Ocean Wave

Kanagawa oki nami ura (The Great Wave off Kanagawa),
Katsushika Hokusai: woodcut

The Art Bead Scene Challenge picked another one of my all time favorite wanna be artists for the month of August -- famous Japanese painter and printmaker Katsushika Hokusai. My woodcuts never looked as fabulous as his Great Wave Off Kanagawa, but I definitely was in awe of Hokusai's mastery of the medium and deft handling of composing a powerful image on paper.

Siren, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): iolite, fine and sterling silver

In honor of Hokusai's wonderful wave print, I created a ocean inspired necklace with Hint Jewelry's Aphrodite shell charm and a series of tiny, wire-wrapped iolite gemstones.

Siren, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): iolite, fine and sterling silver

Siren makes me think of that moment when you emerge from swimming in the sea and tiny droplets of water glisten on your skin like these gemstones.

Inner Flow, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): blue lapis, fine and sterling silver

I created a second entry for Art Bead Scene's August Challenge using Hint Jewelry's fish charm. This choker necklace was inspired by all those amazing swimmers who take to the sea for surfing and triathlons. It's a little bit sporty with round, lapis beads and an oblong sterling chain.

Inner Flow, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): blue lapis, fine and sterling silver

Of course this little fish charm is a reminder to take life as it comes and ride the waves!

Notes From the Universe

Every Monday, I get an email message from the Universe. This past Monday the note was particularly wonderful and thought you'd enjoy reading it to yourself. If you'd like to get daily or weekly Notes from the Universe, visit Mike Dooley's Web site Totally Unique Thoughts www.tut.com, where "thoughts become things, dreams come true, and all things remain forever possible."

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[Your Name], I know what it's like. I've seen it played out a few zillion times. You're waiting for that magical day when someone makes the connection and recognizes who you really are. Maybe they'll first catch the sparkle in your eye. Or perhaps they'll marvel at your insights and the depth of your spirit. Someone who will help you connect the dots, believe in yourself, and make sense of it all. Someone who will understand you, approve of you, and unhesitatingly give you a leg up so that life can pluck your ready, ripened self from the branch of magnificence. Ahhhhhhhhhhh...

Well, I'm here to tell you, [Your Name], your wait is over. That someone, is you.

Good thing you rock, The Universe

(All text from Totally Unique Thoughts Notes from the Universe)

Dove: Peace, Love & Devotion

Peace Love Devotion, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): fine silver dove of peace charm

A dove’s song of innocence and peace comforts a worried mind and offers blessed assurance for a troubled heart. For centuries, the dove has symbolized the spirit’s infinite capacity for love. A bird that mates for life, who values working together to build a nest and raise a family, truly celebrates our maternal instincts for providing warmth and nurturing. Sacred to Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, a dove encourages you to release past emotional hurts and find alignment with your natural state of loving devotion and inner peace.

Wear Dove to renew and celebrate your ability to embrace and share unlimited amounts of pure love!

Add a Gem Photos

A lot of what holds Hint Jewelry back is photographs. For months, I've been meaning to create a listing where people can chose to add a wire-wrapped gem to their charm necklace, but it required a little bit of planning and of course photography.

I've got a bit of the photography blues. Do you? It can take up to 20-30 minutes to photograph and edit a series of pictures for one jewelry listing. For custom design work, I am factoring the labor of taking photographs into the quote. Is anyone else, factoring photography into the labor of creating a piece of work? How do you account for this aspect of your Internet business?

My future business plan is to get a collection of jewelry favorites that can just be listed over and over again. This strategy has been working with my charms, so I look forward to the day when I build a stable body of jewelry.

Here are the photos I took for Hint Jewelry's Add a Gem listing, and I now have a new found appreciation for all the Etsy gem and bead suppliers who are faced with photographing tiny objects. Those little rascal gems kept slipping out of my fingers and running across the floor :)

Add a Orange, Yellow, or Green Gem

Add a Pink, Red, or Purple Gem or a Freshwater Pearl

Add a Turquoise, Green, Indigo, or Blue Gem

Add a Light Blue, Grey, or White Gem

Spider: Creative Expression & Divine Purpose

Spider Woman, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): fine silver spider charm

In Native American myth, Spider Woman gave people the gift of creative wisdom in the form of a delicate piece of thread spun from her web. When you are deeply attuned with spider energy, you creatively spin and build webs that capture new ideas, endeavors, and dreams. A spider always spins her web of possibilities, trusting her feelings and intuition. Spiders are a reminder that through creative expression you have the ability to weave the world into any pattern you desire.

Wear a spider to encourage creative expression and manifest your divine purpose.

Dancing Your Way to Terrapin Station

Crush from Finding Nemo

Ever have one of those days where you feel like you are two steps in front of yourself? Like your mind is running ahead, but your body is still back in bed? My August has been like that, and today I was lamenting, "where did my turtle spirit go?"

I don't have to be like Crush on the super highway of life, I could be more like the Grateful Dead turtles just hanging out at Terrapin Station, waiting for a train that may never come and who really cares anyway.

Terrapin Station, Grateful Dead

Every week I stand in line at the post office and watch Mary at the counter patiently and diligently attend to each customer without any sense of urgency. This behavior totally fascinates me because of course there are at least ten people in line fidgeting, grumbling, and wishing that the post office had a rule against making polite conversation with each customer. They want the McPostal experience, and she is offering what I call an ineffable turtle moment: there is no place to be except right here, right now.

Dancing Turtle, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry):
silver turtle (terrapin station) charm and peridot

When I designed this necklace called Dancing Turtle, it was based on the lyrics from the Grateful Dead's Terrapin Station. My husband and I were trying to discover for ourselves the meaning behind this troubadour's song that touches the hearts of Deadheads. I liked how lyricist Robert Hunter painted a word picture of a transcendent moment in time filled with light, song, color, cicadas, and the moon. Terrapin Station feels like an ancient turtle recognizing this dance of beingness as possibly the beginning and the end all rolled up into one vast experience. Like the unhurried spirit my favorite postal worker, perhaps ancient turtle wisdom holds the key to being joyfully present in every moment.

Seahorse: Originality & Self-Expression

Flirt, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): fine silver seahorse charm

You are irreplaceable and like a colorful seahorse, completely unique. Irresistibly flirtatious, you enjoy being adored but know when to surrender to the beauty of others. The spirit of a seahorse is your gift, inspiring self-expression and originality in others.

Wear a seahorse and embrace being uniquely you!

Behind the Scenes: Wire Brushing & Tumbling Metal Clay

Tools for Tumbling

After my silver metal clay charms have been fired in the kiln, I like to polish them using a rotary tumbler. This process work hardens my silver, creates a slick shine, and burnishes any rough edges. Below I've provided a short video that demonstrates how I tumble Hint Jewelry's metal clay charms. Here's a list of the tools used:

Brass Wire Brush
Rubber Block
Lortone Single Barrel Rock Tumbler Model 3A
Dish Soap/Burnishing Powder
Stainless Steel Shot Mixed Shapes (2 lbs.)

When silver metal clay comes out of the kiln, it looks pure white like porcelain. So before I start tumbling my charms, I run a brass wire brush over the surface flatten the silver particles so they reflect light. The brass brush allows me to get into all the crevices where the tumbler is unable to reach. I bought the wire brush at my local hardware store and the rubber block can be found at any shop that sells metal clay equipment. The rubber block was definitely an impulse buy, and I wouldn't consider it one of my essential tools. Sometimes it helps to hold your metal clay steady when you are filing, brushing, or hand burnishing.

My handy studio assistant, the Lortone Tumbler, was a Christmas gift from my honey, so I missed out on all the research done at Ed's Gems. He was able to purchase the tumbler, steel shot, and burnishing compound all at the same time. If you have a local lapidary shop featuring gems and minerals, I'd stop in a get a tumbler demo and do some research. If you don't know where to purchase a tumbler locally, Lortone provides a dealer search tool. Of course you might also check on Ebay for an inexpensive Lortone tumbler.

My two pounds of steel shot has three different shapes: ball, pin, and what looks to me like like a spaceship. The first time I used it, I left the wet shot in a metal colander and everything rusted. Oops! No worries, I simply ran the steel shot in the tumbler with some water and burnishing powder and everything cleaned up real nice. Since then I spread my shot out on a towel to dry after tumbling.

I haven't had any major problems with my tumbler and the maintenance has been minor. A simple squirt of oil on the shafts every 30 days of operation keeps it running smooth. After about a year and a half of using my Lortone tumbler, I did have to move the motor over to tighten the drive belt because my barrel stopped rotating in a consistent fashion.

I read somewhere that it is not advisable to use burnishing powder with your metal jewelry, but alas I'm stuck on the magic powder the gem guy sold us, and so far I haven't seen any negative results. Nevertheless, most of the metal clay books I've read recommend a squirt of Dawn dish soap instead of burnishing compound in your tumbler.

I tumble my charms for about 2 hours. Sometimes I've let the tumbler run 3-5 hours, but I've found that some of my smallest charms risk having certain details burnished away, so I try to to keep an eye on the time.

If my Lortone tumbler video has you desiring more information, you may also want to check out this highly detailed Youtube video made by Cool Tools.

For the full scoop on Hint Jewelry's process, be sure to check out my weekly blog series called Behind the Scenes.

Every Word is Sacred

What if you truly believed that every word and sound you uttered was perfectly sacred? Every giggle, sigh, cry, and scream? Every "nice" word and every "mean" word? What if every carefully cultivated word and every untended expression was just like a secret Chinese fortune waiting to be received? What if you gently pulled open the secret drawers to your voice and spoke everything?

What if every word and sound you received from someone else was just as utterly perfect?

Fish: Intuition & Flow

Inner Flow, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): fine silver fish charm

Life's first impulse is to flow. Like a salmon sensing the river's current, find the lighthearted path that celebrates childlike innocence. With a joyful heart, immerse yourself in each new day, listen to your intuition, let go, and feel the water carry you forward.

Wear a tiny fish and cultivate your inner flow!

LinkWithin: Connect Readers with the Past

I've always loved scrolling to the end of a blog post to find three tidy pictures of previous stories that ask me to dive in a little bit deeper. Why it took me a year to see that right below these three pictures exists a tiny link that grants me access to adding this gem to my blog, I can't explain.

So I finally gave birth to cyber triplets, and now this related blog posts widget is at the bottom of every story, enticing readers to distract themselves a little longer with news from Hint Jewelry's past.

If you want to add these beauties to your own blog visit LinkWithin. It's simple and took about 5 minutes to complete. I love the random arrangement of where the stories will lead, and it seems to change daily.

Enjoy!

Behind the Scenes: Firing Metal Clay Using a Kiln

Metal Clay Charms Waiting to be Fired

After I clean up my metal clay charms with files and a baby wipe, they are ready to transform into pure silver. In the photo, I've arranged the charms on a kiln shelf like cookies ready to go into the oven.

Maybe that's why this process appeals to me, because firing charms feels a lot like baking yummy cookies!

Paragon Kiln XPRESS-Q11A

When I decided to switch from ceramics to metal clay, it was a done deal that I was going to purchase a kiln instead of a torch, because I was confident my investment would eventually pay off. My belief is that buying the best tools and materials will eventually be a heck of a lot less hassle then something that may break down, provides inconsistent results, or requires too much time and attention. After beginning my journey with art 20 years ago, I still have some of my first tools that will be going strong after another 40 years, so my tendency is to think long term.

I also like to multiply my potential for doing a variety of techniques, so I went with a kiln that gives me the opportunity to fire metal clay, porcelain, and glass. I did a lot of research online and spoke to different vendors to figure out what kiln was the best for me. The kilns I liked most were made by Paragon and Skutt.

After all my long research, I ended up buying a Paragon kiln because it seemed to give me the most flexibility in firing temperature, and I liked how it was built. The model I bought is called XPRESS-Q11A and has the ability to work with silver clay, bronz clay, enameling, glass fusing, porcelain, and lost wax casting.

I purchased this kiln from BigCeramicStore.com, because I think they were offering a better price and cheaper shipping. I also bought a shelf kit, which allows me to double this kiln's capacity. This came in handy during Christmas, when I was firing 60-70 charms at one time.

Safety Tools for Removing & Cooling Hot Silver

Because I need to make my charms quickly, I like to press, fire, and tumble all on the same day. This requires that I remove the charms from the kiln before they are cooled. To facilitate this process while the charms are hot, I wear welding gloves that are extremely heat resistant, jewelers tweezers to lift them out one by one, and a stainless steel pan filled with cold water to quench the charms. You can find heavy duty gloves at any local welding shop and fine tweezers at a beading store. The stainless steel pan was one of my kitchen castaways that lost its handle.

Paragon Kiln XPRESS-Q11A

Always follow your metal clay and kiln manufacturer's instructions for firing and safety precautions. I use Art Clay Silver 650 with a hold time is 10 minutes, but the whole cycle takes about 30-40 minutes to complete. I love being able to press clay in the morning and by late afternoon I have a group of silver charms. If you have ever done lost wax casting, this will blow your mind as to the simplicity and efficiency of the process.

For the full scoop on Hint Jewelry's process, be sure to check out my weekly blog series called Behind the Scenes.

Deer: Loving Kindness & Acceptance

Deer Medicine, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): fine silver deer charm

Deer Medicine holds the promise of unconditional love, gentle kindness, and gratitude in giving. A deer lives with a divine heart space, dissolving barriers and accepting all beings for who they are in every moment. Like the compassionate presence of a deer, your infinite wisdom knows exactly how to touch wounded hearts and find wholeness within.

Wear a deer and surrender to your gift of loving kindness.

Custom Stories

Hila's Story
Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): silver, apatite & iolite

I feel like I disappeared down the rabbit's hole over the last couple weeks. I've definitely been hunkered down in my studio, ignoring the blogging world, slacking on Facebook, and letting the house cleaning slide. Sometimes I feel pulled in different directions, but last week it was satisfying to get tangible work done in the form of pressing a bunch of charms and designing quite a few custom story necklaces for gorgeous women.

Each story is amazing and like a painting, these necklaces leave you guessing as to the exact nature of each woman's powerful beauty. When I put them together, it reminds me of a community patchwork quilt, where women infuse their soul into one square and when it is sewn together each one enhances all the other pieces.

Hope you enjoy the stories of these amazing women!

Dana's Story
Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): silver, apatite & aquamarine

Katherine's Story
Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): silver, apatite, lapis, turquoise, and labradorite

Esther's Story
Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): silver and peridot

Opposites Attract?

Friendship, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry):
fine silver, sterling silver, and apatite

One of the inside jokes in my marriage is that I'm as slooooooooooow as a turtle. Well of course you can guess who's the rabbit! I'm slow. I mean REEEEEEEALLY slow. So much slowness, that I'm sure I've put some people to sleep and frustrated the heck out of friends and family.

Friendship, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry):
fine silver, sterling silver, and apatite

Nevertheless, opposites do attract and being around people with lots of clever ideas and the swiftness of a rabbit help keep me balanced. That's what Friendship is all about -- celebrating our differences and appreciating how they make us grow and flourish.

Friendship, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry):
fine silver, sterling silver, and apatite

Hope you are giving your fellow opposite a hug today and enjoying the richness they add to your life!

Butterfly: Discovery & Change

Journey, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): fine silver butterfly charm

Like a tiny caterpillar transforming into a magnificent butterfly, you effortlessly change and grow. You are born completely open, trusting in your significance. Moving lightly through life, you discover an inner beauty and wisdom, knowing when to emerge and share your fragile splendor with the world.

Wear a butterfly to celebrate the discovery of your true magnificence!

Dream Animals: Robert Bissell

The Kiss, Robert Bissell

I can't think of anything to say that would add to this visual treat of Robert Bissell's dreamy animals except that I feel like he captures the world as I want to see it! These three paintings can be purchased as a print, so you may find yourself wanting to hang one on your wall :)

The Embrace II, Robert Bissell

Bathers at Dusk, Robert Bissell

Behind the Scenes: Prepping Metal Clay for the Kiln

Tools for Prepping Metal Clay for the Kiln

Before I put Hint Jewelry's metal clay charms in the kiln to be fired, I refine these beauties a little bit more with some metal files and a handy baby wipe. I bought these small metal files at a local metalsmithing and jewelry shop, but you can find them online at any store that sells jewelry making or metal clay supplies. You can use any brand of baby wipes for this process, but honestly I recommend whatever is the cheapest at your local grocery store. If the baby wipes dry out before you use them all up, don't despair. I simply refreshen a baby wipe with a tiny bit of water and squeeze out the excess dampness. It took me two years to work through one box :)

Beth's Favorite Suppliers for Jewelry Making Tools
Contenti
Rio Grande
Monsterslayer

Here's a short video clip where I demonstrate how to file and clean up Hint Jewelry's metal clay charms before I pop them into the kiln to be fired. For the full scoop on Hint Jewelry's process, be sure to check out my weekly blog series called Behind the Scenes.

Aphrodite's Shell: Love & Beauty

Aphrodite, Beth Hemmila (Hint Jewelry): fine silver shell charm

Born from the depths of a turbulent sea and carried ashore by a fragile shell, Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, illuminates the world with her radiance and nourishing beauty. Her sole purpose is to bring love into this world through sensuality and desire, transforming our bodies and souls into deeper expressions of intimacy. May you delight in her generative spirit that is like the ocean and promises renewal every time you connect with your luminous nature.

Wear this tiny shell, a small token from Aphrodite, and celebrate your true radiance!

Blog Award

A big hug to Sandra at Marbella Designs for gifting me this blog award. One of my favorite parts of visiting Marbella Designs is the blog series Wordless Wednesday. This concept reminds me of how much I enjoy the silence and calm of just looking at pictures without all the words...a coffee break for my brain cells :)

The rules of the award:

Mention the blogger that awarded this to you.
Name 5 things you love.
Choose 10 blogs to receive this award.

I love the family I've created.
I love experiencing beauty in all its shapes and forms.
I love the freshness of drinking ice cold water.
I love sitting in the moonlight.
I love snuggling in bed.

If they would be interested in participating, I pass this award on to:

Every Heart Crafts
Gaea
Geninne's Art Blog
In the Name of Art
Jewelry of Distinction
Misty Mawn
My Mane Blowing in the Wind
Nigh Bluey
Spread Your Wings
Sulu Design