Author: Jewel Envy

So many winners to announce!!!!

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Last week was a busy week at Jewel Envy! We wrapped up our In Studio Wedding Band Competition with a social all about rings. Best Ring on the Hand was juried at the social. And finally we drew the winning names for a free class from the 250 plus entries in our wedding band competition.

I would like to say congratulations to everyone that made something, wore something, or even just showed up! Our events and competitions are successful because of your participation so thank you for taking an interest in what we do at Jewel Envy.


Now to unveil winners…

The winner of the In Studio Wedding Band Competition is Lauren Hanham of Lauren Hanham Jewellery Designs for Chrysanthemum Reflections. Her design received the most votes and now she gets to brag about it to everyone!

It really was a tight race and second place is tied by Alexis Kostuk of Glacial for Leaves 

with Carolyn Cathcart of Cathcart Designs for Layers.

Excellent work everyone! It seems we may need to bring back a little more friendly competition and try this again with a different theme. Stay tuned for details on the next one.

Have a look at the blog entry for the competition to see who made what as we have now added names under the images.

As a thank you for voting in the competition all entrants names were put in a random draw for a free half day class. Congratulations to Deborah and Christine. We hope you enjoy your pendant class with us this coming weekend!

Next up we have our winners from the jewellery social. Everyone that attended the party was encouraged to wear their favorite ring and all rings were judged to choose the “Best Ring on the Hand”. Thank you to Mary McIntrye and Charles Funnel, Metal Arts Guild of Canada board members, for choosing our winners.

There were no places, just three awesome rings awarded prizes based on who would benefit from the use of each prize.

Congratualtions to Sarahjane Lynch for “Four Seasons”. Sarahjane has just moved to Toronto from Ireland and we thought she would benefit from a free day of studio use so she could get back to working at a bench! Her tools are en route from Ireland but we look forward to seeing what she makes while here.

Jay Joo won for his ring “Hex”. Jay is a current resident at Harbourfront Center which is a fairly well equipped studio. The only thing they are really missing is casting so lucky for Jay his award is for studio use which he can use to do his own casting. You might wonder why casting yourself is such a perk. For those who wonder, it is because you can use all of your own scrap metal and control the process for better results.

Our very own Amanda Henderson is the final winner. When I was discussing the prizes with the jurors I said to exclude the jewellers at Jewel Envy. Their response was, we don’t even know who they are….so we thought it was ok to include them instead of singling them out. Amanda won for her ring “Love/Hate” and will receive a one year membership to the Metal Arts Guild of Canada.

Well done jewellers at Jewel Envy and beyond! Stay tuned for more exciting events this winter.

Molding the future

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING ERRBODY!!
In between mouthfuls of turkey and stuffing, I’m sure you have been wondering how molds are made.  I know, I also have molds on the brain.  Which is why I’m going to give you a small glimpse into this very exciting technique.  So get ready to learn!


 These are the basic tools that I use to create a mold.  I use a silicon rubber that is flexible like play-doh and green like slime.  The mold frame is sized to accommodate my piece with extra space all
around, and I also use a separating cream that works really well to
minimize the cutting I have to do.
 This is the test subject, a ring that I carved in wax and cast into sterling silver.

This is one-half of the mold.  I cut slices of the silicon rubber, and pack it into the frame.  I also use brass locks, which ensure that both sides of the mold fit together perfectly once they’re cut apart.

 This is the vulcanizer.  It uses heat and pressure to harden and solidify the silicon rubber.  It takes about 15 minutes per layer..  In this case, there are three layers of silicon rubber so this mold took 45 minutes to vulcanize.



Once it’s done vulcanizing, I use my fingers and a sharp scalpel to cut the mold open.  This mold is certainly not winning any beauty pageants, but it gets the job done.



This is the wax injector, which sits prettily next to the vulcanizer.  It uses the pressure from an accompanying air compressor to shoot hot wax into the mold.  Every mold is different, and it takes a bit of experimenting to figure out the correct pressure and angles to get good wax pieces.

 And voila, here is a successful wax piece.  It should be an exact replica of the original master model.  Now I am ready for hours and hours of wax-pulling and casting fun!  After the turkey of course.  And the stuffing, and the potatoes, and the squash…

Gobble gobble y’all!


Hot fall!

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It might be getting cool outside, but it is hot here at Jewel Envy!
This month we have our jewellery social- Oct 11 from 5pm to 10pm. Come have a drink and talk jewels.
We have a whole new line up of classes, including a new ornament workshop- make an ornament as a gift!
And coming soon- our spread in a Canadian Fashion magazine.

Come on in and warm up this fall with Jewel Envy.

More New Work

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Drop in to take a peak at our newest addition of work by the goldsmith Carolyn Cathcart!

Carolyn’e creations are a combination of laser cut wood along with sterling silver components.
Carolyn’s piece can easily be worn as casual everyday pieces or for those special nights when you want to dress up for a night on the town.
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Rainy Day Jewellery 

On this lovely rainy day I walked over to the studio in my little black rubber boots splishing and splashing in the puddles. It got me to thinking what types of jewellery remind me of the rain. I pulled out a small selection of jewellery items that remind me of rain and rain drops to share with everyone reading. I hope you enjoy them.
The artists featured going clockwise from the top left:
 Fatima Tataragic, Sasha Oda, Gillian E. Batcher, Amber Thomas-Penchoff, and Alexis Kostuk.

Introducing: Carolyn Cathcart of Cathcart Designs

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Surrounded by my peers, I’m in the one in the middle.

            Well hello there. I am Carolyn Cathcart, newest goldsmith/designer/maker at Jewel Envy and I thought it was high time I introduce myself. I am a fresh graduate from the wonderfully challenging Jewellery Arts program at George Brown College, which was a life changing 3 years to say the least.

             While I was a student I really enjoyed working with alternative materials and it is a passion that has carried well into my shiny new career. The earrings below were the pieces I submitted to and subsequently won the Pat Cooney – Ontario Crafts Council Award for Production Manufacture.

                       Only in my third month at 151 Marion St and I already feel at home. Whether it is all the friendly faces or the bright blue hues of the workspace, Jewel Envy is a great place to be. Alot of owrk is on the way, including getting my nearly completed logo up on the website. Stay tuned!

-Carolyn
Cathcart Designs

Official Launch to the Wedding Band Competition

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Voting is now open for our first in house design competition. Go to the page on the right side of this blog and click on “In Studio Wedding Band Competition” to view the entries. You can then vote online or send us an email with your vote. If you are in the neighborhood stop in to vote in person. Only one vote per person please!

Enjoy the online exhibition and we welcome your comments.

Gillian

The Circle of Life

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I think we can all agree that Mufasa pretty much covered the circle of life, for lions and hyenas everywhere.  If you happen to be a goldsmith, the circle of life is a little different.  Luckily, I am here to impart some wisdom.
Here is me imparting wisdom:
The circle of life, for the sterling silver in my toolbox, begins as trial and error in wax carving.  Here are some early attempts at carving balls:  
Once I have a satisfactory wax carving, I use sterling silver casting grain to cast the ball into metal.
Surprisingly enough, I am not perfect, and when trying something completely new it can take a few attempts before I am happy with the results.  Here is my ball graveyard, where bad balls go to die:
Thankfully, the trial and error period does not last forever.  Below, success!
All the old sterling silver gets recycled, because recycling is part of the process.  In this case, I raided the ol’ ball graveyard.   The bad balls visited the chop shop (er, metal shears), and now have a brand new purpose in life as casting grain.
In fact I am casting tonight, and this casting grain will actually become two sets of weddings bands and a pair of earrings.  
And that, my friends, is the sterling silver circle of life, goldsmith edition.  Hakuna Matata!

Back in the Saddle

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Holy tripoli, it’s been a long time!
After almost 8 weeks recovering from a fractured arm bone I am back in the studio working. Just in time too! Not only is fall my favourite fashion season, there’s a wedding ring competition happening in the studio to help whip me back into shape.
Even though I couldn’t work this summer, I still had my fair share of adventure between cottages, weddings, family reunions, Niagara Falls, and a camping trip in Long Point Provincial Park for the last week of August. Jewellery, however, was always still in the back of my mind. While in Port Colborne I collected some fish bones that I thought might be a great jumping off point for a fall collection. Don’t worry, I don’t intend to use the actual bones…they’re kind of smelly.

Today is not so nice outside but I still feel like there’s a couple nice days left before it starts to get cold. I went for a walk through High Park and then down to the beach on Tuesday and there were people still sun bathing!
The city has drained the pools, but I’m not packing away my sandals just yet.
-Lauren

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