Trellis for our roses

I love the spring time and all the flowers and plants that start to appear. We have this crazy rose bush in our yard that was there when we bought the house. We decided to move it against the side of the garage we built last summer so we could give it something to climb up.

We decided to make it out of copper and have it look like a vine growing up the side of the garage. We are still working out how to attach the copper tubing to itself so it is strong and can hold the roses in place. Since it was raining so much yesterday we started making the leaves. We started out with blanks I cut out of sheets of copper. I annealed them so we could fold and shape them into more realistic looking leaves. Here are the leaves we worked on. Now we just have to attach them to the tubing.

We needed wire to also attach the leaves and make little tendrils on the vine. Our house was (and still is) a fixer-upper and one of our projects was to renovate the kitchen. That left me with alot of wire to make jewelry out of. The only difficult part was that it all had to be stripped first. That wouldn't be so difficult if it didn't have the metal covering all the wires that also needed to be removed. I have gotten pretty good at striping the wire by attaching it to an old vice that use to belong to my dad.

Quite a bit more work needed on the trellis, I will post more as we work on it. Off to work on a necklace for a gift.

fun found objects

My mom brought these to me yesterday. She said she found them while she was cleaning out the drawers a cabinet that was behind my dad's old desk. They are glass enameled copper pieces that someone must have made in a class. I have no idea if my dad made these or if he got them from my grandmothers house when we cleaned it out many years ago. I really wonder who made them and where they originally came from. I think it is great that someone in my family was interested in making the same things I am. They are so cool and I can't wait to make some great pieces of jewelry or art from them. I will post later pictures of what I make with them.

Welcome

Today I turned 35 so I decided to spend more time doing what I love, creating small pieces of art and jewelry. It is never too late to do what you love and share it with others. I don't know how many people will read my blog but I will have fun writing and creating. I welcome any ideas you have or changes you think I should make.