A Sassy Conspiracy

I finally finished up three pendants that I’ve been working on over the last week.

This sugar skull has been sitting unfinished on my work bench for days now. I couldn’t seem to get it just right, and kept on putting it away before I ruined it by doing something half-assed to it. Finally it occurred to me to solder on a  decoration and I added the copper heart, which I think is just what it needed. This will be incorporated into a larger piece with semi-precious beads, to better reflect the colourful nature of Dias de los Muertos. Boyfriend was hinting that he’d wear it though, which has got me thinking that it might look equally good alone on a more masculine, heavy link chain. I’m not 100% sold on either idea but I guess once I figure out my target audience on this one (guy vs gal), I’ll have a better idea what to do. It’s hand cut from sterling silver and copper, and is roughly 1.5″ tall.

The storm cloud is a version of the rain cloud I made for kim for Christmas. I cut a tiny little lighting bolt out for this one, which will hang from the middle hole, and I picked up two deep blue Swarovski crystal drops for the other two holes. I haven’t decided how to hang this yet - I have a beautiful 3mm rolo chain that would look amazing with it, though I’ve sort of been hoarding it for a special project. Maybe this is it? I’ll have to check in on Magpie and see if they’ve got any of the 1mm rolo they had at Christmas first before i decide.  I may add a few accent crystals along the chain as well. Again, hand cut from sterling silver, and the cloud has been hammered (cloud is roughly 1.25″ wide).

At the beginning of the week I had the inspiration to do a small series of Valentine’s Day themed pendants for my shop, and had settled on three designs that I really liked - a razor blade with a heart in it, a broken heart, and a heart and key design. But as usual, life got in the way and I’ve only produced one of the three - the razor blade. It doesn’t look like it will make it to my store in time for v-day either, but I’m still really happy with it and have planned out an asymmetrical necklace design for it. It was a pretty finicky cut - I wanted it to look like the real deal as much as possible and I kind of suck at symmetry, but I’m really happy with the end product. In fact, I think it’s my favorite of the three. Hand cut from sterling silver, and measures approximately 1.5″ x 1″.

I still want to do a post showing off all my great tools (all of which were gifts) but I haven’t gotten that far yet. I did snap this shot of my work bench area though that I thought I’d share. Boyfriend and mom bought me the jewelers bench for Christmas (how gorgeous is that?!), the in-laws picked up the magnifying lamp for me for Christmas, and boyfriend got me the hardwood tool chest for my birthday. The chest contains all of my beads and findings (its really beautiful, all the compartments are lined in dark green velour, and there is a sliding panel that pulls out and covers the drawers so that everything can be locked up). You can see a few of the tools on the desk, but I’ll definitely be getting better shots of all that before the month is up, promise.