Spring Garden

Our family spent the entire day last Saturday planting flowers and vegetables. We moved 3 truck loads of compost to till into our dirt. We planted a bunch of bulbs, filled flower pots and a vegetable garden. We spent the entire day in the sun until it was completely done. It felt rewarding to accomplish so much. These are close-ups Dan shot of our existing flowers. I'm glad we all work so well together.


The overgrown herb garden needed an overhaul so we started new plants including a lemon balm and lemon mint plant. I love herb teas and the fresh leaves can be steeped in hot water to make a hot tea or chilled down for ice tea. Rachel is watering the new mint plant and David is planting chili peppers. We built cement block boxes to contain our plants and grow enough produce to eat from our garden all summer long.

23rd Anniversary in Capitol Reef

On May 1 Dan and I celebrated our 23 wedding anniversary. We decided to go away somewhere local in Utah with no certain plans. We ended up in a breathtaking place, Capitol Reef, located in central Utah. I can’t believe we live close to so many notorious locations in Utah and have never bothered to visit! We drove through a quaint little town called Torrey, UT which had some cool galleries, including a “farm girl” style craft shop, a coffee-candy shop and small mom and pop cafes. It was a treat to spend the day driving through.

We stopped at one tourist destination called “The Gifford House” which is an old homestead. They were demontrating pie making, rag rugs and quilting. Dan enjoyed the rhubard pie and then we walked up the cliffs overlooking the homestead. It was a day without computers, cell phones or TV, a much needed break .
For dinner we drove south to a restaurant in Boulder, UT called “Hells Backbone Grill”. I had pecan crusted trout and Dan had Lamb. We ate chocolate desserts to end a perfect weekend and then headed home to face a hectic week.

Metal Clay Class 101

Tonight I promised the attendees from the craftcast metal clay101 class that I would post a picture of Michelle’s ring. She made this ring without a mandrel and used only a needle tool to write script in the wet clay. It is very tiny, like a pinky ring.



I etched this brass cuff bracelet this weekend. I used a pen to draw freehand on the brass and then etched it with the E3 Etch controller. I want to make more of these, if only there were more hours in the day.


Here is another view of the etched bracelet.

Etching on Metal, going green

Last summer my husband Dan, who is an electrical engineer, observed that many of the bead shows I was teaching at featured metal etching classes. He was surprised to see that all of them were using ferric chloride as a way to chemically etch the metal to create the jewelry pieces. He said, “Why are they still doing it that way?” In recent years this chemical has been harder to come by, it cannot be shipped and is hazardous to dispose of. After some research he decided to experiment with electrical etching (which by the way dates back to the late 1700′s) however, combined with new technology he discovered a better way to accomplish electrical etching. Dan designed a micro-controller, which is a small brain that regulates the voltage to constantly adjust which in turn allows one to safely etch in a predictable fashion.

After countless hours of experimentation and programming, Dan finally came up with a design he was satisfied with. We decided to patent and market this product as a tool that would allow craftspeople to etch on copper, brass, nickel silver or even bronze and copper clay without having to deal with methods that were more problematic. The best part is that it is Green! With today’s emphasis on using products that do not harm the environment, this meets the criteria. With this product, the etching solution can be re-used indefinitely so you never have to think about buying etching supplies other than what you plan to etch on. Or if you decide to dispose of the solution, you simply flush it down the drain (it’s meant to be used this way to keep pipes free of tap roots).

So nine months later, we are starting to sell these from my webstore, which by the way has a new format.

We are pretty anxious to see what bench jewelers and jewelry artists come up with using this product. I was super excited to use it on metal clay, thanks to a suggestion by Kathleen Davis. We are also able to use it for silver etching as well as ectroforming and electroplating. For silver etching, a different etching solution must be used. We are in the process of developing the correct ratio and method for etching on silver. My good friend Cassy Muronaka has been very supportive with ideas and promoting this product, I can’t wait to see how she uses it in her work.