Still Learning

While I have taken a couple of classes in the art of making silver clay jewelry, my steampunk designs are truly "trial and error" works of art.  I started creating from vintage found objects as a challenge and the designs have evolved as I learned new things about working with metals.

The components in my steampunk jewelry are held together by wire or epoxy as I don't solder.  My youngest daughter, however, has taken a steampunk course.  Yes, they do exist in some places. And she learned to make rivets.  So over the Thanksgiving holiday I got a quick course in rivet making.

Though it requires a little practice to make nice, round rivets, it's not very difficult.  The hardest thing was finding wire thick enough yet soft enough to hammer into flat heads.  The wire Hubby uses for wrapping his bonsai plants turned out to be perfect.  I think it's aluminum.  Basically, you drill holes where you want the pieces attached.  Find a wire of that thickness. Then create a head on one end by holding a piece of wire sticking up about 3-4mm in a stationary vise and hammer straight down with a ball peen hammer.  Insert the wire through the holes of the connection, cut it to about 2-3mm above the metal and create another head on the other end.  The new steampunk piece above is my first attempt at rivets.  I still have to work on making them nice and smooth and round without so much sanding.  But I'm loving this new technique--well, new to me.

Someone suggested that I create a tutorial as that always makes a great blog post.  But in searching google there are several out there already, like this one.

Also, if you can afford it, there are tools  that drill the holes and place manufactured rivets neatly for you.  Maybe someday.  But right now I'm enjoying the whole manual process.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Sorry I haven't posted recently but I've just been possessed with getting through all the old papers and pictures I collected from my parents' house.  Some of it is important information about warrantees and blueprints.  Most is 60 years of memories.

Because for all the boxes and papers there's no place sit in my family room, and because there's something attached to all this paper that I seem to be allergic to (dust mites, mold?), I really needed to finish asap.

Well, it's done.  I've created picture albums for both my daughters and one for my brother that chronicle the lives of John and Stasia Libera.

Among the mass of old photos I found this gem so appropriate for Thanksgiving and the feast we celebrate it with.  That's Dad on leave in a staged photo that made the front page of the local paper.  No, he didn't really slaughter that poor bird.

Sale at Jansjems Online

It's the end of our craft shows for the year and time to start building a new inventory for 2012.  In order to thank my loyal customers for another successful year and to encourage potential new customers to visit us on Etsy, Jansjems is having a sale on all the gemstone necklaces, bracelets, & earrings.



The sale begins today, Nov. 15 and will continue until Dec. 31 (or until inventory runs out.)

At 40% off, these pieces are priced to sell.  If you're shopping for something handmade and unique for yourself or for someone else but are hampered by a limited budget, now's the time to buy.

Locally you can still find Jansjems designs at two locations--silver jewelry at The Daylily in South Deerfield, MA and steampunk at the Pushkin Gallery Holiday Market in Greenfield, MA.  We'll also be active through the holiday season creating new designs for a release in 2012. 

Thank you again for your continuing support local artists in New England.

Jewelry and Holidays

This Saturday I'll be setting up shop for the last time this year at Handmade with Love.  It's in Easthampton at Eastworks.  Aviva and Karen organized a show there in February and it was a huge success.  So I have great hopes for this one as well.

Juried market of 20 artisans displaying only handmade items. Free swag bags to the first 50 people!

When I get to this time of each year it's sad knowing I won't be doing any shows again until the spring.  On the other hand I am excited and itching to create all the new designs I've sketched out.

One of my goals for this year was to try to get my jewelry into some local gift shops.  Well Jansjems jewelry can now be found at the Daylily in the center of South Deerfield.  Bridget has a few pieces of my fine silver and we're testing the market.  But with Christmas coming, I'm hoping they'll all sell.

I was also approached by Darcy Rosner.  She'll be managing the gift shop at the Pushkin Gallery in Greenfield until the end of December.  She does some incredible bead weaving as Sweet Bananaberry and also creates silver clay jewelry.  She wants us to get together for a "clay date" someday:)  That would be nice.  Maybe we'll inspire each other.

Anyway, the Pushkin Gallery will be having its grand opening on Nov. 10.  It's an incredible space with some wonderful installations.  It will be open daily so if you're in the area stop in and take a look around.  And Jansjems steampunk and fine silver will be available in Darcy's gift shop along with the work of several very talented local artisans.

So business-wise, things are moving right along.

Personally, I'm preparing for the holidays. Halloween got snowed out so I hope the weather is better for Thanksgiving.  I always have Thanksgiving at my house.  It will be a smaller and sadder party this year with Mom gone.  But it's always nice to have a houseful of family.

So I hope to see some friends at Eastworks this weekend.  And I hope you'll all go to Greenfield and take a peak at the Pushkin.

You Can Survive without Electricity. But Not for Long

I have to start by saying that I've been fortunate not to have ever been in a situation where we have lost power for more than a couple of hours.  Even my daughters will tell you that when it infrequently happened, it was a treat--reading stories by candlelight.

So this weekend's storm and subsequent power outage was a shock and not a small inconvenience.  The forecast was for up to 6" of snow.  We got 15!!  One of our 40 year old silver maples still had leaves on it so it shed branches this year--big ones--lots of them.  Tho one landed on Martha's fence, none of them did any permanent damage.

Our communication with the outside world was our friends who stopped by with news of towns in the area being 100% without power and the prediction that it would take 5 days to get everyone back up.  So we would have to live without electricity for awhile.  And don't I have a cell phone for just this kind of situation?
Well, that wasn't working either.

Our gas fireplace needs power for the blower to work but without a blower it still gives off radiant heat. Sunday and Monday were bright and sunny so the sunroom got pretty cozy for most of the day.
But the fridge was starting to get warm so we packed up all the perishables into coolers and buried them in the snow on the back deck.  There was no shortage of snow.

I went out on Sunday to shovel off the trees (doesn't that sound weird?).  Our kousa was laying FLAT.  I thought it was a goner.  By midday, though, it looked like Spring had returned.  But I came in completely soaked and...no power for the blow dryer.  In the back of a cabinet I found some curlers from about 25 years ago and had to resort to them.  Remember curlers?

Last night we drove to my daughter's house for supper (she has a generator and her stove was working) where we dined by candlelight (appropriate as she works at Yankee Candle).  The mile between our homes looked like a war zone.  Trees and power lines down and still in the middle of the road.  That was a little scary.

This afternoon as I was wondering how long hubby and I could go without a hot shower, the power finally came on.  Was it only 2 days?  It seemed like a week.

For more pictures of road conditions see my friend, Poetesswug's blog--http://poetesswug-thewugsbackyardblogspot.blogspot.com/2011/10/monday-message-in-bottleto-snow-storms.html

Memories♫ Light the Corners of My Mind ♫.....

I stopped by the old homestead this past weekend on my way to the Roseland Cottage Craft Show which is just up the road.  A couple from near Worcester who own a second hand shop have been cleaning it out--basically taking what's left to resell and getting rid of the trash.  The house is empty now with only a small pile of boxes left that they haven't picked up yet.

Being there is not so emotional anymore.  It's less my old home and more just a piece of property.  It looks smaller somehow with all the stuff gone.  But you can now really see what a solid, well built house it is.

Before the estate sale and clean out I spent weeks going through drawers and boxes and managed to collect 6 large cartons of papers and pictures that now clutter my family room.  And that has become my latest project.  While the house no longer brings up any strong emotions, going through the pictures certainly does.

I thought I'd selectively pull out pictures and create albums for my brother and my daughters.  Many of the pictures have multiple copies and I certainly can make copies of the ones that don't.  I remember most of the events depicted in the pictures from the 1950s on.  The ones that tug at my heart are those taken before and shortly after my parents were married.  They look so different, carefree.  There's one with Mom and a puppy.  I always thought she hated animals--at least she never wanted us to have one.

Dad played lots of sports.  He played basketball for the Polish Eagles and played baseball with the Polish Tigers (Polish culture was alive & well in Southbridge then).  While there are lots of pictures from my parents' wedding I was surprised to find one from my maternal grandparents' wedding.  There were very few pictures of them at all.

I found one picture from Poland of my paternal great grandparents.  I wouldn't have known who they were but for the note on the back.  How I wish someone had labelled all the rest of the old pictures.  I'm sure they're mostly relatives, some from Poland others from France. But I now have no way of knowing.

But prize for the best find goes to the one picture I found of my father playing the violin.  He once told me that he took lessons as a child.   His fingers were too short for many of the chords so he gave it up.  It's my favorite.

Roseland Cottage Fine Arts and Crafts Festival

Well, I didn't get accepted to this one again this year.  So I took a ride to Woodstock, CT., to find out just what kind of jewelry did get accepted.  Last year I applied with pictures of my steampunk jewelry.  While it seems to be what gets me into shows like West Hartford, Historical New England probably didn't find that classy enough. So this year I sent pictures of my nicest fine silver pieces.  And it appears that too was a mistake.  

Taking a tour around the festival I found that though the jewelry category wasn't more than a quarter of the vendors, there were many, many with silver jewelers.  Silver clay pieces and those made by metal smiths tend to have similarities.  There were jewelers with shiny sterling silver, some with oxidized silver, a couple with some interesting designs, and a few that set stones.  On the other hand, I think there were only about 3 bead jewelers and they were all different from one another--riveted, soldered, and crocheted but no strands of plain strung beads at all.

So my dilemma now is what should I apply with next year.  Steampunk is the only genre with no competition. But I'm not sure this show is ready for what might be considered "gritty and industrial" just yet.  I've thought about a high end steampunk with gemstones and no rust.  Play up the whole recycling thing.  Or should I go back to my roots and try gemstone cluster pieces.  I guess I'll be working on this for awhile.

The show, however, is still quite successful.  Traffic was great on Saturday morning despite the $5 admission fee.  And people were buying.  The wind was an issue and I heard that a couple of tents blew away.  There were also a few empty spaces where it appeared people didn't show up.  But this is a show I hope to get into again one of these years.

I did see two members of the Artisans of Western Mass. selling there.  Fortunate enough to get is was Little Birch Farm and Armeith Naturals.  They both have great products.  I hope that had a great weekend.