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Today in the studio I have been working on some new jewelry that was inspired by the Hydrangea flowers in my garden and the Lily Pads in my pond.

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After making sketches of the flowers and lily pads I hand carve them out of wax and then cast the wax sculptures into solid sterling silver pieces. The silver castings need a lot of cleaning up and polishing, so I am currently covered in silver dust.

I decided to solder various arrangements of the Hydrangeas to resemble a natural looking cluster that you would see in the garden and the same with the lily pads. It's fun to come up with different ways to use each casting. These images below are the lily pads being soldered together with the torch and then a soak in the pickle which gets the pieces clean after soldering.

The various soldered arrangements will be made into earrings, necklaces, rings, and bracelets. And, the fun part...tiny blue diamonds are going to be added to the center of some of the Hydrangeas and tiny green diamonds will create a 'frog' on the lily pads! 

Another fun day in the studio.

I have been working on a new collection this winter of sterling silver flower shapes that I am creating into numerous jewelry pieces. Here are some photos of the process.

Sketching the flower and leaf shapes on a sheet of sterling silver that I embossed on my rolling mill. As you can see, I use every possible area of the silver so there is very little waste. Trying to keep an eye on the materials budget!

Then I use a tiny blade on my saw and cut out each piece individually. This is a tedious process but I wanted every flower and leaf in the collection to be a one of a kind. Each one has its own personality.

  

The pieces are sanded on my grinding wheel to smooth out the edges and give the flowers a matte finish which I love. I am not into very shiny polished pieces, looking for a more natural and earthy feel to my collections.

A handful of sparkling sterling flowers in my dirty hand.

The flowers are on the soldering block where I solder on the stems and leaves to finish off the look.

My plan is to combine these garden elements to create a large cohesive collection of necklaces, bracelets and earrings. There will also be an element of color added through my new enameling skills.

The collection should be completed within a few weeks in time to celebrate the arrival of Spring!

I just spent the weekend in Brooklyn taking a 'Torch Fired Enamels' workshop at Liloeve which was fabulous!  Emilie Shapiro was the instructor of the class and she was amazing, extremely knowledgable and a great teacher. I have been looking to learn how to enamel for the last few years and was very excited to actually find a weekend workshop that I could squeeze into my crazy schedule.

Enameling is the art of coating metal with powdered glass which is fused together with heat. Normally this process takes place in a kiln, behind a closed door but, with the torch firing technique, the entire process is able to be seen.  

We learned how to use the acetylene torch to enamel copper pieces by firing the pieces on a trivet from below. You are able to pull the torch away at the exact moment that you like the finish of the enamel. Very exciting. I played a lot and experimented with all kinds of sample pieces over the two days. Lots of mistakes and disasters were made, along with some keepers! I plan on adding some color to my jewelry and hopefully by the summer I will have a new line to show.

And, I would like to thank my fabulous cousin Colleen for letting me crash at her Brooklyn apartment as well as giving this suburban girl her garage parking space and a delicious sushi dinner! A great weekend in Brooklyn.

Garden of Silver is here to make your holiday shopping a breeze! Here are some gift options for the jewelry lovers in your life:

Flower Child- Floating Flowers and Water Garden Collections

Yoga Lover-Zen Collection

Rock Star-Midnight in the Garden Collection

 Classy Lady-Spring Blooms and Summer Sunshine Collections

 Divas-Silver and Gold

Garden of Silver also has Gift Cards available if you can’t decide among all the gorgeous jewelry selections. They are available in increments of $10, $25, $50 and $100. And, one lucky Garden of Silver customer will automatically be entered to win a $500 Gift Certificate! The winner will be chosen on 12/23/13. Happy shopping!

I am honored to be featured in a blog post on UncommonGoods today. My jewelry business journey is out there for the world to see!

Garden of Silver and UncommonGoods

My garden is full of huge, gorgeous, fragrant peonies right now. I have spent hours photographing these beauties which I use as references for my colored pencil drawings, one of which is right here! 

"Peonies" Colored Pencil Drawing / 19" x 25" 

I also used one of my reference photographs to create a drawing of this peony which I then made into a wax carving that I cast into sterling silver. Just a little peek into my creative process!

"Peony Soul" Colored Pencil      "Peony Soul Pendant" Sterling Silver
8.5" x 11"