Finally

I finally gave in and joined twitter. Kicking and screaming mind you. Luscious is now all a-twitter. At this point we look like the unpopular kid at school with so few followers, so please, Follow us here (or above) in the interest of helping us look cool.

In perusing the site I found something cool that I wanted to share. One of my dearest girlfriends, Shannon Sunderland of Hot Mama Designs fame is also twittering. Tweeting? Whatever. Anyway, when I became her follower lookie here at what I found- Awww. So sweet. That's a picture of yous truly with sweet Evabella. I love that picture. And I love you Shannon.

Meet the Pickle

Welcome to the third installment of our Meet the Studio Series. This is our "bench". It looks like utter chaos but believe it or not-, I know where everything is (sort of). Right behind the soldering block, you can see our "pickle pot". We use a very high tech and expensive piece of equipment to clean our metal post-fire. It's called a crock pot. This particular crock pot was purchased at a thrift store about 7 years ago for about $5. It's had a hard life boiling acid (well technically, you aren't supposed to boil the acid but sometimes I get distracted...) Anyway, it's not pretty but our little pickle pot has done a good job for us all these years and we love it.

When we put a flame to metal it causes a chemical reaction called oxidation. Oxidation causes a skin on the metal that we refer to as "fire scale".

By soaking the metal in heated acid, we remove a good bit of the fire scale. We need the fire scale gone for two reasons- we need the metal clean in order to solder again and we also need it clean so that we can polish it and get the lovely finish that one expects from a lovely piece of jewelry.

After the metal soaks in the pickle for 15 minutes or so, we neutralize it by dipping it in a baking soda solution.

The very first teacher I had for metal smithing never told me about acid neutralization, so for the first year of working with metal I kept getting tiny holes in my pants from dripping acid on them! That's one of the interesting things about this craft, there are a million different ways to do one thing and the technique you are taught sometimes makes the difference between easy or difficult mastery of said technique.

TV Time

A few months ago, Sari Padorr, a freelance writer from The Denver Post featured my work in the Saturday Section of the Post, in an article about Colorado metal artists. Well Sari came through for me again and connected me with the producers of The Everyday Show on Fox 31 News in Denver. I was interviewed by Libby Weaver on a segment with 2 other local women to talk about Valentine Jewelry. It was a total blast! Watch the segment here.

It was very cool to be behind the scenes, see the sets, the camera people, watch how they cut for breaks and count down to live air time. The producers were so friendly and Libby Weaver and Natalie Tysdal, the anchors we spoke to, were so sparkly and approachable- and pretty- wow!

I presented both Natalie and Libby, as well as the producers of the show (and Sari too- thanks again Sari!) with their very own Sweetheart Necklace (with charms from the new line) inscribed with the names of their kiddos and they were all so pleased. Look for them being worn on air- both said they would. And they loved their pieces!

Luscious Photo Shoot

Erin, Natha and Bree

Our new website is about ready to be launched and we are really excited! New collections, expanded Sweetheart line, new photos and more. We're looking at early March most likely. In the meantime I wanted to post a few of my favorite shots from the photo shoot we did recently with Julia Vandenoever.

Bree in the ever popular cherry Necklace

Julia is an amazing photographer and was so fun to work with! Sally Walker of Alchemy did the makeup and the models were Bree O. and Erin M. Gorgeous ladies if I do say so myself, I'm really pleased with the shots and the jewelry looks great too which really, is the main point right?

Erin in earrings from the Sewn collection (available in March)

Cheers to a good review!

Trisha Ginter, indie fashion designer extraordinaire - designer of Mergirl- and also co founder of the indie shopping site Smashingdarling.com (where Luscious metals jewels are also sold) recently purchased one of my popular Jewel rings. She wrote a very cool review on her beautiful blog, MerGirl (Thanks Trisha!)

Intention Ring

Every once in a while, I actually create jewelry for myself, and here is my newest piece, the Intention Ring. I originally heard of this concept on Oprah where she spoke about something called wish boards (or dream, spirit or intention boards). I then took a workshop with one of my mentors Gretchen Reid of Motherhood Transitions and we actually made our own boards. We cut out pictures and words that resonated with us and our goals. I thought I could easily translate that same idea into a ring with the theme being centered around the year 2010 and the qualities I wished to manifest for myself in this new year and new decade. I used quartz crystal because this particular gem just grabbed me at the gem show and also because of the intense energetic qualities quartz crystal brings to it's wearer. It is the stone of "clarity" and that is the word I inscribed in the center, looking through the facets of the stone causes the word to diffract in a most lovely and poignant way.

I used a sparkling faceted chunk of quartz, set in sterling with words such as "trust" and "mystery" inscribed on the band and bezel, and added 14k gold accents, partly for color and partly because gold metal in and of itself has so much value and longevity. All in all, I am thrilled with how it came out and I really haven't taken it off since. Please contact me if you have a vision for your very own 2010 intention ring, I would love to do custom orders on this one.

Ten for '10!

Oh I'm just so thrilled...My jewelry got named one of the top ten fashion must haves for 2010 in the Daily Camera today! A huge thanks to Aimee Heckle who is such a fan and had such amazing things to say about my jewels. What a wonderful start to this new year. Wishing you all a most lovely 2010.