Copper Danish Heart

This is the second piece I have made in my metalwork class at Shelburne Craft School. I made it in copper to test out the design for my final piece which will be made from silver, it's better to make mistakes with the cheaper metal!

It is based on a Danish heart but it is single-sided. Making the test gave me a chance to work out the dimensions I need to get this to work in metal, and how to weave the strips together. The beads are threaded onto a wire which hangs independently on the jump ring, it was fun to make the little ball on the end by heating the wire up until it melted.

I've got a few tweaks to make now for making the silver piece, which I started on this morning.

A little metal owl

It's been almost exactly a year since I've posted on here and that's been mainly because I haven't been doing very much crafty stuff since then. We moved house from Ohio to Vermont in March and most of this year has been taken up with getting us ready to move and then all settled here. Anyway, we're finally pretty much sorted in the new house, the kids are back in school and I have designated a space in the basement as my craft area. It is still to be unpacked properly, I'm saving it until last as a reward for getting the other stuff done, but it's there!

Even though I'm not doing much stuff at home I have signed up for a beginner metalworking course at the wonderful Shelburne Craft School just down the road from us. The ultimate aim is for me to re-make my husband's wedding ring, which I originally made for him in London through Wedding Ring Workshops, and is now somewhere at the bottom of the Port St Lucie river in Florida.

This little copper owl is my first piece and I decided to make him so I could experiment with all the different techniques we're learning such as texturing, soldering and riveting. I'm quite pleased with how he turned out for a first attempt, I think he will be adopted by a certain 6-year-old girl. Now I need to decide what I want to make next; my next piece will be a practice piece for a final piece made from sterling silver.