The butterfly garden at the Florida Museum of Natural History

The gift shop at the Florida Museum of Natural History recently started carrying my resin scrabble tile pendants with the butterfly designs.  It's a very family friendly place here in Gainesville and I took some pictures when I was there delivering pendants last week.

When you first walk in, there's a large mammoth skeleton to greet visitors.

While the admission to the museum is free, the butterfly garden requires paid admission.  This is a full display of encased butterflies that grace the wall on the museum side of the exhibit.

The butterfly exhibit is a large enclosure.  Visitors actually get the chance to walk amongst the butterflies.  During the visits my kids and I have taken, we have had a few of the blue morpho butterflies land on us!  During the winter, warm air is pumped into the (normally) tropical exhibit.  In my opinion, the best time to go to see the butterflies at their most active is during the extreme heat and humidity of the summer.  It's like the butterflies are crazy!

There is an area on the outside of the exhibit where you can watch butterflies hatch from their cocoons.

For those who want to try to attract butterflies at home, there are almost always some "butterfly plants" for purchase.

In case you go and want to buy some of my resin scrabble tile pendants, they are in a basket by the cash register.  If you don't see them, I'm sure one of the friendly staff will be happy to help.

Uptown art hop, a festive shopping experience

Just in case I missed seeing you this past Friday night, I thought I would share some pictures from the Uptown Art Hop.  The art hop is a collection of art related businesses in the 2400 block of northwest 43rd street in Gainesville, Florida, that open their doors once every three months or so for a night or arts and entertainment.  I demonstrated some of my resin jewelry making techniques at Gifts of Avalon (also the same place where I teach classes). 

I took an assortment of the sterling silver and resin jewelry pieces to show.

I also had an assortment of the scrabble tile resin pendants.

This was the first time I also had the acrylic earrings with handmade papers on display.  The price point made them appealing for gifts.

One of the shop owners, Rhonda Bergman, was at the store that night.  The other store owner, Trude Spillane, was in travels to a bead show.

There was a modest assortment of refreshments.

I took some of my molds and resin jewelry pieces in progress to talk about.  I didn't pour resin, but did talk to some people about the specifics of working with it.

Did I mention there was a reggae band?  They played live music just outside the front door during the event.  It made the evening quite festive.


I actually have to share with you that I kicked myself hard when I got to Gifts of Avalon that night because I meant to take my video camera to get a soundtrack for the evening.  Drat!

Forged metal earrings jewelry making class pictures

I taught another jewelry making class this week. It was a new class, but I had the fortune of having 5 of the 6 students as part of my regular, repeat student group. It was a really great class. Not so much because they made great jewelry (which they did), but because we laughed ourselves silly for most of the night. (Come to my next class and you'll meet which ones have concealed weapons licenses.)

Anyway, their creativity astounds me! This is just some random pictures of what went on in class.

Kathy's (there were two in the class) earrings hanging out on the class instruction page.

Judy is pounding out her earrings.














A lot of making these earrings was working them by hand.













Kathy is working her earrings by hand too.













Diana was the only newbie to my class (she's in the blue shirt).  I actually have known her for awhile.  It was good to have her in class.











Diana's getting a nice open "flower" on her copper pieces.












These were Chris' finished earrings.  They look so cool with the pearls hanging in the center.  (Why didn't I think of that??)











Earrings in waiting......  waiting for their pearls that is.












This is Claudia using a propane torch.  To make these earrings, you had to anneal the metal several times.  She was a bit worried about using "fire", but I explained a healthy fear of the torch is good.  Keeps you from doing something stupid.














The other Kathy made several pairs of copper earwires to share with her classmates.












More flowers waiting to be finished.














A little more hand work by Claudia.












It was a great evening and they already have me working on the next class.  I won't be teaching in December, but I will have something ready to go in January.

Setting up an art show booth

I spent this past Friday afternoon getting ready to sell jewelry at the Gainesville Downtown Festival and Art show. I thought it would be fun to share with blog readers just how an art show booth comes to fruition.

This is the stack of my tent pieces and display boxes.  The tent poles are on the shelf on the top part of the picture.  The wooden boxes in the bottom  part of the picture will serve as display pieces. 

This is our '98 Ford Explorer loaded down with the art show tent and associated materials.  The front passenger seat is also full.  There is only room for the driver (barely).

This is my booth space.  When you set up at an art show, all you get is a space.  The show management doesn't provide you with anything to show your work.  (and yes, it was dark when we got started).

This is the top part of the tent.  In the next step, a canopy was placed over the top and hooked to the frame.

The top has been lifted with polls and hubby is busy putting up the sides of the tent.

The sides are up and the brown boxes have been set up.  We're now in the process of setting up the glass boxes on top of the wooden cases.

This is what the finished booth looks like.  Notice there are also red drapes on the front and a banner hanging from the back.  The jewelry is also in the cases.









It takes about 2 hours to set up the entire booth, with the jewelry, and about an hour and a half to break everything down.

My visit to McIntyre Stained Glass Studio and Art Gallery.

One of the art galleries that sells my jewelry locally is McIntyre Stained Glass Studio and Art Gallery.  I have known artists and owners Mike and Mary McIntyre for several years.  They are very talented in of themselves and are great to work with from an artist's standpoint.  I dropped off some new jewelry the other day and thought I would take a few pictures while I was there to share with blog readers.

Their space is divided into two areas.  The back half of the store is their studio space.  This is where they cut and assemble their stained glass pieces.

I am always impressed with how organized and clean their studio space is.  Their glass pieces are always organized and they have everything within easy reach.

I have never taken a stained glass making class, but can appreciate the work that goes into creating a piece.  This is one of their commissions in progress.

The front half of the store is the gallery space.  They pride themselves with only displaying and selling art from local artists.










My youngest son happened to be with me as I was making my jewelry delivery.  Much to my amazement, he was not interested at all in touching anything.  Phew!

While it's a small store space, everything is displayed very tastefully.  Shoppers should not have the feeling of being overwhelmed with all the art.

These are some of my new scrabble tile resin pendants in their display case. 

I try to have a varied jewelry assortment there so patrons looking for a unique jewelry gift can have a variety to pick from.











Of course they have their own finished stained glass pieces as well.  They also have an assortment of sizes and styles of stained glass available.











Their shop is open six days a week and other times by appointment.  They are also a regular participant of the Uptown Art Hop.

For anyone interested in stained glass making classes, they do teach from their studio.  I don't know the specifics, but Mike and Mary will be happy to help you get registered.

The view from my art jewelry office

So I thought it might be fun to show you what my office looks like. My office is a separate room inside my house. I would one day LOVE for it to be in my studio, but alas...another day. I'm not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination. I use a lot of "piles" to organize, but am slowly switching over to using file folders and organizing racks. Perhaps I can get some help in this someday. This is my computer desk complete with laser printer to the left. I use the printer to print out the images for some of my resin pieces. The laser printer was so much more expensive, but I am so much happier with the print quality.

I've had to expand to buy a couple of shelving units to store jewelry making materials.  Before making resin jewelry, I always kept everything I could in my art studio.  Since resin can be a bit fussy about the weather, I keep a lot of those materials indoors.  The picture at left shows a hodge podge of papers and materials.  If you look closely at the 4th shelf down on the right, I've actually got resin jewelry pieces curing under the plastic container "domes".










This shelving unit contains gift boxes and packaging materials.  You can see the 3rd and 4th shelves down contain packing envelopes and boxes complete with a postal scale.














A closeup of some of the scrabble tile pendants in process.

More digital art papers waiting to be applied to scrabble tiles.  I keep them inside as well since I can keep the dust down in my office better than in my studio.









I promise one of these days to get my studio cleaned up enough for a tour there as well.  *smile*

Metal jewelry making class examples

I teach a jewelry making class at Gifts of Avalon, Gainesville, Florida, once monthly. My students are always pushing me to come up with new class ideas. For my class on October 4, I am showing students how to create a crimped pattern in both metal sheet and wire. The class examples are shown here.

No experience is necessary to take these classes.  Students only to need to pay the class fee.  A materials allowance is included with the class registration.










I teach students how to use the equipment we need for the project.  The store generally offers a discount to equipment purchases made on the day of the class.









I teach classes that don't require a torch.  There is so much to jewelry making that students can do without needing to use heat.












I also like to teach short, evening classes.  I think students have the best attention span that way and tend to get less frustrated.













Is there something you would like to see me teach?  I'm always open for suggestions.