Making of: The Refuge Necklace

Last December we were so lucky to receive two of our best friends from Mexico who came to spend the holidays with us. Alty and Riki -my friends- are some of the most amazing, creative people I know and while they were here, Riki offered to make a little video of me while I was busy at work, making one of my most beloved pieces of jewelry: The Refuge Necklace.

I'm very happy he did this for me, as it's the first time I have an actual video of my process, of me working on the jewelry and such a lovely video it is! I hope you enjoy visiting my studio and see how things are in The Angry Weather HQ's for a day :)

The making of: The Refuge Neclace from ricardo meade on Vimeo.

Did you like it? I'd love to know if you have any questions regarding the process of making the Refuge necklace! And if you want to see more of Riki's work, come visit his Vimeo channel here!

Thank you so much Riki! Muchas gracias!

Iveth

At the studio: Vintage rings.

The vintage rings I sometimes sell on my shop or at craft fairs are always such a hit and people just adores them. I'm always receiving wonderful feedback from the people who buys them, telling me they feel like wearing something really unique, special and beautiful. Well, let me tell you, they are so unique and special and beautiful! That's why I want to show you today a bit about the process of selecting and preparing them to be worn, most of them, for the first time.

First of all, I hand pick each one of them and carefully select the ones that I absolutely love. This is an awesome job as I always feel the anticipation of seeing the treasures I'm about to uncover!

Finding the perfect ring is a dirty job: I use plastic gloves and they end up disgustingly dirty!

Here you can see some of the rings I choose, already on my bench. As you see, they have a little 'tail', this is called sprue and it is the way through which the liquid metal was introduced to a mold. This means ring is unfinished and not ready to be worn.

Some sprues are easy to remove with cutting pliers but others need a bit of hand sawing.

And then what is left of the metal sprue needs to be removed with a file and emery paper, to make it smooth and nice.

To finish, I put them in the tumbler to clean and uncover some of their original shine!

The finish product! Aren't they lovely? Believe me, it's always hard to let go of these beauties knowing is rare to come across the same one again. So, when you get your vintage ring, enjoy it to the max because it is such a special piece of history and art.

I'll have some of these beauties for sale at Puces POP this weekend and on my Etsy shop by the end of the month.

Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this post!

See you soon :)

Some photos and F.A.Q.

Wow! what an exciting weekend this has been :)

Today at noon there's going to be a new featured seller on Etsy and I can't help but feel a little nostalgic that is going to be over soon. I won't have an inbox full of etsy circles notifications and 24hrs a day of continue FP goodness anymore. Regardless, this experience makes me feel so thankful and so inspired to keep working, I couldn't be happier!

I wanted to post here a couple more images that weren't included on the feature, just so you can have more insight on me and my work space and because I just really like them ;)

And now, a round of F.A.Q. by the people who kindly sent me messages this weekend :D

Q. How do you manage to have a business, a blog and take care of your little girl?

A. I wouldn't be able to manage it if not for: having a sweet, independent little girl who is content of just singing along with me while I work on the jewelry or the computer; having a sweet husband who helps me sand and anneal pieces every time I need; god bless Amelia's nap time; god bless baby tv (not proud of this, though!); god bless I can't sleep before 1am; and one of the most important things is that I've had to learn to live with a little bit of a messy home and the unexpected.

Q.Where do you buy your tools and supplies?

A. I buy all my stuff here in Montreal at 620 Cathcart or the Montreal jewellers paradise. No tool/internet buying for me :)

I love this one:

Q. Why do you charge $149 dlls for a 3cm piece of silver?

A. because I don't sell pieces of silver, I sell my work.

Q. How come your work table is so clean?

A. Well, I cleaned and organized it for the photo shoot :) but regardless, my work space is very clean indeed, I have a two and a half year old and I work at home! I clean and organize my work table every night, so I'm sure the dirt would not be spreading around my apt and Amelia won't be any close to dangerous tools, compounds or small pieces of things she could put on her mouth.

Those are the ones I really had to address publicly ;) it was definitely so much fun getting to know lots of new people, costumers, etsy sellers! And I want to thank all the lovely people who now is following my blog, welcome to Mademoiselle Cranky Pants (which was the nickname of my little girl when she was a new born ;))!

Thank you!