how to eliminate it. It's wire. It needs some kind of join. And I don't solder very well, soooo... *sigh* nada.

Last night I thought I'd try a whole new way. I'm rather pleased with it. No big bulky wrap. Yay :D

Since I'm so nervous about working with a material as spendy as 14k gold, I wanted to make sure everything would work just right, so I made up a finished pair in copper, wrapped in some faceted garnet, and volia!

front

 They are a good size hoop. The front looks nice, but to be quite honest, I kinda like the back too. The wire seems to frame each stone. In gold, that would look nice.

back

 They hang nicely...

And the wire is a thick guage that I've hand hammered to give it a thicker front profile, but they aren't thick or bulky looking...

I'm rather pleased. The gold pair would have different ear wires, I'm thinking a gold lever back, so they would be extra secure. A little extra security strikes me as a good thing with where the project may go.

If all goes well, I may have my first pair of solid gold shiny. I'm rather excited. It's a material I just didn't think I'd work with anytime soon. It's a bit scary. And totally exciting. :D

Adventures in shinies. Woot!!

Pre-Holiday Shiny SALE!

With the news from Breach the Moon Gallery over on the coast, I've been pondering which pieces to send over for the upcoming holidays. I think I've settled on a few of the new trees, perhaps the Aquamarine cab, the Seraphinite full moon earrings, and the Ethiopian Fire Opal tree. Pondering sending over the 3 new medallions as well, to see how they like them. But, before I clear them out of the Etsy and send them I thought I'd have a sale. :D

I like sales. Sales are fun!

So, I just made a new coupon code...

Use coupon code NOV15 at checkout for 15% off of all in stock Etsy items. :D Click the pic to be transported over to the shop. :)

November pre-holiday shiny sale. W00T!

:D

Permissions and Galleries and New Shinies, Oh my!

I didn't think there was much going on over here lately, but as I run thru things in my head I realize... oh wait... Yes there is! I seem to measure things in a number of pieces kind of way these days and past that ... doesn't much matter. And lately, number of pieces is rather... low.

Sometimes, the shiny cooperates and things get ta'crankin'. Sometimes... it seems like I have to fight with every shiny, at every turn. Work it, rework it, then rework it some more.

It's definitely been one of /those/ times.

But, slow is not bad. Slow is just slow. More deliberate. And usually full of learning. Learning is good. Vera good. Been lots and LOTS of the learnin' lately. Not all on accident either. :D

In and amongst the slow going new pieces and the lots and lots of learning, the last week has also brought some fantastic news. Some over the top, uber great, fantabulous news even.

First off, I got such a great response on my garnet woven heart pendant when I was planning my giveaway...

Click picture to enter giveaway

...that I decided to stop being shy and nervous, and contact the designer of the pattern/tutorial I used to see if she'd mind  if I made some to sell. Well, I heard back from her last week and... she was so nice!! She said I could make and sell as many as I wanted! :D :D She hoped I had lots of fun, made money and wished me well. I was so excited by that! I really want to learn more weaving, and I want to learn from the best. I want to learn from Nicole Hanna. And the pieces are SO awesome, I also want to be able to sell as I go. And now I can. WhooWHOO! There will definitely be more woven jewelry like the garnet heart pendant coming down the pike.

The other uber fantabulous news was from the Gallery over on the coast. I called them up last week, not expecting anything really, maybe just ... touch base. See what's up. Find out if I ever even gave them everything I needed to, or if I'd forgotten something. Ya know. Like the artist statement I totally spaced O.O

Oops.

I expected her to tell me how it was the off season, no one is shopping until Christmas, but it's ok because that's normal here and send me your statement.

That is not what happened.

Turns out, my stuff started selling right away. O.O
Like the first week even. O.O
Like... my inventory is almost 1/2 gone already. O.O
O.O
I was in shock. Am still in shock. She ended the coversation with...Please to be making more, fast, and send it over. Anything. Everything. Quickly. It's about to pick up. Christmas is coming.
O.O

Um... Ok. Holy wow.

I may start hyperventilating again just thinking about it. I'm still a tad excited.

Now that I think about it, maybe that's why the pieces are so slow in coming. I'm trying to get all caught up so I can make new things for Breach the Moon, AND make new stuff for my Etsy because Christmas IS coming, and and and... I may be pushing it too hard. The shinies don't like to be pushed. They like to do their own thing. Pushing makes them mad and they rebell and won't play nice.

Stubborn little things.

I did manage to win a couple rounds though. I got a new Aquamarine/Amethyst/Sapphire/Quartz Birthstone tree done...

Am rather pleased at how it came out. We wrestled for days. But I won. Finally. :D

Then there was the Autumn Faery Lights Tree...

...it's multi colored Spinel and Ethiopian Fire Opal. :)

2 trees out the 4 tree/2 penandt/1 gold earrings weekend I'd tried for wasn't what I was after, but I guess that's 2 closer than I was. 

The uber big accomplishment was this one...

It's a fully redesigned medallion I've been working on for weeks now. It's a 925 Sterling and 999 Fine Silver Garnet Medallion. It looks like the others, but it's actually quite different. I'm using the new weave I've been playing with for the backing, much tighter this time. I wanted to try to use it in a bit more open design instead of just using it for anchor points. My goal is to figure out how to weave it so it can actually be a design element all by itself.

I see much potential.

Another big deal with this one was the Fine Silver. It's my first time working with it. Now I wonder why it's taken me so long! Wow, oh wow, just wow.

I used it for the unwrapped outer ring and the scrolls. It can be fused, instead of soldered, gets wonderfully soft and malleable when heated and the ends ball up in absolutely wonderful little perfect balls of perfection.

It's soooooooooo different than sterling! I'm in love with it. Absolutely in love.

Can't wait to play with that some more.

My little medallion is a far cry from the pearls and swirls I was going for, but that's ok. I am so proud of this jewel. Lots of cool new things going on it that. Lots and LOTS!

Permissions and Galleries AND new shinies. Twas a busier week than I remembered. :D

W00T!

November Shiny Giveaway !

The holidays are coming fast, right around the corner even, and I wanted to do some special things this year before things got overwhelming and lost in the shuffle. I’ve been thinking maybe things along the lines of special sales, and maybe some giveaways.  I do love giveaways. Yep yep. Been a long while since I've done one, so I figured I’d start there. Wasn't sure what piece to use though. While I was trying to organize things a bit last weekend, I re-found a piece I did several months back when I was trying to teach myself weaving. You may remember it if you follow the blog. It's from a Nicole Hanna tutorial pattern I did; a little copper woven heart shiny, with a big ol' garnet in it…

Want it? :D

Of course you do.

Here's the deal. For your chance to win this antique copper woven garnet heart pendant on an antique copper chain...

Leave a comment telling me you wish to enter for the giveaway on or before Friday, November 15th.  To make things interesting, if you tweet, share, blog or otherwise help promote the giveaway... come back and link me to it on this post and each link will count as another entry for you.

Giveaway is open world wide. The weekend of the 16th, I'll announce the winner. :)

Easy peasy. Now. Let’s play giveaway! :D

Ready, set…

GO!

The fine print...

• Comment on this post to enter. Comment counts as (1) entry. Each verifiable link for a tweet, share, reblog, blog, or other promotion of this giveaway will count as additional entries. 
• giveaway closes at midnight, PST, November 15^th
• giveaway is for pictured antique copper pendant. and chain
• giveaway open world wide, to countries without jewelry restrictions.
• winner will have 7 days to claim their prize. After 7 days, if they have not responded, a new winner will be picked.
• winner will be chosen by random draw
• USPS First Class postage paid by Freia Inguz. Any and all taxes, custom fees or additional charges above and beyond USPS First Class will be the responsibility of the recipient.
• pendant was handmade by Freia Inguz
• pendant pattern by Nicole Hanna

Weekend catchup: New pieces and projects

I had a busy weekend over here. Managed to get caught up on some listings and finish a few pieces I've had laying around 1/2 done.

A new Aurora Borealis tree finally made if off the table and in to the Etsy...

My almost scrapped Seraphinite Full Moon Tree of Life earrings got a second tree to make the pair...

And a new Ethopian Fire Opal mini tree got it's shine one too... 

All finished up and even listed too :D Go me.

The big whoowhoo for the weekend was my new medallion. I've made several now, but I've been trying to come up with a better way of doing them. A faster way. The medallions currently take about 10 - 12 hrs to make, if not more, and that's a lot. I wanted to find a way that works well, takes less time, and looks good too. Surely that's not asking too much. Right?

Well, I think I did it. I've been working on learning some new techniques and it seemed very promising for the backing I'm doing on these. (that part alone took 2-3hrs, if all went well) I was vera excited. It worked up faster, looked better but without actually making a medallion with it, I had no idea if it was going to work out. So, This weekend I tried puting it all together, and voila! 

A new, redesigned, Jade Infinity Medallion. The new backing worked wonderfully!! 

The netting I used before served me pretty well for anchor points for the scrolls and did well for giving the illusion of a solid piece. The problem was, visually it wasn't what I was after, so I had to concentrate of filling all the space on the medallion with scrolls or stones, or... whatever, to hide the web. The new way is not only faster, but it's more solid, works better, gives me more anchor spots, and I think it's going to work well visually when I want more open space in the piece.

I am so vera excited about all these things.

I tried the infinity scroll design with it first, to see how it would work for a piece that needed many anchor points. It all worked out beautifully. Next time I think I'll try it out on a more open piece. I have a couple new designs bouncing around in my head that wouldn't work before and I can't wait to try them. If it works as well as I think, I may have just opened up a gazillion new possibilities for medallions.

That rocks mah socks.