currently on the bench

Thank all of you who made my weekend deals in novadesigns so successful! I had a great weekend and have been working hard to ship out all my orders! But I also made time for David and my friend Harsha who was visiting. We had an awesome dinner at a local Italian restaurant on Saturday. On Sunday we went for dim sum in down town Philly. It was great! I've never been to a dim sum place like that. They rolled around carts with all sorts of fun stuff. I had deep fried shrimp with the shell still on them. Crunchy! But I passed on the cow gut (yuck)... After our brunch we strolled around Philly and looked at all the beautiful old houses in Old City. It was such a gorgeous day and I enjoyed every minute of it.

I decided not to take on any new custom orders a while back. Even though I really enjoy making them they require quite a lot of time and there is always a deadline attached to them. I just don't feel it's the right time for me to focus on that. I have a lot going on in my life and I really want to be able to focus more on exploring my ideas at my own paste. Right now I am currently working on my last custom order for a while. A stunning pink peony ring!


Other things on my bench right now!


A strange little growing vine. It's an experimental design that I've had in my mind for awhile but never got around to actually make. I'm not sure I am quite happy with how it's turning out but it's hard to tell halfway through... Hey no guts no glory, right?

But as you can see I have a lot of other fun stuff in the works! Well the fun stuff still needs to be soldered on :o) But aren't those stones beautiful! Hopefully there will be a shop update soon. I'll blog about the pieces as I finish them, so keep checking back for a heads up.

I had a productive meeting at work a while back :o) I usually don't sketch a lot. I tend to come up with ideas in my head and then just play with metal in my studio. I find that sketches doesn't always play out the way you imagined it when you drew them. Sometimes you have to adjust and change as you work on a piece. However I really liked making all these sketches and I think I am getting better at it. There is something very nice about sketching an idea severeal times with small changes. It slowly evolves and changes as you move on to the next one. So you'll probably see more of them even though I am sure that I am the only one who can see past the rough drawings and all the way to the finish design LOL


This little piece, featuring a yummy sea foam colored faceted chalcedony (0nly 10x10mm) is gonna be the first one I make using a designs from my sketches. I might fuse a couple of them together.. We'll see where we end up but I am excited about it.

Now David is calling. It's time for dinner. Did I tell you I have the best fiancee (I love saying that. It gives me butterflies every time..) in the world? He cooks, cleans, does laundry, rubs my feet when they are sore and tells me that everything I make looks beautiful (even when I manage to melt a design to an ugly blob). He does all of that cause he loves me and supports me. He does it so that I will have time to work in my studio and make the images inside my head tangible items for you to see. I am the luckiest girl in the world!

Have a wonderful evening and thank you for stopping by!
love ~tess