like the river

I followed the snaking foot-wide trail along the flood washout, past dark purple wildflowers that seemed to glow in the shade of the hillside, the smell of pine rising with the cool river breeze.  Just over the second log crossing, I found a beach and sat by the water. Hiking boots off, feet cleansed, eyes closed, so much sunshine... the only sound around was the loud rushing of the water, like it was going through me.

"Flow like the river", I started to think. It came to me again and again like a mantra. Flow like the river. The slow parts, the winding parts, the rapids. Be gentle, be strong, be fierce. Flow like the river; carve your own path.

making a ring

The sweetest wanderer you ever will meet. Tammy has a way of capturing pure, authentic moments on film & I love the way she plays with light. After opening my dream shop, I knew I wanted her to take photos of my sunny little studio. She later handed me the most beautiful images I could have ever asked for, which I immediately put all over my website. Thank you for capturing love, the magic of the woods, and the feeling of my shop. These photos are treasures. ☾

to make a ring >>

1. Choose stone, band, size. Measure and cut silver wire to length, sand clean, and file each end flat.  Bend into a "U". Check again for flat ends. 

2. Using pliers, close the "U" by making a 90* bend in each end so that they meet flush in the middle.  Solder join with (hard) solder, pickle clean.  Form on ring mandrel. 

3. File and sand the inside of join if needed.  Using a rawhide hammer & with the ring flat on a steel block, stamp itty bitty letters along the arch of the band. Rock the stamps gently so that they hit the curved surface. It may help to use pitch or wax to keep the band in place.  Set aside.  

4. Clean copper bezel wire.  Form bezel wire around stone.  Once the fit is perfect, solder join with (hard) solder. Check fit for stone.  Sand sides of formed bezel wire for height.  For an uneven buff-top stone, file down the bezel wire where the low spots sit.

5. With stone in bezel wire, trace around the wire onto silver sheet, leaving a 3 mm space all the way around (for the solder chips). Cut out using jewelers' saw. 

6. Trace the bezel wire upside down on sheet.  Align the band and mark where it will be.  Stamp back with metal stamp.  Gently hammer and sand both sides flat.  Any marks on the inside part of the bezel will be magnified by a transparent stone.

7. Lay the (clean & flat) silver sheet on a soldering block, with the bezel wire on top.  Check for no gaps between wire & sheet.  Flux piece and lay (medium) silver solder chips around the outside of the bezel wire so that they just touch the copper.  Solder, quench, pickle.

8. Using a jewelers' saw, cut excess silver away from bezel.  File the outside of the bezel so that the copper is flush with the silver.  Sand sides and back.

9.  File the outside of the band flat where the join is for a nice flush surface to solder to the bezel setting.  Place bezel upside down on solder block with band held in a third hand.  Align the flat part of the band face down on the back of the bezel.  Check alignment (again & again) from all angles.  

10. Flux entire piece and add a small strip of (easy) solder between the band and setting.  Solder, pickle, and clean entire ring with sandpaper.  

11. Set stone.  Using a bezel roller, push the wire over stone.  Start with corners, or for a round stone, push on any point, then a point opposite the first.  Push at the two points in between those two points  and then work your way around.

10.  Carefully sand away any dings from setting.  

11.  Enjoy ☾

35 mm photography by L'amour de la photo.

cloud series

Photography has been a challenge for me lately.  In Mystic I had a little corner set up with my wooden bowl and stump next to the window.  Bright cloudy days were photography days.  Here, I have to drive to a park so that I don't have street lights and railings mirrored in my stones.  It's so sunny most of the time that I ended up getting a light box to bring with me and I've tried props but the wind takes them away! Soooo, I've started photographing my work on my 35mm film photos.  On bright, cloudy, windless days...

These little clouds necklaces were inspired by a very rainy Spring here in northern Colorado.  I photographed them on a photo taken in Arch's National Park a couple months ago.  Tim and I had just spent week bouldering in Joe's Valley (Utah) with some friends and decided to stop at Arch's before heading back into the mountains.  

shop the cloud series: here!