in which I ramble about earrings a lot.

I have earrings spilling out of every pore. In an attempt to cut down my list of what to make for the open house, I instead ended up adding a few pairs to bunch. Fail.

I've had a really hard time focusing and getting things done, because I'm overwhelmed with the possibilities. There are so many variations on designs I've done, so many new designs I want to try, and then every new design has a million and three new places I could further explore it.

It's a bit of a problem, and I generally end up standing, sitting, standing, sitting, walking over to the notebook, sitting, flipping through designs, standing, sitting, and overall spending a lot of time combating this little ADD affliction I seem to have. Also, throw in some really bad dancing to the really bad music on the radio (must. bring. CDs. to studio.)

But, I seem to have done a fair enough job, as here is the pile of earrings I have ready to take a bath in liver of sulfur (well, some of them anyway) and then happily tumble around with each other and some steel shot:


I really tried very hard to keep only the earrings in frame because you'd be very horrified to see my bench. All of those little pieces of paper everywhere are my various templates that I use and then stick all over the bench. It is ridiculous and I don't know why I do this. The copper was a failed halter tag (I didn't stamp the B properly). Above the copper are stones for a few pieces in progress. And the big black cord is baby torch, aka favorite torch. It's my favorite until I get really frustrated in it's lack of heating capabilities, anyway. Then I remember that I have a larger torch and I should probably just suck it up and turn it on. I'm very lazy. And I am scared of larger torch.

Anyway, I think I have 11 pairs ready for their polish, then will come finishing and stone setting and wire wrapping and such.

I also started working on a pair of earrings with stones, because I seem to be on a metal only kick. The stones of choice are these lovely, BRIGHT BLINDING BLUE apatite cabochons I picked up at the Tucson gem show.

I knew they were going to be tricky. I knew they were brittle. I knew apatite liked to fracture. Dear apatite, move up on the mohs scale, you're brittle and stupid, and if you have to come in such pretty colors you should probably be a little more resilient to the world. I am just sayin.

Anyway, I broke one. Actually, I didn't. I looked at it and it looked like it had a fracture line. I couldn't have possibly caused this because I JUST PICKED IT UP. And I was like "huh I wonder if that's a fracture line" so I tried to snap it with my hands and it broke in 2 pieces, like this:

Stupid apatite.

And if you're thinking "stupid girl, why did you try to snap it in half?" Well, if it was already fractured it would have happened at some point, and better in my hand than in the customer's. I guess I'll grind it up and save it for the day when I do resin pieces again.

Anyway, thankfully I had 2 more. I thought I had more than that, though, and so no more are allowed to break in the making of these earrings. The last one has been reserved for a necklace I'm making someday. Ok? If I break another one I'm hunting down some other 8x10 stones and letting the apatite rest in sweet peace and never buying it again. (but it's so bluuuue...)

My deepest apologies for the picture quality. I left my camera at home today because I forget things a lot and I used my cell phone to take these. Also, my hands really aren't that red.