Kalaya Steede

On October 24th, the Tulane graduate students of Biomedical Sciences are holding a fundraiser event  SeLebrating Sierra Leone, at the House Of Blues to raise funds for Ebola relief and research in Sierra Leone, West Africa.  All proceeds will go to Tulane Kenema Government Hospital in Sierra Leone . They will also be holding a silent auction during the benefit.  Oh how fun! Remember this necklace I made last summer during my NErDy phase? Well... it will be auctioned off on October 24th at the House Of Blues event. I love this necklace.  It makes me feel super NErDy sexy! But I couldn't just hand over the jewelry.  It needed a little je ne sais quoi . But what? YES!  It needs a super NErDy, sexy box for presentation.   And how does one do this?   By just grabbing the closest cigar box and releasing those creative juices baby! At first I painted this on... Original Left Side View I really liked my p...

Today I wanna show you the process for a piece I am currently working on. It all started with this carved bone mask.   Originally I wanted to hinge part of the piece but decided not to because well...okay because I was being LAZY. Anyway... In my mind this was going to be a pretty big piece but I can do this!   The back plate is ~ 3.5"L x 1.25"W. The Plan Spirit I had made a bezel for the mask and the stone.  The stone bezel will be riveted on to the back plate.  The mask bezel will be soldered to the back plate.  After the back plate was sawed and filed I was ready to solder. Copper, brass, and bronze oxidizes really fast.  My intention was to get in there with the torch and out of there as fast as I can. BUT maybe that is not the answer. I had to do the soldering in steps and everything was going great until I ran out of oxygen! Who does that??? I mean...I HAVE oxygen. I just did not have the regulator for it...