Almost There!

And now he's a little brown monkey and has an eye. Things got a little interesting in the studio when I pulled him out of the kiln to find a big grunty piece of ugly black something that had to be drilled out. The hole then had to be scrubbed with a fiberglass brush, and the piece had to be re-fired before any more glass could be laid.
The repair well well, however, and if I hadn't just told you I'd had to do it, you wouldn't ever have known, because you can't see it at all.
While I hate doing repairs, I like it when the repairs are successful.

The bezel below is what a stone will be set in.
What stone? We don't know yet. We're working on it.

M

It's coming along.

Look Chris, colors!
The Monkey will end up being brown; the white was laid to push his image into the foreground of the piece.
Check back next week for more.

Martha

PROGRESS! (and lots of it)

So it's been a while since I posted, but I have lots of things to show for my time off!
Before we get to that...
Tomorrow night Liz and I will be at the Dress For Success Common Threads fundraiser. It is a gala event thrown to raise money for the organization, and this year, Lucky Lizard Art Design will be one of the event sponsors. Last year we left the event feeling incredibly inspired, and we can't wait to go back again.


I am starting to bring together in my mind a design for this silver that has been in my box for ages. I punched a smaller disc out of this one (hence the hole) for my Robin's Eggs piece.

I'm not entirely sure what to do with this yet, but I know I want to use this beautiful purple garnet with the blue topaz.

Speaking of blue topaz, those are the same stones I used in Meredith's earrings, which are finally done!

The discs are a little shy of 2" in diameter, have a lovely matte finish with little polished accents all over the surface.
Now that it's really spring, the topaz catch the sunlight and sparkle up a storm! They're beautiful.
Meredith will have them by Friday.

I am also now getting to work on a pair of earrings for my mom.

The discs are about 3/4" diameter. I domed them and then hammered one section and etched another on each one. The sections will be separated by rose gold wire. I couldn't do more while at the studio on Sunday because I need a special tool that is coming in later this week. It shouldn't take me too long to finish them up.
I need to notch the longer wire for each earring and solder in the shorter one. Then I'll solder them to the silver, attach a jump ring, hang them on ear wires, and ship them off. I won't make it to the studio this weekend since I'll be in Maine, but it shouldn't be too long.

In other news, or on other projects, my dear friend Callie has comissioned a pair of earrings for a friend's birthday gift.

They are going to be simple enamel pieces without any cloisonne (wires). Her friend is Ecuadorian, so they're modled off the Ecuadorian Flag.

The silver spaces on them now will be filled with N-26, my favorite yellow available. These are right up my alley given that I'm such a sucker for bright, primary colors.

I've also been continuing work on Chris's monkey. I've begun to lay color, as you can see, so it'll get more and more interesting from here.

When it's all finished it will have 9 or 10 different colors of glass laid (right now there are three). After a couple more layers on the background, I will be able to start to fill the monkey and branch.

I have class tonight, so hopefully we'll start to get the foreground filled before the night is over. I'm being particularly picky about how thin each layer is because I want to make sure that there are no bubbles in the finished piece. There are already 4 layers of glass on the front of the piece alone. To fill the background completely will take another 7-10.

And that's that for now.
It's finally spring, and all I want to do is sit outside in the sun or work in the studio.

I gave official notice at my job yesterday, and my last day will be May 30th. Not long now. Sometime (soon, I hope) after that, Ben and I will be packing up and heading to New Mexico where I'll be starting grad school in the fall.

Lucky Lizard is going to take on a very different official set-up with Liz off to Maine in June and me off in the other direction, but the business will continue. Basically, we're just expanding the territory. But there will be more on that later. For now, go check out our beautiful new website (be patient if you use Internet Explorer 6, we're still working out some bugs), and get ready for our Mother's Day sale.

Have a great day!
-M

Now accepting credit cards!

I know it's been a long time since my last post; the twins, Matt, and I have all had the Cosmic Death Flu, which we then passed right along to Martha (sorry, Martha!). But we are all better now, and I wanted to share some really exciting news with you all: we take credit cards now!

And not just on the website; if you come to one of our home parties or see us at a craft show, we can take your credit card there, too. Or really any other time, too, I guess. And without one of those fancy credit card machines; we just do it over our cell phones or laptop. Ah, the wireless age! So needless to say, we're pretty excited about this because I think it will just make life a little bit easier.

But that's nothing compared to how excited I am about our new website launch, which should be happening in a couple of days. Or how excited I am about our upcoming event for Dress For Success. We even have an ad in the evening's program, which i think looks spectacular (thanks Ben!). I'll leave you with that. here it is: