Gems By Jeanne Marie: July 2014

The Drunken Botanist, by Amy Stewart is one of those books that I will need to buy. Stewart combines science, history, folklore and recipes to introduce us to “the plants that create the world’s great drinks”. It’s a book that I will continue to return to just to read a small snippet.

For the Inspired By Reading Book Club I decided to try my hand, once again, at etching. Actually, I have successfully etched since I disintegrated my copper back in March. This time, I thought I’d try a copper cuff. I chose copper because the old stills were made of copper. I rounded the ends of a 1”x6” copper strip from Impress Art/PJTools and used a leafy rubber stamp to represent the grain.

This is my first cuff like this, and I have to say I'm pretty excited with the results!

As far as I know, the birds have no significance. Since I was etching I thought it would be fun to practice with the rubber stamps and try out my new disc cutter by making some 1”circles.

When I learned that gin is made from juniper berries, I knew I had found a use for the vintage German glass beads left over from October's book My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me.…

I’m really into dangles these days, so I made a copper circle to hang the “berries” from. As you can see, this time I created a mixed metal piece, with a soldered copper ring and sterling silver dangles and chain. The chain is about 24” long, but if the wearer prefers shorter from time to time, my handcrafted hook will slip into any of the chain links.