Lapis Lazuli and Amber Earrings

Handcrafted Lapis and Amber Earrings

These two pairs of earrings are brand new in the shop!   Here's a little look at some of the stages of production:

I apologize for not having any pictures before this point, but this is the first set of components I crafted from sterling silver (and part of their original sketch).

Here are the amber settings again with ear wires added + the settings for the lapis studs.

Cleaning up the bottom components for the amber earrings.  These were tricky to solder the twisted wire border on, but it worked out in the end!

If you're interested in either of these pairs of earrings, check them out in the Lithic Design Etsy shop:

Click here for the Lapis Lazuli Pair

Click here for the Baltic Amber Pair

I got bees. But the good news is- I want bees!

Etched Copper Honeybee Earrings with Honey Opal

It's been a LONG time since I've posted anything here, so I decided to write a little process post about the earrings I just completed!  I'm really in love with them, but unfortunately I don't have pierced ears anymore (ironic, I know).  Hopefully they'll go to a great home.

Please note, this is not a DIY tutorial of any sort- it's just a visual of the steps involved in creating my pieces:

The first step, after a quick bee sketch, is to draw a pair of bees in sharpie directly on my copper sheet metal.  This involves hoping and praying that I don't mess up on making them as even as possible and have to start all over again!  After this, the etching process begins.  This takes a good couple hours of waiting for the etchant to nibble away at all of the copper not protected by the sharpie.

At last, they come out of their chemical bath and are neutralized and thoroughly cleaned.

Here they are after being cut out with a jeweler's saw.

Little holes are drilled for the lever back earrings to attach to.  The opal cabochons are ready to have settings created for them!

After soldering the settings and polishing by hand, they take an hour in the tumbler to clean and polish up a bit more.

The lever backs are attached, then they are oxidized, polished again, and set with the honey opals!  Finally they are ready for their photo shoot.

Are you interested in these earrings?  They are for sale in my shop: Lithic Design!  

A Look Back at 2014

About a year ago I started the process of rebranding my business from "Odds and Ends by Kaley" to "Lithic Design".  I couldn't be happier with that decision.  When I first started selling on Etsy in 2010, I had no idea how much I would grow as an artist, and it's nice to finally have a name that fits so well for my store.  For those who aren't familiar with the term "Lithic," it refers to anything related to rock or stone. Fitting, no?

To back up even further, I'll add that I never expected anything to come out of my metals fabrication class five years ago.  Never would I have believed that I would have the workshop I do today.  2014 really brought my bench to life with the addition of some much needed improvements and additions, like a nicer torch, fume hood, and other various tools.  I can't really convey the pride I have in my bench setup or the fact that I was able to make it happen.

I am so incredibly grateful for all of my customers, friends, and family who have encouraged me over these years.  Without you, none of this would be a possibility.  Looking into 2015, I hope to create more beautiful pieces with settings that reflect the stones they feature.

I post very infrequently on here, but there are other ways to keep track of my new work, sales, and behind the scenes pictures:

Store: Lithic Design on Etsy (lithicdesign.etsy.com)

Facebook: facebook.com/lithicdesign

Instagram: ShopLithic

A huge thanks to all of you, and a Happy New Year!

- Kaley

Various Finishing Tools

Part of my craft show setup (though I only did one this year)

Packaging Station

Polishing. Forearm game is strong.

A messy bench shot

Why I Like to Buy Handmade for the Holidays

Every year, the holiday season seems to creep up sooner and sooner.  Choosing the right gift can be a real challenge- especially for that one difficult person in the family.

For the past three years or so, I've been trying to find great gifts from small businesses, handmade artisans, and independent stores.  Yes, it can be pricier to buy handmade, but the value is much, much greater than anything you could find in a chain store. When you purchase a handmade item, you know that a real person poured their heart into making it, and you know that they loved it as much as you will.

Here are three of my favorite purchases and gifts from Etsy:

 This Mezzaluna from Living Iron Forge was a gift from my sister.  These are sometimes called "demi luna" cutters and are used by rocking the knife back and forth.  Being an herb gardener and cook, I find this tool much more useful than any knife I've owned when it comes to chopping herbs.  Living Iron Forge has other really great hand forged items to check out too, including some sporks I'm really digging!

These three felted Christmas ornaments came from Best Day Ever Design.  After a lot of searching for unique ornaments, I was so happy to have found these.  I have to say, the deer is my favorite, but the squirrel and bird are adorable too!  Best Day Ever Design carries these, as well as other ornaments and garlands, but they also have some awesome cake toppers including this bride and groom fox set.

This last item from Grah-Toe Studio was actually a gift to myself.  I'd been eyeing this hair fork for some time and eventually decided I had to have it.  This hair ornament was hand carved from a shed antler tine and works perfectly in my extra long hair!  It's always been a hassle to put my hair in a bun, but this makes it really easy.  Grah-Toe Studio has lots of exotic wood and antler hair accessories, and they were very helpful in figuring out the right sized fork I needed for my hair.

These are just some of the great finds I've made on Etsy.  Hopefully they'll make you consider buying handmade for the holidays too!

God of the Forest Necklace- Copper Antler and Stone

"God of the Forest" Necklace- Chrysocolla, Copper, and Silver

Sketching, Making a Stencil, and Drawing the Shape to be Cut Out by Hand

Chrysocolla-  This Stone Looks very similar to Malachite with its Banding

After Sawing out the Outline of the Antlers

All Finished- Textured, Bezel Soldered, Tumbled, Stone Set, Oxidized and Polished

 Interested in purchasing this one-of-a-kind necklace?  It's for sale at Lithic Design on Etsy!

The holidays are coming up before you know it!  Please feel free to contact me if you are interested in a custom piece.  I'll have Christmas shipping deadlines posted to my main page in my shop announcement as we get closer to the 25th of December.

- Kaley from Lithic Design

Sunstone and Sterling Silver Ring Process Post

This started off as a normal post about my shop process, but as with most things in life, the outcome was a little unpredictable.  In all honesty, I think I'm happy with how the ring turned out, even if it isn't what I originally wanted.  Here's a little look inside my small workshop, and the process by which I make one of my sterling silver and gemstone rings.  I go into a bit of metalsmithing terminology, but I hope it will be easy enough to follow for anyone.

Sometime last week, I made a sketch of a ring for the Oregon Sunstone I ordered.  Since the stone is a rounded square (cushion) shape, I wanted to make something that reflected the shape, while still playing into the "sun" motif of the gemstone.

The first part of my soldering process for the day was cutting out two identical squares and filing the corners so that they were slightly rounded.  With one of the squares, I brought two pieces of hard solder to their melting point and removed the flame before they hit the flow point.

 That piece was thrown in the pickle, and the other square was stamped on my anvil with my Lithic Design maker's mark:

 Once the first square came out of the pickle, I layered the two squares on top of one another and sweat soldered them together before throwing them back into the pickle.

 The next step was to cut a bezel strip that would be just the right size for my sunstone.  I was out of 3mm bezel, so I cut a 5mm strip down instead.

Once cut and shaped to fit the stone perfectly, I soldered the bezel together using another pallion of hard solder.

Between this step and the next, I made four little silver spheres by heating pieces of wire to their melting point until they formed a ball.  Balling these on my soldering board helps create a flat back which is perfect for making spheres that are going to be attached to a sheet of silver.  For perfectly spherical granules you can use a ball bur to make a little round divot in a block of charcoal and melt a piece of metal in that.

The bezel I soldered was set on the two pieces of sweat soldered metal from before.  Very carefully, I placed four pieces of medium solder on the outside of all four corners of the bezel.  After the solder began to flow underneath all of the sides, I turned my flame off, re-fluxed, and placed a sphere on each corner of the top square.  I knew that I had just enough medium solder from the previous step to melt under all of the spheres.

Next up was to form the ring band.

I've been using precut strip for any plain ring bands I make.  It saves sooo much time. The last step was to solder the band to the back of the setting with easy solder.

After a pickling, I did some bristle clean up, filing, etc.-

Then the ring was finally ready to oxidize!

For my patinas, I use liver of sulfur in nugget form.  I decided to oxidize before setting the stone so that I could polish the metal under the stone.

It's a bit hard to tell in the picture, but it became apparent that one of the four spheres was yellow toned, even after washing the ring and brushing the oxidation off with steel wool.  I set the stone before re-evaluating the yellowish sphere, assuming that I could just polish the top layer off to a silver shine, mirroring the other three spheres. Unfortunately I couldn't, and I became increasingly frustrated with my futile efforts.

The only option I could think of was to oxidize the ring again and leave all of the spheres dark so they would match.  There was no hope in removing the stone.  To my dismay, everything turned black except for the one yellow sphere.  At that point, it became evident that the sphere wasn't silver.  I thought back to weeks ago when I was experimenting with the melting point of brass.  I must have picked up one of the spheres from that day without thinking.

At that point I was totally stuck, but after calming down a bit, I realized that it actually looked pretty interesting.  The contrasting brass and oxidized silver created an unexpected element to the ring that directly related to my geometric sun motif!

In the end, the ring wasn't what I wanted, but it was something unexpected and even beautiful in a way.

If you are interested in purchasing it, the ring is for sale on my Etsy.

-Kaley

Mineral Finds in Maine

I just got home from a vacation in Maine, where I learned that mineral mining is huge.  It’s one of only two places in the US where tourmaline is mined.  The other is southern California.  With that being said, I sort of went a little crazy at the local rock shops...  Not all of these were mined in Maine, but the quartz, amethyst, beryl, and tourmaline specimen definitely were.  

Amethyst Druzy, Maine Tourmaline, Boulder Opal, Maine Blue Beryl (Aquamarine), Quartz Crystal Points, Amethyst and Citrine Crystal Points, Fluorite Octahedron Crystals, Agate Slice, and a Pyrite Sun (sometimes called a Pyrite Sand Dollar).

 Most of the crystal points will be cage set, but some of these will be placed in my curiosity cabinet.  I visited just about every mineral store I came across (there were SO many), and learned about mineral mining in Maine from the shop owners.  Most Maine tourmaline was mined during a couple of years in the 70's, and I believe during the early 1900's.

Fluorite Octahedron Crystals

Fluorite under ultraviolet light displaying fluorescence 

There are many, many mountains and quarries to mine in. Some are free and some can only be accessed with a group or with permission.  I found that most of the tourmaline specimens I saw in the shops were from Mt. Mica.  Mica is EVERYWHERE in south west Maine, I swear.  I've never seen so much of it in one place.

 Mt. Apatite is free to mine in, so I took a day trip there, but I was too exhausted to really do any mining once I reached the quarries.  I think if I had more energy, I would have been able to find something interesting, but I did collect quite a few chunks of quartz that might be used as photography backdrops or garden stones.

Chunks of Quartz from Mt. Apatite

If you're interested in trying it for yourself, I recommend doing quite a bit of research about the different places to mine.  Most people I talked to had the most success digging through the excess material dumped in quarries.

Munchin' Moose Enjoying his Breakfast

And hey, I got to see this little guy too!  He was much smaller than the moose I saw in Utah years ago.  I'm guessing he was only a year or two.

Keep on the lookout for jewelry made from these stones in my shop: Lithic Design.  I have a 10% off coupon up right now through the 23d which is SUMMER10.  There's a little place to type the code in when you view your cart on Etsy.