New Year -- back to the grind

I've been meaning to post for a while now.  But, I have been luckily bombarded with family stuff, as in my family all lives under one roof now.  Hubby is home again, and getting settled and signed into the local base here -- as we get used to doing things as one household.  It's proven....challenging. 

For one, shopping for one more adult has thrown a wrench in my shopping habits.  Who knew that much more was needed to maintain the cooking.  And for some reason, I didn't anticipate the extra laundry, extra household goods to buy, or even that my jewelry studio may impact hubby's netflix addiction.

See my studio is small, one corner of the master bedroom -- mainly so that I am still available for the kids and not in a separate location.  Also, it's sequestered in the master bedroom, because I don't really want to be searching for inspiration in the dining room while cartoon network plays in the living room.  Or Halo.  Or whatever new XBox game they are into this week. 

But I have been expanding my line -- even before hubby got home -- to include not only bridal jewelry, but also trendy, modern and relevant to the time of year jewelry.

Oh, an example?

14k Gold Filled Heart Hoops

These are hoops, in the shape of an open heart I made sing some 20 gauge 14k gold filled wire.  They are sturdy and dainty all at once.  It took me a while to get the shape perfect -- a lot of hammering, a lot of trial and error.  And several Youtube searches.

Once I got the shape right -- I tried to use a wig jig, but I am not that coordinated, so I had to make them by hand --  I hammered and tempered the metal in order to make the half hard fully hard so they wont bend and get all messed up.  You know, there is a history of young kids in my house testing the jewelry I make -- by accident at first.

Once that was all done, I decided, you know what?  These would look so cute if I added a little something something.

Sapphire Hearts

So I started wire wrapping stones onto the bottom half of the heart.  See, the area where there are no stones serves as the ear wire, and the stone part of the heart dangles.

They were so pretty that I went outside and took a million pictures of several different pairs and styles of these heart hoops.  And bam!  A set sold within minutes of me putting them up on the esty site for Maggie's Jewelry. 

See these in the Shop.

These lovely garnets are the ones that sold. 

But, as I have a touch of OCD, and the pictures sure did look nice, I went through my post shipment quality check -- which includes making sure they would be perfect on by holding them near the ear and checking how they would look, in addition to polishing, sanitizing, and blow drying after the polish and sanitize.   (I know what you;re thinking:  "You blow dry your jewelry?"  Yes I do, to make sure it's fully dry before I package it up to ship -- we don't want oxidation in the shipping time to occur, do we?)

And what do you know?  While the pictures looked divine, and they really did, the earrings were all wrong.  Because I had wrapped both earrings the same direction, I had to take one earring apart and wrap on the other side of the hoop.  Okay, a bit unclear there:  by re-wrapping, the gemstones face out to the world on both ears now -- rather than them facing one direction only -- and inevitably, one earring's gemstones facing the neck rather than the world.

So, live and learn, right?  I will be making sure I take pictures more often of these earrings on from now on -- because then I could know much earlier in the process if something is off, even if the pictures are pretty perfect.

~Maggie~

Check out all my new designs at:  Maggie's Jewelry