More soldering taking place this week.
I have 14 pendants left in progress; I chose these 7 to try and complete today.
Today is all about soldering. I am playing catch-up on some pendant and bracelet orders and also making a few new pieces that will go into my Etsy shop.
rough bezel settings for several pendants and a tiny pair of earrings. 
I soldered them yesterday, today I trim the excess, file and shape and add the bails. 
More photos tomorrow!
With some quiet in the house for a few hours, I've finally been able to get back in gear with my jewelry- the first two pieces I made are pendants using a client's own seashells from her collection
Settings complete
Ready for dry fitting
After a good polishing we have the pecten shell pendant
and the olive shell pendant
Nice to feel productive again!
Not the greatest photo, but today's jewelry projects are done and are now polishing away. Tomorrow they will be shiny and lovely and on their way to their new homes!
Note the one remaining fingernail on my left pinkie. At the beginning of this latest stint of work, I actually had ten long, lovely nails all naturally my own. 
And they grey? That's silver particles ground into my skin that won't go away for a few more days. Even with scrubbing. Oh and the tear on my thumbnail. Yea, that's gonna hurt.
The rest of this gross skin is all filing and sanding related. It's hard to have metal files and sandpaper run across your fingers for hours and still have Palmolive smooth hands. Ooooh, that little wound on my index finger was especially fun. I ran a metal file ran right across it and took the skin clean off. What? TMI?
Finally done with the hard work, now a long hot soak and some major nail brush action and maybe just maybe I won't have fugly man hands in the morning. But I wouldn't count on it.
Yawn! I am tired and achy today and sit in the dark kitchen looking out at a cloudy and wet morning. I pulled a 10 hour work day yesterday in preparation for the craft show this weekend. I hit an all time high for soldering work- 38 individual pieces cut and soldered together. 
Today I have to trim off all the excess silver and file them smooth so I can attach bails to the pendants, clasp rings to the bracelet pieces and loops to the tops of the earring pieces. Then I have to do all that attaching. If I can manage to get that finished before it's time to start dinner, I'll begin setting the pottery/shells/sea glass. I'm reallllllly hoping to get this stuff finished tonight because my back and neck are killing me from sitting, stooping and standing over this work for so many hours. (not to mention I need to get this stuff polished by Friday night so I can card it all for Saturday morning!)
Aaack, what the heck am I doing posting, I need to get to work!
Maybe later I'll treat you all to a photo which I'll entitle "The beauty of a jeweler's hands". Oh boy, that'll be a nice one!
I finally got a good chunk of work done today- 14 pendants in various stages of soldering. 
I picked 6 to focus on finishing so I could get a batch into the tumbler to polish. I filed and sanded them. I attached those in need of attaching. I made 6 bails for them. 
I got out my third hand. (seriously, that's what they call this thing)
I lined up pendant number 1 and its bail. 
I lit the torch. Spit, spit, sputter, sputter. Ran out of gas.
And it's 5:00pm on Friday night. I have to get dinner started. Guess I'm off to the Depot bright and early tomorrow!
~~~(meh)
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