BEAD AND BUTTON PART 2

My bezel set Chrysocolla ring.

Karen's lampwork cab, bezel set into a ring.

Me and friends Karen Elmquist and Gail Lannum at the King and I Thai restaurant enjoying girly drinks with umbrellas in them.

Poor Karen's wardrobe malfunction. She was leaving bits of her shoe all over Milwaukee. Gail and I actually found a large piece of her shoe on the street. Too funny.

My friend Anne Mitchell and Paul also at the King and I. They could be siblings couldn't they?

On the Tuesday of Bead and Button I took a class with metal smith Joe Silvera and his wife Anat. It was a class in traditional bezel setting of stones. I've done this before, but I've never been great at getting the bezel to fit the stones just right. Joe was such a great teacher and both he and Anat are so nice and so much fun. He spent a good amount of time discussing how to choose stones that will be good for bezeling. I found this to be invaluable. It turns out that I was making one little mistake when fitting my cabs that Joe helped me correct very quickly. My friend Karen and I were both in the class. We were supposed to make pendants, but rebels that we are, we made rings instead. My stone was a Chrysocolla and Karen used one of her own lampwork cabs. I was so jazzed by the class that when the show started, I bought many beautiful stones from the amazing lapidary, Gary Wilson. I was able to get into the show early and his was the first booth I went to because it's always jammed with customers.

On Wednesday, Gail and I both had a day off and headed to Chicago to Urban Remains, a architectural salvage company. We picked through old house hardware for bits and pieces that we can use as inspiration and to incorporate into jewelry pieces. There was a great old doctors' cabinet that Gail really wanted until she saw the price, nearly $1100! I need to get her out her to Iowa, as I've seen similar cabinets in antique stores for less than $200. There was also a cool little coffin (not a real one) that I thought would look cool on the wall of my studio. I don't know what it was for, it looked kind of like the kind of thing you'd see in an old Dracula movie. Weird, I know, but I liked it. Also priced out of my league at $350.

More on classes later and photos of all the great stuff that I bought.