A few quick updates

Teaching at Beadiest is alway a fun experience!

Here’s my Lapidary class in full swing – lot’s of happy campers made their very first cabochon!

Originally published 2-1-2020

Hi, all. I’ve been pretty busy with a packed teaching calendar and writing commitments for the past few months and meaning to get back to my personal blog. A couple of quick updates, before I jet off to Tucson for my next round of classes:

• Come visit Tucson’s new Jewelry Craft and Design Expo show starting next week at the La Quinta Reid Park, 102 N. Alvernon Way in Tucson, Arizona 85711. I will be offering 8 different 3-hour workshops at the show, covering a wide variety of techniques and with some object-making, too. Walk-ins are welcome.

• In October 2020, I’m set to teach a four-day Intermediate Soldering Workshop at Snow Farm, and the online signup link just opened.

• I’ve proposed a neat batch of workshops for August BeadFest in Philadelphia, and I am totally excited to teach them. Keep watching the Workshops and Classes page link above for updates and direct links. As soon as I know, you’ll know.

• On the local front, my usual slate of beginner metal and wire evening classes at Haddon Township Adult School are beginning in about 2 weeks.

• And at The Artery Studio in Medford, NJ, my tween, teen and adult beginner jewelry workshops and classes are ongoing.

• I’m still writing my columns. Check out Cool Tools & Hip Tips which has been running in every issue of Jewelry Artist magazine for ten years now!

• And the MJSA Journal, runs a frequent At the Bench column from me which can be found roughly every other month. They have just published a new compilation called At the Bench 2, which includes my 5 favorite tips from recent years.

• My first book, Jewelry Maker’s Field Guide is now out of print, so you’ll have to search for it on Amazon or used. However, you can pick up a copy of my latest book, Metal Jewelry Workshop from the fine folks at Fox Chapel Publishing.

Wow. No wonder I feel like I have no time, lol.
That’s it for the moment, and I hope to see you soon!

Beneficial information from recent workshops

Originally published 6-17-2019

It is my tradition to create a debriefing blog post after any multi-day workshops I teach to answer all of those lingering questions on my tickler page that came up during class because my poor, overloaded brain couldn’t immediately retrieve the information.

I recently taught two awesome workshops at Snow Farm, and came home with two extensive lists of follow-up information to provide to my students there. And, good news for you as well – you also get to benefit from the information!

So, here goes, kids…

Workshop: Rock & Roll: The Art of Lapidary
Diamond Pacific Lapidary – Genies, Pixies, Wizards and a whole slew of fantastic Lapidary Equipment to fill you every stone-centric desire… I have used their equipment in my classes for nearly a decade.

Kingsley North – Another full-service lapidary supplier; they have hundreds of products, including the Cab King, Hughes 300 Epoxy and other awesome equipment.

Lasco Diamond – One of the best suppliers of Diamond attachments for use in the flex shaft and/or other rotary tools. Their drill bits (from your kits) and other diamond accessories are rockin’

Slabs to Cabs – My good friend, Gemologist  John Heusler, G.G. (GIA) is the mastermind behind those fantastic templates we used in class. Check out his work, follow him on Facebook, and tell him I sent you!

Allcraft Tools – New York City. If you coveted my bezel wire snips, call Tevel at Allcraft and tell him I sent you. He has every hammer known to man, plus tons of other awesome hand tools, too, and his shop on 29th Street is not to be missed if you ever find yourself in the Big Apple.

Chris’s Cables – is the source for those slim closure, precious metal necklace cables I used on our target object project pendant.

Contenti Tools – Is one of my favorite all-around tool suppliers, you can get Wubbers Pliers, the L-square, scribes and the slim line centerpunches from them, and for most of my workshop students, in your home state – Road Trip!!

Kent’s Tools – in glorious Tucson, AZ. is a must-see shop when you eventually get to the Gem Shows in February. I get my Moore’s Snap on Sanding discs, Coin, Pearl and Bead Clamps, Diamond Attachment Boxed Sets, Riker Mounts for stones and other esoteric goodies there.

The Gem Shop, Inc. – is a great mail order source for slabs, cutting rough, tumbler mixes, books and reference materials on rocks and minerals and also finished cabs cut from classic rockhoundy materials. Their agates and jaspers annual calendar totally rocks.

The Tuscarora Lapidary Society is my local club, and they have a free newsletter listing area rock shows, too.

Workshop: Exploring Textures and Patinas in Metal Jewelry
Wowsa, what a list!

First, my list of Incredibly Useful Hand Tools will appear on this blog shortly… If you are reading this later and the link is there, I wrote it, so click away…

Ditto for my Useful Products to Seal Patinas and Base Metals…

Reactive Metals Studio – Rokusho powder, Cupric Sulfate and other essential materials for Japanese Patination. Check out the Titanium, too…

Jax Patina Solutions – The Hazmat fee is so worth it. I use the Black-Brown, Brown, Green for Copper and Brass, the Cleaner for Copper, Brass and Bronze especially for those rapid oops removal situations, and you owe it to yourself to try the sampler set, too.

Potter USA – is the go-to place for hydraulic presses and dies, plus great shop tools and equipment. Affordable, sturdy, well-made in America. What more could a self-respecting jewelry maker ask for?

So, that wraps it. I will get to those other two blog posts shortly, and have a happy June!

Workshop slots available!!

Lapidary work is near and dear to my

heart. Teaching it is even better than doing it, because I get to watch other people get hooked too.

I just returned from Tucson with a treasure trove of nice material for my upcoming Lapidary workshop at Snow Farm: The New England School of Craft. That’s some delicious Ray Mine mix at right. It will need to be stabilized, but luckily, I have reliable information from an expert friend on just exactly how to do that.

Originally published 2-18-2019

Here’s a quick peek at some of the other lapidary rough I could not come home without:.

And I have also been cutting slabs for student use, too — despite the fact it has been freezing in the studio and my hands get too cold and wet to work for too long.

I am also creating new demo objects for a three day Textures and Patinas workshop that immediately follows my lapidary class, with a focus on some less common but stunning Japanese patinas you might want to learn more about and try.

I hope to see you there!

News you can use

My new book goes to press this week!!! TA DA!!!!!

Here’s a photo, and you can order it here: Metal Jewelry Workshop on Amazon.com, or if you are more patient, find it at most brick-and-mortar booksellers, chain craft stores and at other book vendors in late fall when it arrives from the printer.
I am really very happy with this book and it was a huge pleasure to work with the amazing editorial and design teams at Fox Chapel Publishing.

Originally Published 6-28-2018

Hi all! It's been a busy summer and I have a bunch of updates.

Super exciting : BeadFest Philadelphia is just around the corner and I will be teaching a load of new classes from August 15 – 19 at the Oaks Expo Center. We are packed, printed, prepared and my little store is fully loaded with tools, media, supplies and materials you'll need for a week or more of jewelry making fun. Check into my classes here, and read about the annual BeadFest Event here.

Shortly after BeadFest, I will be jetting over to Tucson, Arizona for a stint at the JOGS Summer Restock Show  between August 31 – Sept. 3, 2016. We are currently solidifying the actual class schedule, but I intend to be there teaching some fun new fashion-forward object-making classes for 4 sunny days. JOGS is a great place to stock up on supplies before the busy holiday crush, and the fall show is much less frenetic than the winter one. If you'll be there, swing by, take a class or just say hi!

I've also been contracted to teach several workshops for 2019, and I am currently developing an entire slate of new classes for next year. I also continue to write Cool Tools & Hip Tips for Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist magazine, and keep an eye open for my At the Bench column in every issue of the MJSA Journal – PS: You can get a free 4-month trial subscription too, so sign up today!

Other than that, the garden is calling, every flat surface in the studio is covered with student kits, partially finished demo pieces, UFOs (unfinished objects) and workshop proposal folders. In other words, life is normal, lol! Have a great day, and I will see you next time!

A dispatch from the jewelry making frontier

Originally Published 3-18-2018

Sorry I’ve been MIA for a bit, but I have good news: the manuscript for my second book has been delivered (on time!) and all of the object step-outs for the photography plus the final jewelry objects are completed. Woot-Woot, Ra-Ra, Ya-Hoo!

I am so very happy with this book, and it was a total pleasure to write it. Photo sessions are tentatively scheduled for the beginning of April, and as soon as there are some PR images to share, I will post them here. Some preliminary information that I can share without revealing any state secrets is this: Metal Jewelry Workshop will be published by Fox Chapel and released in the Fall of 2018. The book should be on sale in large chain craft and hobby stores and available from traditional booksellers soon after that. There should be pre-sale information soon from major online sellers and I’m happy it will be out just in time for holiday shopping. Best of all, I can finally, finally change that old news picture of my first book that’s been sitting over there on the right sidebar of this blog for almost 5 years, lol!

In other news, I thought I might be teaching in the next week or so at Innovative Bead Expo in Oaks, Pa. but alas, I had no advance sign-ups. I decided I should be making some new work for myself that is non-book, non-curriculum and non-workshop for a change and cancelled those classes, because, sometimes, you just need to make something for yourself. No guilt here at all. You see I know that very soon, those never-ending garden tasks will come, jewelry workshop season will swing into high gear, I’ll need to get ready for Fall Adult School courses and life will get too, too crazy again so I am grabbing this time slot while it’s there.

Before I go any further, it’s way past time for me to send some shout outs I missed in the flurry of life over the past weeks: thank you, Alison Lee of Craftcast for an incredibly fun experience creating my Color on Metal with Cold Connections Webinar just before I went to the Tucson Gem and Mineral Shows to teach five workshops, including a live webcast from JOGS Show Tucson that was recorded for Jewelry Tools. It was great to see everyone I caught up with there, make future plans for some new classes and most of all to get out of the freezing weather for several days. Again, Thank yous go to Alec and Debbie at JT.com and to Vitaliy and Yelena plus the whole JOGS crew for making it happen every Tucson.

I’ll share some upcoming workshop news soon, so thanks for reading, try to stay warm for a few weeks more, make some cool work, and don’t forget to check my upcoming class schedule for breaking news on the workshop front. Ciao!