Starting to make Mixed Metal Jewelry in 2017

 I've taken some time off from making jewelry since our last fair of 2016 in Chico. It's sometimes good to take a break, it lets me begin the next phase of jewel making with a fresh mind and new ideas. Making new styles and playing with new ideas is what keeps jewelry making interesting to me after 50 years of doing it. These two collages of images are ones that I put together at the end of last year but we still have most of these pieces.

In my move to become more semi retired, I reduce my weekly quota of hours devoted to any aspect of the jewelry business by two hours each year. I started this in 2015 and the quota for that year was 20 hours a week. I ended up actually working about 23-24 hours. I must confess to being somewhat of an obsessive record keeper and keep track of every minute of work time. This past year my weekly quota was 18 hours a week and I just last night added things up and discovered that I actually did 19.6. That's progress. This year my quota is 16 hours a week. As you can see, it goes down 2 hours a year. I know it's crazy but it works

for me. We are also doing fewer shows each year and are analyzing which will be our next show to drop from our schedule. We will put our known schedule on the blog pretty soon. It's nice to have a few months off from shows now to have time to play and be more creative, take vacations, and sometimes do nothing which is by far the most challenging thing for me.

This year I'm planning to find a way to incorporate well shaped little beach stones into some jewelry pieces, collect and shape and polish more abalone pieces from the beaches around Mendocino and start using up more of the 50 year collection of gemstones that I have accumulated. I hope also to work on new designs featuring creatures of various kinds. Top of my list is to make a great many
bracelets this year, I have sold out of them at several fairs this years so that is sign I should make more.

I hope to see you at one of our shows this year. I'll be posting pictures here on the blog periodically as new items get finished, if anything interests you, send me an email at jica@mcn.org  and I'd be happy to tell you more about it. I've sold an increasing number of jewels
like that in the last few years. HAVE A VERY HAPPY AND HEALTHY 2017.