Ive been trying to blog for the past few days but one thing or another has been stopping me. The weather has been totally naff and any photos I've taken have just been pointless. The children have been running around under my feet, even with the new schedule its been hard. Its getting towards the end of the holidays and even if they don't want to admit it they are ready to go back to school, and even if they aren't I'm ready lol.
So for lack of things to blog about I figured I would give you a tour around where all the action (or current lack of action) happens.
Originally my shed was built to be a lamp working studio, I brought all the kit and after a while it was obvious that as much as I enjoyed doing it I was no good at making anything other than spacer beads. Within days of doing my silversmiths course I knew I had found my "thing" and promptly sold all my lamp working gear and invested in all my smithing kit.
This desk is where most of the work takes place. I have a lovely big working space and everything I need is to hand. On the right of the desk is Milly the rolling mill. Its such a great bit of kit, it comes with several different rolls so I can change the texture or shape of sheet and wire. It also means I don't have to buy several different thickness of sheet as I can use it to change the thickness as and when I need to.
You'll notice a blue line running at the front of the desk, this is one of the most used tools in my shed, a humble tape measure sellotaped in place. Simple but effective.
This is the soldering station where all the hot work takes place. You cant see it too well but at the very front is my fire brick and third hand, a glass holds all my tweezers and solder syringes. A glass dish filled with water is for quenching soldered pieces. I love hearing the hiss it makes as it gets dunked in.
On the right is my light tent, this is where is stays when I'm not using it, I have it attached to a board so I can just pick it up and take it around to where the best amount of light is... not that there is much of that lately.
Its only since Ive taken these pictures that Ive realised how bare my walls look, I think I'm going to have to invest in some wall art, if anybody has any quirky ideas on how I can decorate the walls please do let me know.
So I hope you've enjoyed your little tour around Sparkly Towers (lol) and if you exit via here you can take a tour around the gift shop!.
4 comments:
Oooh! Thank you for sharing your studio space. I'm always looking for good organization ideas. I strolled over to your blog from Laura's post about the daisy ring you made her. I love your silver work!
Some ideas for your wall art, I guess it depends on if you're a do-it-yourselfer or if you like other people's art. I'm a little of both.
- Your photos of your jewelry are art by themselves. You could send them off to QOOP (the printer associated with Flickr) store that does prints or a print on canvas. I did this with some of my floral photos.
- In my studio, I like to hang my jewelry and keep it in front of my face. It gives me ideas and keeps my inventory visible. I had a corkboard that I used, but you could put decorative hooks on the wall.
- You could trade your gorgeous jewelry for another artists work
- I’m a little nervous to offer this last one, but I could send you one of my colored pencil pieces to get you started. I doodle out designs that I wanted to use on my lampwork beads. I don’t sell my colored pencil pieces and just like to make space for new sketches. If you’re interested, I could either surprise you or you could give me some color, size, shape ideas…
Some fantastic ideas there Jenn, and ill definatly take you up on a drawing. I never thought of putting pictures of my own jewellery up on the walls, time to dig out some favourites.
Oh wow Nicky, I very impressed by how tidy your studio is. Please tell me me you tidied in honour of the photos being taken?!?!?!
Am very jealous of your solder station...I really want to solder but I just don't have the confidence since I gave up my silversmithing course (too many students and only one tutor!!).
I recently when in to a shop where they have love giant poppies on the the wall. I thought they have been painted on and when I asked the owner, she said she got them from Ikea http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/search/?query=sticker&category=all
Also like Jennifer's ideas.
Kelly
x
Lol, yes Kelly i had just cleaned it which is what made me think of taking a picture.
Loving the wall art from Ikea, they are just building one in Southampton but it wont be ready till next year, i dont know if you can order then over the internet.
You really should give soldering a go, i actually tired it before i did my course (well Jo tired it and then she showed me lol) but some of it is very easy to do. I dont know where you are, but i went to one in dorset. It was a 3 day course and i think there was just over 10 of us and we had 2 full tutors and a trainee so there was lots of attention !
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