Lisa

  • LPDstudios- Family Love Trinkets - Sharks Tooth Necklaces

    LPDstudios- Family Love Trinkets - Sharks Tooth Necklaces
    Sharks Tooth with Love Trinkets
    Recently I received an unexpected email from California, a request for two custom necklaces. Through a google search they had come across my sharks tooth necklaces that I had made for a previous customer.  My clients stories of travel, the sharks dive, tradition, and family was so beautiful,  I couldn't pass up the opportunity to put all those ideas of love into one place.   Not only did they want a charm for the teeth but they requested several other love trinkets to appear with it, the coordinates where the sharks teeth where found and a compass rose.  The compass rose was their family tradition of always finding there way home.       
    I decided to create my compass rose charm out of fine silver metal clay.  I love this product, its a finely ground powder of fine silver mixed with a binder.  The end product is a material like clay or "play-doh", which is easily manipulated to create many shapes that can be built and layered.  After all my shapes where created, I then combined the triangles and circles to create the compass rose.  The challenge was to create two charms that where the similar.  After the shapes are "bone" dry, they are put into a high temperature kiln, burning off the binder and leaving solid fine silver behind.   
    metal stamps for lettering
    To make the coordinate charms I used stainless steel letters designed for jewelry making.  Each letter is hand stamped with a brass mallet onto sterling silver creating the mark.  I made vertical charms for the longitude coordinates and horizontal charms for the latitude coordinates.  Your always going to have a few mess ups with this step, so its good to practice several times beforehand.  
    The coordinates are trimmed, sanded then polished to create the charm. 
    Attaching the Bail to the Sharks Tooth
    To attach the bail onto the sharks tooth, I must create a hole.  I pull out my secret weapon, my husband.  He is a dentist so I leave this step up to him, he never fails and is always precise.  
    Love Trinkets
    For the final pieces I used liver of sulfur to blacken the charms, bringing out the letters and textures.  A beautiful end result for a beautiful story. 
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  • LPDstudios - Extra Endeavors - Girl Scout Badge

    LPDstudios - Extra Endeavors - Girl Scout Badge

    Recently, I was invited by my friend Payton to help her Girl Scout Troop earn their jewelry badge.  I am not your typical jewelry artist and decided to teach them the art of stamping leather.  These girls where very serious.  After discussing what types of jewelry there are and the many different materials it's made of.  We got to work.  First teaching them the basic skills of working in leather, then letting them go, unrestrained, to create their amazing piece of jewelry.  Take a look for yourself what these young ladies accomplished.  

    Girl Scout Badge Workshop

    The End Results

    My friend Payton

    My friend Payton enjoying her S'more this summer at Hershey Chocolate World.

     

     

     

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  • LPDstudios Blog - Inspiration - Niagara Falls Canada

    LPDstudios Blog - Inspiration - Niagara Falls Canada
    Lisa at Niagara Falls Canada
    Summer has officially arrived and my time in the studio has come to a screeching halt.  Because of this, I was able to take a road trip to Niagara Falls Canada.  The falls are just incredibly amazing, I just could not take my eyes off them. They where so dazzling, inspiring, beautiful......and wet.  There are just not enough adjectives to describe these wondrous icons.  
    Niagara Falls Canada
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