Mt Shasta and Converting a Thread Holder into an Earring Display

Grandma and I took a trip up to Mt. Shasta over Memorial Day weekend.

We were at a conference from about 9am until 10pm each day so the only day we had to go up to the mountain itself was Monday, right before we drive back home. I decided to take photo of the mountain in the distance as viewed from town on Friday. It’s so lovely.



Glad I got THAT photo because on Monday the mountain was shrouded in mist.



So we drove up through the fog as far as we could (they close different gates along the way, depending where the snow is), then we got out and walked for a bit. Neither one of us wanted our photo taken, but I had the phone. Ha ha ha!



Saw some cool things along the way. Stacked rocks…



Rocks that look like Army camouflage…



Couldn’t help humming Misty Mountain Hop while driving back down the mountain. It was so lovely.





Here’s a photo I found while I was looking for something else today. This is super old. That’s my mom and my brother in the photo. My brother is 47 now so the photo is almost 40 years old. It was taken at the Vortex (aka “Mystery Spot”) in Santa Cruz, California.



Anyway, I just thought it was funny that this photo has weird blue lightning-like streaks on it.

And now onto work. Metal clay specifically. After many firing sessions that came out looking like I was firing too high, I began to test the temp much lower, working my way UP rather than down.

I’m rethinking this now. Instead of firing as low as I can,,, only making sure the metal has sintered, I’m going to go back to working my way down and firing as high as I can… without signs of over-firing.

Metal clay will always be strongest at its highest firing temp.

I fired a test piece of Steel XT today at 1750 and it came out perfectly. I even hammered it a bit (it was out of shape through no fault of the firing) afterward and didn’t crack or split.

BTW, I don’t do shows, so I have virtually nothing as far as displays go. A few days before we left I found this thread holder at a garage sale for $5.



I cleaned it up and painted it black. Forgive the terrible “after” photo. To say the corner I was in was dimly lit would be an understatement and this was the best my phone could do.



It was just too perfect that the only hole punch I had on me made the perfect size hole for my cards to hang on the spool holders.

Uniformity of Earring Photos

Yes, I have been busy. Unfortunately, I don’t have much to show for that yet. As part of my accreditation course, I’m doing a lot of experimenting with metal clay.

Oh, and some of you were wondering about the “gradient paper” experiment I was talking about. Well, I ended up not doing what I had planned, which was to spray something on the gradient paper to make it more durable. That experiment is postponed for now. In the mean time, I printed out a couple different SIZED gradient backgrounds… smaller ones for earrings, etc.

I decided to try for a bit of uniformity of look with my photographing. Here is my earring section in Etsy after working for a more uniform feel to my photos.

I'd like to thank Alex and Katherine for giving me perspective once I'd lost it all.