For Scale

This is just a quick post to update you all on the monkey progress: The wires have all be laid on the blank, so it's ready for glass and color! While my last post let you see what the monkey looks like in cloisonné, it didn't give you any sense of scale, so here he is, on his blank, with a quarter for scale.

-M

Why I love enameling

I took my first enameling class back in the fall of 2005 at The Hartsbrook School where I was teaching at the time. While the piece I was working on at that time (my first piece, shown here) was cooling, my teacher, Margaret Langdell, pointed me towards the work of a number of current master enamelists. The one that struck me the most was Larissa Podgoretz. She does Limoge, or painted, enameling, which differs from the cloisonné work we do in that it does not use any wires and is just painted.

"Just painted" is unfair. Larissa's work is spectacular. It would be hard enough to paint what she does with watercolors, oils, or whatever, but to do it with grains of glass that get melted in fine layers in a kiln is mind boggling. I will never do work like Larissa's but I still find it incredibly inspiring.

One of the reasons I will never do work like hers is that I love doing cloisonné work. Many of the other students I have taken classes with think I'm nuts, but I love the wire work. I love sitting with my tweezers and scissors and making a sketch become a set of chambers.

All this has come to mind because I spent an hour yesterday bending the wire's for Chris's monkey piece. While I usually work in silver, this piece is going to be in gold. Now that the wires are bent, I will be able to set them into the piece this afternoon at the studio.

The closed ends of the branch actually hang over the edge of the blank and will be trimmed off later. I had to bend them that way so that they will stand up throughout the enameling process.

At the studio today, I also will be working on Meredith's earrings and a pair of earrings for my mom. Hopefully it'll be one of those days in which everything comes together and works out, rather than one of those days in which you can spend hours and hours getting nothing done.

-M

Monkey-ing Around

While we may still be a couple months from Mothers' Day, we have gotten a request for a custom enamel for the occasion.

My co-worker, Chris, and I got to talking about enamels last week - heck, I'll talk about enameling with anyone who'll listen - and he fell in love with our work. He's decided to order an enameled pendant for his mother, and since last Friday we've been in negotiations about colors and cost and design. We've gotten nearly everything settled, and Chris gave me his permission to post my progress here.

So since all we have so far is a prepped blank (not interesting), and a finished sketch, I wanted to put up the sketch.

Chris and I are both ridiculously excited about the piece, and I can't wait to get started. I have the wire at home, so maybe this evening after going to the gym I'll find time to sit down and make a monkey! I sure hope so. The monkey will be done in gold cloisonne, and the branch will be in silver. The piece will be set either in silver or gold, and the small circle at the bottom of the sketch is going to be some beautiful fruit-colored gem. It's really going to be spectacular.

I will say that Chris's mom is extraordinarily fortunate to have a son like Chris who cares about her enough to do this for her. There's nothing so cool as getting a gift that was made just for you. She'll be blown away, no doubt.

Keep checking in - this one's going to be A LOT of fun!

M

Enameling Progress

Well, class was a couple of days ago, so it's about time I let you know how it went. I finished the enamelwork on the earrings, and all that's left now is making the settings for them.

I decided to have a "frosted" finish on them, which is accomplished by not firing them for a final time after grinding them down. In this case, I really liked how much the silver wires stood out against the white enamel. Having the wires be the only things that are reflective has a very cool effect. I've also decided to hang them as you see in the picture above. They will be set in sterling, and there will be a sapphire hung from the bezels - kind of a continuation of the lower stripe that "exits" along the bottom edge.

I did more work on the tri-pendant as well. It doesn't look that different from what I posted last time, but it's really starting to come together.

After another 3-5 layers of glass, they will be ready to grind and polish as well. This is a good thing since we only have two more enameling classes left this term.

I have a new enamel commission to start working on during studio time on Sundays, but other than that, I don't know when I'll next be able to enamel, which is sad.


In other news, I submitted photographs for consideration by Lark Books for their 500 Enameled Objects book which will be published in April 2009. I don't know when notifications will be sent, but I'm sure it will be a couple of months.

Hope you're enjoying our St. Patrick's Day sale!

-M

Weddings

I, too, have starting re-photographing old pieces and putting new ones on the site.

Our enamels have a totally fresh look, and our sterling jewelry section has been expanded. It's pretty awesome, go take a look!

But really what I wanted to write about in this post is how much fun it is for us to make jewelry for our friends' weddings.

Before Lucky Lizard Art Design ever came into existence, Liz made my wedding jewelry.
Our wedding day was the best day of my life, and while it may seem like a small detail, having jewelry that fit me and my personality and our wedding colors to a T definitely contributed to the perfection of the day.

I know it has been exciting for my friend Anne to be a part of the design process for her jewelry. That's an experience you can't buy from most jewelry stores. The top photo is of her earrings. They are pearl, turquoise and labradorite. She's getting married in the desert outside of Moab, Utah, so the turquoise was an absolute must!

The scrap of fabric is from the dresses the girls will be wearing, and the earrings are lemon quartz briolettes with 4mm moonstones. Neither picture is of the quality we're shooting for now and posting on the site, but they get the job done.

Personally, I love Anne's earrings. I had a bit of a hard time sending them to her when they were finished, and when she got them she wrote to tell me she didn't want to take them off! They are actually the second incarnation of that design. While the first attempt resulted in a very lovely pair of earrings that were quite similar to the finished product, they weren't quite right, and Anne was able to let me know what she wanted changed so we could make sure to end up with the perfect pair.

While Meegan ended up not being able to wear her custom jewelry to her ceremony, we went through weeks of sketches and mock-ups and discussions that resulted in a beautiful set of jewelry I know she cherishes.

The pearls are white and silver because her dress had white and silver beading all over. The bridesmaids' dresses were green, which inspired the color of the crystals.

Every wedding is a unique expression of the couple getting married, and I feel that a bride's jewelry should be no different. Besides, it's a great way for us to let our friends know how much we love them. :)

Soon we'll have a link from the website to a request form for special occasion jewelry as part of the website overhaul. I met with our web designer (my fabulous husband, Ben) earlier tonight about the new design, and I can't wait to get it up and running.

But anyhow, I am off to bed now. I'm looking forward to enameling class on Tuesday. As always, I'll let you know about the progress I make.

-Martha

New Jewelry!

So it's really late, and the boys have gone to bed, and I'm just too tired to write a full post. But I wanted to say that I have been posting all kinds of spankin'-new, never-before-seen jewelry on the website! You should definitely check it out!
-Liz

I Got Skills

That's right. I've been honing my heretofore dull photography skills to ... um.... a less dull edge. And our catalog is reaping the benefit! After the babies go to bed, I set up my tabletop studio and get to work. You can see some of the new photos on the main page of the catalog, and peppered throughout the categories of jewelry. And just for fun, here's one:


We've also been renaming our pieces of jewelry because, although the title "Sardonyx and turquoise necklace" gets me all hot under the collar, I realize that many people don't know or even really care what sardonyx is. Which makes the new title of that piece, "Desert Sunrise", much more enchanting. I hope. We also have fun ones like "Betty Rubble", "Jungle Love", and "Golden Delicious". Feel free to suggest more names, because I'm sure my baby-saturated brain will run out of witty phrases very soon. Enjoy!
-Liz

Upcoming events

Martha reminded me today of the upcoming Dress For Success gala dinner, and it made me get very excited about Spring and all of the fun things that we have coming up. We did the Dress For Success dinner last year, and loved it. They are a non-profit that provides professional clothing and career development tools to disadvantaged women. I love what they do, and we love supporting a cause that we truly believe in. It is such a fun event, too! Last year, dinner was great, and we met a lot of really cool women, and heard from some of the women who have really benefited from the organization. They also had a fashion show at the end. All in all, a really great event. I'm so excited to be there again this year!

And we have so many other things going on, too! We are in the process of revamping our website (with the help of Martha's awesome husband, Ben), we are ordering new tags and earring cards, and changing our whole display.

We also have some home parties coming up, which is always a good time. We will be having some great sales at our website, too, which you'll hear about in our new email newsletter. If you're not getting our newsletter and you would like to, just let us know! We'll keep you posted on all the fun stuff and great deals!

-Liz

It's amazing what sleeping on an idea will do.

So I woke up this morning thinking about Meredith's earrings and the 60 degree conundrum.

Anyhow, I decided to pull out all of the topaz and the bezels to see what could be done. I placed them on the earrings and realized that I didn't really like the look of six stones around the hole, so I tried 8. Not only does it look much better, it will be much easier to make happen. Hooray for good ideas while sleeping!

Have a great day.

M

More Progress!

Wow! I'm beat.

I just got home from the enameling studio again (for the time being, this is a Tuesday trend) where I made more progress on the earrings and the pendant I posted pictures of last time. Here's a picture of how the pendant is coming along:

As you can see, I've started laying the colors, and next time they'll get a little more evened out. I put three layers of glass on this evening, and probably have another six or so to go.

I put several more layers on the earrings as well, but as I am just using clear to fill at this point, they look just like they did last week, and I am not posting new pictures. They need very little more glass before I grind and polish them. If all goes well, I will be able to do that next week and start making the settings. Enamels must be ground down with four diamond grinders of various coarseness before being scrubbed with a fiber glass brush and put in the kiln for their final firings. These last steps are what give them their smooth, polished finishes that make them so incredibly beautiful.


We don't have much going on this weekend so far, so I think I will be able to go by the studio this Sunday to work on the silver earrings I am making for my sister's birthday (which was almost a month ago).

They're big silver discs with off-center holes. The stones in the picture are 3mm blue topaz. Each earring will have six stones set around the hole.

For a moment I have to geek out about math a little bit - this is something I do fairly often. There is no geometrical way to trisect an angle. It is not hard to divide the circumference of a circle evenly into sixths by using an accurate compass and placing the center of a new circle with an equal radius on the circumference of the first circle, but it is extraordinarily difficult to do this on a concave surface when the center of your circle is in the middle of a big hole in your surface. Where's Euclid when you need him? Not that Euclid could really help either: he's the one who proved you can't trisect an angle.

So there's my jewelry construction gripe for this week. My next step for Meredith's earrings is to drill six evenly spaced spots around each of the holes. Wish me luck.

Liz and I had a long business meeting last night. We talked about our website revamp, our new print materials, and the future of the business in general. After letting Lucky Lizard sit on the back burner for a while, it feels great to be back in it full of ideas and plans and energy. Stay tuned! Great things are afoot.

Martha

Philosophy and Jewelry

So last night (after the boys went to bed, of course), my husband and I were talking, and of course I was gushing about how excited I am about some of the upcoming changes to the website and display. And he says, "I will never understand why you like jewelry so much".

Sigh. I realize that there are some men who will never understand certain things about women, for instance: why we go to the bathroom in packs, why we think high heels are a good idea (I have a shaky grasp on that one myself), and why we like to wear shiny things. My husband is definitely one of those men, God love him.

But I found myself thinking about a good answer to his question. Why do I like jewelry so much? I think I found the answer when I was talking to a neighbor of mine, who also has two little ones. I gave her a piece of jewelry as a thank-you, and she mentioned that she never wears jewelry, but she would like to because it always makes her feel so put-together. And that's it: I like the way it looks, but it's the way it makes me feel that makes me love great jewelry.

If I'm having a 'fat day', or if I'm feeling down, or if life just doesn't seem that great in general, putting on a great piece of jewelry makes me feel like at least I look pretty put together. And then I feel more together and more beautiful. All day. For instance, right now I haven't showered and I am wearing raggy clothes and I've got some serious spots of spit-up on my shirt. But I have some serious earrings on, and a beautiful piece of antique mother-of-pearl around my neck, and I feel great. Life is good.

Get some awesome jewelry and feel fabulous yourself at our site!
-Liz

New Custom Order and Lost and Found

I actually got a little bit of a break while the babies were napping today, and finished up a custom order for a friend of my mom's. I love doing custom orders for people who come to my house frequently, because they can just spend some time with my beads and pick out what they would like, and then I put it all together for them. Custom orders make great gifts, too, because let's face it: it's pretty cool to be able to say "Hey, I had this made specially for you". So here it is:This one is sterling chain, jade, brown mother-of-pearl, and a couple of Swarovski crystals. She wanted it to be a little more conservative. That's the great thing about custom orders; they can be as crazy or as simple as you want them to be. I like that this one is simple and delicate. And, of course, it's in my favorite color scheme, green and brown!

In other news, I found a finished enamel today when I was cleaning out my work area. I had completely forgotten about it! It was like finding a $50 bill in your coat pocket; I really liked this one, and I think it just got shoved in a drawer when we moved last year. So here it is:
I love the tulip theme, since Spring is right around the corner. You can check out this piece, and all of our other enamels, at our website. Enjoy!

-Liz