What I'm working on

So far, despite losing three days of production time doing other, practical things - this has been a productive week for me!  I was able to get a lot of work done in just the two days I had free, and that wasn't even all the available time!  I'm really feeling good about my ability to sink my teeth into this and get some really creative work done.  So far I have been able to complete the onyx earrings pictured above (these are about 1/2" long), make several pairs of fairly simple sterling hoops, and four pairs of two new  styles of sterling studs.

these are maybe 1/4" in diameter

These are maybe 3/16" to 1/2" in diameter

The earrings are nice, but they're really pretty simple, design-wise.  Simple can be good - lots of people want simple, and I'm happy to provide simple, classic, goes-with-anything jewelry to people who want it.  This is the bread-and-butter stuff.  Not too difficult, not too expensive, not very time-consuming, with wide-appeal.  I sell a lot more of this basic style of jewelry than I do the really complex original jewelry, probably because it's a lot less expensive.  People can walk away with a $15 pair of earrings and feel like they got something special because it was handmade, and they didn't have to break the bank to do it.  Pieces like my Underwater Vision necklace definitely draw their attention, but whoever this piece goes home with will need to have a more specific taste in jewelry, and much deeper pockets than the average shopper!

Having time during the day with Scarlett at school is giving me time to design more of the complex pieces in addition to the simpler pieces.  Here's one I'm working on now:

my sketch around the focal stone - it was in with a pile of rutilated quartz, but things on that table were a little messed up, and it looks more like tourmaline in quartz to me.

removing excess metal from in back of the stone 

  

filing... 

adding the first bit of embellishment... 

...and that's as far as I got while the camera was still in the room!  I was able to finish all of the metal fabrication on Friday, so on Monday it should just be final polishing and setting the stones!  I'll post more pictures when it's finished.