Making Metal Magic - Part 2

Oh yes, there are more stories to be told of our adventures in the State of Virginia.

Like how a bunch of us went out to dinner on Thursday night at O'Malley's Pub, about half a block down the street in the Holiday Inn.  Here we are, happier now that we were fed but tired from our mind-blowing day of making our Handbook of Elements:

From left to right, Anne, Karen, me, Annie, Heather and Betty.  Anne and Betty were already art buddies of Heather's because this class, they all met at Art & Soul Hampton last year and have been taking part in an apron round robin with several other crafters for the past year (I'm hoping to invite myself along to the big reveal at this year's Art & Soul at the end of April).  Annie is a real cutie, she came up with the name for our new Yahoo group, "What the Flux".  And Karen? She signed up for all three classes/four days of this workshop and it was the first time she had ever stayed in a hotel room by herself in her entire life.  Can you imagine? How brave is that??

At the end of the first workshop on Friday, these four happy ladies were having their picture taken with Stephanie:

(clockwise from top left:  Karen, Leslie, Lois, Annie and Stephanie) and then a bunch more of us jumped in for a group shot:

Back row:  Jeanette, Maureen, Karen, Leslie, Lois, Anne, Cindy
Front row:  me, Stephanie, Lynne, Annie

Regrettably, we didn't think to take a picture of the entire group earlier in the day when everyone was still around.  Next time!

The second workshop took place on Saturday and was called "Junk Drawer Metalsmithing".  For some reason, I hardly took any pictures that day.  Probably because I was too busy making cool stuff.  We made bits and pieces to create three components - a pendant, a bracelet and a necklace.  The idea is that you can combine all 3 items to make one long necklace or mix and match them to have a shorter necklace while wearing the bracelet or whatever other combination you may choose.

As usual, I didn't finish the project so photos of the finished creation will have to wait but I did get a lot done.  Here's the pendant I made, which I call "Song of the Butterfly":

Many thanks to Chrissie Hines, who very kindly gave me the butterfly wing.  Apparently she has a butterfly happy place in her garden where they go to die and she collects the beautiful wings for her artwork.  (I need to find me one of those spots). I tucked a little bit of music paper, generously donated by Anne Savage, behind the wing before covering them both with a piece of mica, after first using the same soldering techniques we had learned in the first workshop to make the bezel.

Some people used their bezelled piece to decorate their bracelet, like this lady whose name I didn't get (unfortunately, there were at least 3 out of 19 classmates whose names I didn't get - if it's yours, please leave a comment to let us know!).  I believe those watch gears were generously donated by Lori Anderson (who gave me a whole bunch of them too), who wrote a great blog entry entitled A Day With Friends and Fire (no ugly pants allowed) about our class - it's hilarious, you're gonna want to read it.

Here is Anne Savage's necklace.  I love, love, love the look of the teal in this piece (notice how she made something similar to what I did with my book bezel the day before - yes, I am flattered that she imitated me and totally jealous of how fabulous her version looks!).  You can also see some of the chain rings she made and how she added little bits of teal fabric to the ends of her fabric necklace rope, clever girl that she is.

You're also going to want to check out Cat Kerr's blog to read about how her sister Ingrid gifted her with this workshop, it's a wonderful story and I really like Cat's blog style.

Last but not least for tonight, here's my favourite picture of our fearless leader, Ms. Stephanie Lee.  I'm not entirely sure why I like it so much, I just like the way her fingers are positioned and the way it kinda looks like she is blessing Michelle's little book by blowing air on it.  In reality, she might just have been trying to dry the epoxy glue she had just used to attach the ribbon and bead trim to the binding but somehow the picture looks like she's adding just a little pinch of magic to the whole process, don'tcha think?  Because that's just the kind of girl she is.  We love you, Stephanie!!