Stamping

So here we are - two years after my first entry - can you see how serious I was about starting a blog?  I tend to obsess over the things I'm interested in, but God has seen fit to equip me with a stellar boredom detecter so I tend to keep my tangents for people who have no choice but to listen to me.  My daughter will need copious amounts of therapy.

At any rate, I've decided to revisit a blog.  Not because I really have anything of value to say, but because I might be able to get FREE STUFF.   One of my favorite vendors (Turquoise Magpie: http://www.magpiegemstones.com/home.html) has contests where she gives away perfectly good beads to people just for sucking air.  She also has a client's jewelry blog that I want to submit a few of my things to - when I start making real jewelry, that is.

But since I'm at it, I'm going to post a picture of what I did today.  I just got started stamping.  It sounds like a quiet hobby, doesn't it?  I see a man with very large glasses and a magnifying loupe with a bright lamp, holding a tiny scrap of paper up for closer inspection.  Like a numismatist.  But metal stamping isn't a quiet hobby.  Ask my poor mother.  It requires metal and hammers.  Big, heavy hammers.  I was drawn to it precisely because it involved pounding the shit out of a piece of metal and making lots of noise.

This friend of mine has a ranch.  I've made a few things for her before and she's nice enough to humor me and actually WEAR what I make for her when I'm not looking, so I end up making more and more stuff for her.  I made this using some turquoise I got from Magpie.  I stamped my friend's ranch logo onto a large sheet of brass, cut it out, punched some holes into it, polished it and strung it to some 14k gold chain.  The ovular turquoise bead is Hubei, the rest are Campitos.

Since this is my first foray into stamping, I'm using brass and copper sheeting to practice on.  When I finally figure out what I'm doing, I'll move on to silver.  Maybe.