A new passion for the new year!

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Happy last day of 2011!  I thought I’d share my last project of the year with you.   It’s also one of a first, in a new passion I’ve found for jewelry making.  Last year I introduced my friend Krista to the joys of paper crafting, so this year she is returning the favor and teaching me all about making jewelry.  I am really enjoying it, but I think I might need a bigger craft room soon!

Yesterday she taught me how to make a spinner ring!  I have always loved this style of ring, but never thought I could make my own!

Here is how this project started…a plain sheet of silver.  You can see where I sawed off a strip to make my ring.  Not very straight sawing – which meant a lot of filing and sanding!

I learned how to use all sorts of new tools to create this, all of which I need for my own studio now!  Cool tools like blow torches!  There is something very satisfying about pounding metal.  I hammered the base to dimple the silver.  The spinner was made from copper wire.  Here’s the finished product:

I am seriously in love with making jewelry!

Here’s a little video to show how it spins (by the way, if anyone has a good plugin for embedding video from the iPhone to a WordPress blog, let me know.  Not too thrilled with this one)

I’m also hoping to rekindle my old passion for running.  Starting tomorrow I am beginning a 13 week training program to run a 10K.  I’ve run that far (and farther) before, but it’s been a couple years since I’ve run any significant distance.  So, I thought this would get me there without injuring myself.

This year I intend to live more simply, spend more time enjoying time with family and friends, and to do the things I love doing more.

What are your new goals, resolutions, or dreams for the upcoming year?

XOXOXO,
Jami

Digi Paper Piecing – a challenge and a tutorial

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Today We have a fun Digi Makeover Challenge over at Paper Makeup Stamps…. to paper piece using digi images.  I used the Moody for Presents image and paper pieced her presents.

I am also entering this in the following challenges:

Sweet Sunday Sketch #147
Dream Valley Challenge #22 – Christmas
2012 Christmas Card Challenge #2 – doodling

Here’s a little tutorial I threw together to show how to paper piece using digi images.  If you’ve never done it, give it a try and enter the challenge.  It’s really easy and fun!

Step 1:
Print your image twice.  Once using the card stock that you will use on your card, and a second copy using some plain old cheap copy paper.

 

 

Step 2:
Tape down a piece of patterned paper over the area that you want to paper piece.  I am going to use this green paper for the large present in the middle.

 

Step 3:
Print the image again with the patterned paper.  

 

Step 4:
Carefully remove the first piece of patterned paper and place other papers for other areas of the image.  If the areas you want to paper piece are close together,  no problem.  You can run the same image and paper through the printer as many times as you’d like.  That’s why you use a cheap piece of copy paper, because as you see, the image itself gets destroyed in the process.

 

Step 5:
Here’s the second set of paper pieced images.

 

Step 6:
Then just cut out the pieces!  I color my image next before gluing on the paper pieced images.  
Hope you enjoyed this little tutorial!

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XOXO, Jami

Cheryl’s Candy

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Just wanted to share that my friend Cheryl at The Ink Trap is offering some fabulous Blog Candy on her blog!!  You’ll definitely want to take a few minutes to browse through Cheryl’s blog – she is an amazing artist with Copic coloring skills that will leave you drooling.  She also has a way with words – her posts are always fun to read!!  You won’t  be sorry you stopped by!