Search results matching tags 'Art Jewelry magazine' and 'how-to'

New free fine-silver earrings project from Art Jewelry magazine, featuring water casting!

Addie Kidd — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

We just released Art Jewelry magazine's newest free downloadable project – in it you can learn how to make a pair of really fun mismatched Serendipity Earrings (click here to download the project). In the tutorial I walk you through all the steps necessary to solder and assemble the oxidized fine silver earrings you see at right.

I created these earrings to showcase one of my favorite (low-stress, non-fiddly, imprecise) jewelry-making techniques – water casting. I'm telling you, this technique is fool-proof! Even if you've never done a casting of any kind before, I guarantee you that you will make one-of-a-kind, artistic, and organic-looking components with water casting.

The result are instantaneous, which satisfies my instant-gratification streak. AND, if for some reason you don't like the components that you've made, you can remelt them and try again. You can't beat that!

[I added a teeny-tiny 2mm 24k solid gold accent ball to each earring. Little splashes of gold like that are a fantastic and inexpensive way to add color and panache to a jewelry piece. No seriously, this gold's not expensive: you can buy a pair of these little gold balls at Metal Clay Findings for less than 17 bucks!]

To see just how little time it takes to make a water casting, check out this video. (You need to be registered to view it, but registration is FREE!) Follow along as I pour molten fine silver into a bucket of water, and then immediately check out the results.

To learn all the particulars about water casting, read my article "Goof-Proof Water Casting" in the May 2009 issue.

And if you're mixing your own alloys to use with that water casting, you should check out our alloy calculator here. Just plug in the metal alloy you'd like to make and the calculator will instantly figure out the exact ingredient ratios for you. (Maybe it's just me, but here's a big whoo hoo for less math!)

Speaking of calculators, we also have a gold karat calculator for you too. Just plug in whatever karat of gold that you already have and the calculator will tell you what you need to add to your gold to change it to another karat (either higher or lower). How nifty is that??

If you give water casting a try, please post a comment and tell me how you like it.
I'd be surprised if it's not one of your new favorites.

Take care,

~Addie~

P.S. Click here to download our free desktop wallpaper for the month of March – a necklace by John Wik featuring a chain mail bezel around a guitar pick. How cool is that??

Video interview with Robert Dancik: jeweler, sculptor, and originator of Faux Bone

Kristin Sutter — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 17:54:00 GMT

At the 2008 Bead&Button Show in June, Senior Editor/Online Linda Augsburg was able to catch a few minutes with Robert Dancik to talk to him about how he got started making jewelry, where he's taking the craft, and how he uses Faux Bone. To watch the video, click here. If you're interested in learning how you can incorporate Faux Bone into your work, check out Robert's article, "Chart Your Own Mixed-Media Odyssey," page 28, in the September 2008 issue of Art Jewelry. The article will teach you how to make this bangle:

If this project inspires you to make a piece of jewelry, we'd love to see what you've come up with! Just post it in the Show Us Your Work thread in the Art Jewelry forum.

Want to see your work in Art Jewelry magazine? We've made it easier to submit.

Kristin Sutter — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 21:00:00 GMT

Have you ever wanted to do an article for Art Jewelry so you could teach your fellow jewelry makers how to do a technique? Or have you ever thought that your work would look great in Gallery or Beyond Jewelry? If you have, we'd love to hear from you. Check out our new PDF "How to Pitch a Story Idea to Art Jewelry" (hint: you can do it in 4 easy steps) and our newly revised "Art Jewelry Submission Guidelines" here. We admit, understanding how the publishing world works can be a little daunting. Hopefully, these documents will make it easier for you to navigate the quirky world of magazinery. And stay posted — we'll have more helpful documents available soon.

—Kristin

How to set a Cabochon in a Bezel: NEW 3-part instructional video series on www.artjewelrymag.com

Addie Kidd — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 19:16:00 GMT

Happy Thursday everyone!

As this blog's headline might suggest, we've posted three new videos on our Web site.

Check them out here, or click on the "Videos" tab along the top of our Web site.

You don't need to be a subscriber to view them, but you do have to be a registered user – meaning you've got a screenname and password.
It's free to sign up. And once you've got your screenname, you can watch all our videos and also comment on our blog here to let us know how we've done.

These are the first of a number of videos that Jill Erickson and I made in our Art Jewelry workroom a few weeks ago. (As you can see from these clips, I picked a pretty glowing labradorite, one of my favorite stones, to set.)

I hope you find them helpful. Jill and I sure had fun making them.

Stay tuned for more videos in the upcoming weeks, including metal clay tips and techniques from Jill, and a 5-part series I taped on making and soldering a bezel.

Have fun metalsmithing!

~Addie~

P.S. A big thanks goes out to our camera man Keith for getting those nice clear closeups. And another thanks to Roger, Robert, and Dave, the guys over in our Production department who polished all that raw footage up into concise videos.