Mixed Metal Mania Project 2

I'm still improving on my metalworking skills with Kim St. Jean's Mixed Metal Mania Book.  Project number 2 in the book was for this pair of twisted paddle earrings:

 Now those paddle earrings aren't exactly my style, so I decided on a flower pendant instead.  Here's my plan:

 Like normal, I've sped ahead and am completely done texturing my flower, but still need the rest of my pieces:

 Since I was getting the saw back out, I decided to make a couple of more rings for good measure.  I cut out all 6 of these pieces in 1/2 the time I cut out the original 3 rings, so practice does make one much faster:

The flower and leaf were made of copper and I used sterling wire for the stem.  The bail is a piece of fine silver bezel wire.  All of my rivets were copper, too.  I'm quite proud of these.  I've taken riveting classes before and cannot reproduce at home (I've tried and given up a few times), but Kim St. Jean's book makes it all look easy.  Here's the flower all put together (after 1 hour with a hard boiled egg and repolished):

 The matching earrings are the copper leaves on sterling silver earwires.  I coiled a tiny bit of copper wire on the earwires just for some added interest (they looked too plain prior to that).

 And I was practicing my stamping on the rings - sayings like "I Love Shells" and "Beach Girl" - so me!

Now I just need to find time for the rest of the book!

New Jewelry Book

I bought this book: Mixed Metal Mainia: Solder, rivet, hammer, and wire exceptional jewelry by Kim St. Jean. I love it! It is by far the best investment in jewelry books I have ever purchased. It has gotten me over my hump in moving from just wire work and into metalsmithing. It was more than a year ago that I took a metalsmithing boot camp class at Ornamentea, and I went out and bought all of the tools and materials necessary to begin metalsmithing in my own home. But they just sat there... I would look at everything from time to time, and was truthfully unsure of where I should start and unsure of myself and my skills.

Kim's book is written at my level - I've already read it cover to cover three times and have completed project 1, a rather simple, but stylish cigar band ring.

Lucky for me, I have my own jewelry collection that always needs more pieces and friends/family that love an experimental piece as a gift. I decided to do three rings (just for extra practice) - one for me, one for a sister, and one for a friend :

I taped them down to my scrap piece of nickel silver (the left over piece from my class at Ornamentea).

After a couple of hours, I had them all sawed out. Mine was complete - I stamped "V"s on one side and "C"s on the other with "&"s going down the middle. The part that wasn't stamped, I used my ball peen hammer to add texture. My husband thought having out initials on the ring was a cute idea. I still had lots of work to do on Lauren's and Betsy's.

I decided that I did not like the "&"s down the middle, so I did Lauren's without those. Betsy and her husband have the same first initial, so I just stamped the "B"s all over the center of hers which ended up being my favorite one.

I'm ready for the next project!

Metalsmithing

In my last post, I mentioned spending all day at Ornamentea...

Here's what I came out with: Granted, I didn't finish everything in class and had to go to town yesterday with my files and emory cloth, but I like the results.
I can't wait until I buy all the supplies and can do some more at home!