Welcome to Stormflight Designs

www.StormFlightDesigns.com


If you've always wondered about how jewelry is made and fine craft is done, this is the blog for you! Our intent is to show you the step-by-step of creating jewelry from a silver-smith's and lampworker's point of view. We'll throw in some other interesting craft-work too. Consider this a "tutorial-light" blog in a way. You'll get to see the creative process from start to finish. Sometimes it may take a while to get to the finish, so please be patient! We often have to wait for the muse to strike--sometimes in the middle of a different project!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Life Gets In The Way of Art

We all have experienced the annoyance of life getting in the way of all the fun things we want to do.  I'm no exception to this!  I wish I was!

So what has been getting in the way of my creativity?  A bathroom remodel.  So, while I am happy about the remodel, I'm anxious to get it finished.  In order to save some money, we decided to do the demolition ourselves.  What a great way to work our your aggressions!  I've slept pretty well after a full day of breaking tile and knocking out walls.


We have the bathroom pretty much gutted now... I sure am thankful for a handy and strong husband! 

There's nothing left of the shower except a hole in the floor.  Boy was that disgusting and moldy. Its a good thing we decided to do this just to get rid of that.

Tomorrow the carpenter comes to install pocket doors (yea, no more doors hitting each other--seriously!).  Then the tilers come.  We had the good sense not do do this ourselves.  We're just getting too old to 'do it yourself ' anymore.  I have to save my energy for silver work!

So, hopefully in a few weeks I will get to dive into my artwork again.  I am thinking ahead to what I need to make for Christmas time gift giving.

Stay tuned!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

What I made at Artist Camp this Summer (or, what I did on my summer vacation)

I've finally gotten around to taking a few picturess of the items I made in my Silver-Smithing class in GA a few weeks ago.

The first project we did was a heavy gauge twisted bangle bracelet.  After twisting the wire and shaping it into a bangle, we soldered it and filed and polished it up.  Came out as a nice, classic bangle.  The weight of the silver feels great on the wrist without being bulky.









The second project we were given was to make a ring.  What I really like about this ring is the shank detail...we had to make silver balls and solder them into notches we made in the shank.  It is very beautiful.  I had a large Labradorite stone that was perfect for this ring.  It has a gorgeous green flash.  The ring is large, bold and beautiful!



So then we were on our own to create as we wished with the instructor's guidance.  I choose to make a bracelet with 5 gorgeous Larimar stones I had brought with me...Here is what I made...It fits perfectly and the silver feels so smooth and almost velvety.  I had to set the stones when I got back because I ran out of time.  The bracelet has a lot of silver which increases its value on top of the wonderful Larimar stones.


I highly recommend the instructor that I had for this class:  Bill Cady.  He was fun, patient and very tolerant to let us learn what we wanted.  The school is the William Holland School of Lapidary Arts in Young Harris, GA.  Its is well worth the drive!