A Cremation Pendant, Edmund Skellings Florida's Poet Laureate. Part 1

This may sound a bit strange to some but I have recently been asked to design and make another cremation pendant and I am really looking forward to it.

The customer, a good friend for many years of 

Edmund Skellings, Florida's Poet Laureate.

I have not received the cremains as yet but he will be with me soon, I'm sure. 

So this is probably blog post 1 of 2 post I will be doing.  The second post will be a much fuller story of the making and creation of a unique cremation pendant.

Here I have tried to condense his life into a few lines. Because if I list all in detail I might be writing for quite a few weeks.

Edmund Skellings

born March 12th 1932 in Ludlow, Massachusetts.

http://research.fit.edu/edmundskellings/

Listen to the voice and watch the graphics, rather beautiful I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-cUIsF98Uk

Edmund recorded his first book in 1962 (the year I was born) called Duels and Duets and by the late 60's he had come up with his own way of poetry. 

An Electronic Poet.

By the late 70's he had bought his first computer and and had patents for many computer programs.

Computers became a very large part of his life, this ran side by side with his poetry. Spoken word supporting electronic word and Visa verse.

In 1980, he was given a lifetime  Honor of  

Poet Laureate for Florida against a competition of 400 other poets.

I think at this point I am just going to list his major achievements. As any life story, no matter how condensed is very complicated with lots of date and happenings.

Poetry.

1962 The Comma Cat

1962 Duels and Duets

1963 The marriage Fire

1965 Heart Attacks

1977 Face Value

1978 Showing my Age

1987 Living Proof

1998 Collection Poems

Recordings.

1961 Duels and Duets

1963 The Marriage Fire

1973 Ultra-Red

1977 Nearly the Millennium

1997 Selected Poems

2002 Words Songs

I would love to expand on all these recordings and poems, write more about his life but this is just a short post to give you an idea of what Edmund accomplished in his life.

Look out for part two of this story of Edmund's Cremation Pendant.

RIP Edmund Skellings August 19th 2012

Thanks you reading

Steve

Christmas Craft Fair at Roots Farm Shop and Cafe.

WOW, what a great day had by all at Roots Farm Shop and Cafe. It was the day before St Jude struck the South of the country and the wind was already picking up.

That didn't stop the crowds coming out to support this great event. They started coming in about 9:50am and didn't really stop until about 3:30pm.

The tables were a bit cramped in and at one point I saw my lovely partner Sue of 

Inspired by Script 

crawl under the table to get out from behind our stall.

Like I said, loads of people buying lovely hand crafted goods for the festive season.

As usual, here are a few pictures of our stall, smaller tables than usual but we managed,

just.....

Thank you also goes out to Anne of Roots Farm Shop and Cafe for her organisational skills, customers and friends that turned up.

Music themed fashion pendant jewellery

Here is one of the latest musically themed pendant I have designed and made.

It measures about 1"1/2" x 3/4" (plus the silver plated bail).

Made from dichroic glass, fired in the kiln and hand finished.

Yours for only £15 plus £2 p&p

To order please contact me via email at

stevesmithjewellery@yahoo.co.uk

Like and see other designs on Facebook:

www.facebook.com/SteveSmithJewellery

or see my website at:

www.stevesmithjewellery.co.uk

New Butterfly design Pendant

A new pendant design straight from the studio.

A gorgeous dichroic glass pendant with beautiful butterfly image fired into the glass.

Yours for only £15 plus £2 p&p

To order please contact me via email at

stevesmithjewellery@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks for stopping by and having a look

Steve

The mysterious Cat Pendant. Fashion jewellery.

Just a short post this time. Here is the latest in the Catitude range of pendants.

This fashion pendant measures approximately 1"1/2" plus the bail.

£15 plus £2 p&p UK delivery.

Can be postage worldwide, please ask.

To order, contact me via email at 

stevesmithjewellery@yahoo.co.uk

To see more designs have a look at my website:

stevesmithjewellery.co.uk

or like my Facebook page at:

facebook.com/stevesmithjewellery

Thanks for stopping by

Steve :o)

A short story! The Making of Dichroic Glass Hair Barrettes.

OK!

Here goes.......

A short story of how I make Dichroic Glass Hair Barrettes.

First things first, pick a selection of different coloured dichroic glass sheets and cut into 5/16" x 2"3/8" pieces. Then cut matching Tekta glass to make the pieces thick enough for the fusing process.

Set all the pieces out on a kiln washed firing tile. Yes, nicely regimented and possibly a bit OCD at this point.

Then, carefully place in the cool kiln, making sure no pieces of glass has slipped. This final check of the unfused glass is is very important as once the temperature starts rising in the kiln, it's a bit late to be sticking your hands in to adjust something you have just spotted. Trust me, I know from experience LOL. As you can see from the first picture of the closed kiln, it was a warm day as the ambient temperature was 17 degree centigrade.

These two pictures show the kiln at full fusing temperature. After the holding time the door was opened very slightly to crash cool the glass to about 370 degrees centigrade. Then closed again to anneal for about 20 minutes. The door was then opened again, very slightly as I did not want any temperature shock to shatter the glass and left to cool to room temperature.

Once the kiln had cooled. The glass could be seen in all it's sparkling glory.

Now!

These long thin dichroic glass cabochon are to be glued onto these convex hair clips.

And what you see in the kiln are very flat cabochons.

  How to bend glass very simply.

I have a small square of copper, about 4" square which I curve to the same curvature as the hair clips. 

Not sure if it's necessary but I then apply 5 coats of kiln wash, drying each coat before then next one is applied. I added this kiln wash as I really don't want these cabochon stuck to anything.

A very strong coffee was introduced at this point to steady my hands. With steady hands I laid the flat cabochons on the former and placed them in the kiln for the slumping process.

Out of the kiln they came slumped nicely into the convex shape that I needed for these hair barrettes.

Whilst I was waiting for the kiln to finish I managed to glue a few pairs of Bobbin Hair clips as well. I know what you thinking, a man multi-tasking. 

What can I say, I'm a new man. LOL 

And here you are. Slumped cabochons glued onto the hair clips with E6000 glue and all lined up drying. I have to wait about 48 hours for this glue to set fully so these will be on display cards and ready for selling in a few days

If you would like to see other designs then click on my website link.

www.stevesmithjewellery.co.uk

The very latest designs are usually place of Facebook first as this is the quickest.

Facebook page.

Thanks for taking time out to read my latest blog post and hope you visit again.

Steve :o)

Entwined Tree of Life Pendant. NOW SOLD.

The concept of the tree of life has been used in

science, religion, philosophy and mythology.

It's a common motif in various theologies, mythologies and philosophies.

Alluding to the interactions of all life in many culture.

A sacred tree, adored by many and ever lasting in the thoughts of

people throughout the world.

I love make all my jewellery

but the one that really floats my boat is the

Tree of Life Pendants.

I find this such a powerful symbol and when two are entwined it's even better.

This pendant was made using top quality green glass and the image fired into the

surface of the pendant. The symbology carried this colour glass really well, in my opinion.

To order (£15 plus £2 p&p)   Now sold. please contact me via email at

stevesmithjewellery@yahoo.co.uk

or visit and like my page on Facebook at

www.facebook.com/stevesmithjewellery

Thanks for stopping by

Steve

Solid Silver new design hand crafted jewellery.

OK. What does a jewellery maker do when confronted with a Silver chain, bail, strip of oval silver, silver solder and a gas torch ow yes and some dichroic glass. 

Well that's easy. 

First of all, I bent the silver strip into a ring shape and soldered the ends together using the great little blow torch bought from Sainsburys. Cleaned this up by hand with very fine grit emery paper (i think it was 1000 grit) then got the solid silver bail and dichroic glass cabochon and glued, using E6000 glue, all three pieces together. Hung on a 16 inch silver chain and 

VOILA!!!

here's the finished jewellery. 

Not my normal design so pricing was a bit tricky. 

Tacking into account the amount of silver and the dichroic glass I came up with a price of 

£35 plus £5 p&p.

If you would like to order this truly unique piece then please contact me via email at stevesmithjewellery@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks for stopping by and having a read and hope you come back soon.

Steve :-)

Unique Fashion Christmas Tree Pendant.

OK! I know if feels like ages away but people have asked for Festive seasonal jewellery. Never doing Festive jewellery before, I thought. I'll give it a go then. 

What is one of the most iconic images? 

The first thing I thought of was, yes you guessed it, 

a Christmas Tree.

And there you go. A couple of Christmas Tree fashion Pendants. To order these at £15 each plus £2 p&p please contact me via email at:

stevesmithjewellery@yahoo.co.uk

See other designs at:

www.stevesmithjewellery.co.uk

or

www.facebook.com/stevesmithjewellery