Soldering Insanity...

or is it Soldering, Insanely???

It is a LOVE/HATE relationship for me.

Just like when I use to do mosaic work.

LOVE the outcome and design portions.

In soldering, copper foil taping hundreds of crystals and baubles sucks,
but I LOOOOVE melting the solder and assembling the pieces.

In mosaic work, I LOVE cutting with the Tile saw and creating the assemblage...but
it is the last process I dislike, grouting.

Anyway, I digress.

Finally got to some projects that have been sitting on my shelf and 

wandering around my head for some time.

I have on the past year collected some soldered pieces from some artists I truly respect

and have now added to my collection.

LOVE my Bling Baby Bottle.

Will make more of these to sell.

The bottle with the Pink Tulip was made by Darlah Mulloy of Le Muse.

Her work can be found at The Urban Barn.

The cute "Vintage" bauble was made by my Best Amica Rita Reade

of http://mammabellarte.blogspot.com/

The French dancing girl is one of the first pendants I soldered.

Rita also made this darling Amore bottle that she gifted to me.

I LOVE her!

This Amazing "Artist" Frida Cloche was made by my friend 

Robin Dudley-Howes of http://www.robindudleyhowes.blogspot.com/.

Robin taught me how to solder, was it 2 or  years ago, I am not sure!

All I know is I had to have this Frida.

Another talented fellow Artist Friend Lori Gutierrez of http://lorigutie.blogspot.com/

Made the Sacred Heart bottle. 

I soldered the Lady Bust, but the bottle was purchased from another good friend

of mine Tara Wilson of http://lulumaxjewelry.blogspot.com.

I instantly knew I wanted to solder on this piece, it was full of wine

and NO I did not drink it...it was poured into my Dia De Los Muerte Skull.

I made two of these crowns and 6 of the ones below.

These are small and will be for sale at my upcoming shows.

They are FABULOUS with a tealight inside them

DARLING!

The Mermaid crown is just lovely

Sea glass, crystals and baubles...with a tiny vintage mermaid 

encased in a shadow box up front.

The "State of Grace" crown is an assemblage

of lots of metal and crystals.

It too looks great with a candle in the middle as does the mermaid crown.

The above crown I made with my friend Rita at a class we taught together.

My Dia de los Muerte skull is a Vodka Bottle I bought just so

I could have the bottle...we had fun drinking the vodka too!

Love my Quan Yin statues, she is on a really pretty etched bottle

with a torch soldered and hammered pendant

which says "Be the Change".

This was the Crown Rita and I just taught a couple weeks ago at my home studio.

Look for more soldering classes from Rita and I in a few months.

After my hands heal from soldering hundreds of crystals!

XO