I am certainly no expert on how to use a jewelers saw, but I wanted to share some tips that I re-learned yesterday as I was trying to cut out a piece of silver for a pendant. The pendant is a box in a box cutout that I will hang a swiss blue topaz in the center and dangle Swarovski crystal off the end much like this one we made last year:

My sister initially cut out the first pendant like this and I did all the filing and finish. I had no idea how challenging using this type of saw can be until I tried it again yesterday. If the blade is not in taught enough, it makes it almost impossible to start cutting into the silver. I was using 24 gauge silver sheet which is not terribly thick, but it was still posing a challenge for me. The blade had some slack in it so each time I went to make a cut, the teeth on the blade would get caught and I could not do one smooth motion. I then tightened up the blade so there was no slack and was pleasantly surprised to see that the saw started to cut with a normal back and forth motion. But as soon as I stopped and started again, the blade snapped. I believe the blade snapped because I had way too much tension on the blade and had it too taught this time.

I I had to get a new blade on the saw and decided this time to not make it extremely taught, but also making sure it did not have a lot of play when I push the blade. This seemed to work and I was able to cut out the pattern I had on the silver. For the inside box, I drilled a hole with a regular dremel tool and unhooked the blade and slid the blade through the hole and reconnected the saw. This allowed me to cut out the middle of the pendant with the saw while the piece was in the vise.

Now my next issue to work on is cutting out straight lines as although I was able to cut out the pattern, none of the lines were smooth and it required a lot of filing (still filing the piece today). Practice will make perfect!

We are pleased to announce that we are half way to our goal in raising 1K towards the fight against cancer! Some of you may or may not be aware, but September is an awareness month for several types of cancer. Throughout the world, September is Leukemia and Lymphoma Awareness month. If you are interested in showing your support for these types of cancer, we offer both a Lymphoma Awareness Bracelet as well as we just added a Leukemia Awareness Bracelet today.

Lymphoma Awareness Bracelet

Leukemia Awareness Bracelet

September is also Gynecologic Cancer Awareness Month and Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month. We want to stress the importance of women getting their regular check ups and screenings for cervical cancer as it could save your life. We have several bracelets that represent these types of cancer awareness:

Cervical Cancer Awareness Bracelet	Ovarian Cancer Awareness Bracelet	Uterine Cancer Awareness Bracelet
	Women’s Cancer Awareness Bracelet

The summer has come to an end and if you are like me, you or your family has probably collected tons of treasures from the beach. But the question now becomes what to do with all these treasures? Here are a few ideas to get you going:

Last year when we went away to South Carolina, we found a few sand dollars. After carefully packing them up and getting them home in one piece, I had no idea what to do with them. So I decided to make them into gifts for the holidays to the family members we went on vacation with. I first had to try to bleach out the sand dollar to get it to that nice white we always see in the stores. I tried putting the sand dollars in a mixture of bleach and water and setting it out in the sun. It did the trick for the most part except certain areas still stayed brown. You can’t leave the sand dollar in bleach very long as it weakens the shell, so it was only for a few hours I left it in the bleach solution. After that, I needed to harden them so they would not easily crack. I had to make sure they fully dried after rinsing off the bleach solution. I then created a glue and water mixture and painted it on the sand dollars in order to harden the shell. I put a few layers on to ensure the shells were hardened enough to withstand writing on them and adding some sparkle. Since the sand dollars did not get bleach white, I did paint them with Acrylic paint once the glue dried and it gave me a nice white surface to work with for writing. Once all was dried, I used a nice paint pen to write the year and the place we visited. I used Swarovski Crystal Snow Flakes and other Swarovski Crystal beads and dangled them from the openings in the sand dollar to create a very sparkly ornament for the tree. I used wire wrapping techniques to attach the crystal and they were absolutely stunning when I was done! It was not only a beautiful ornament for the tree but a great way to incorporate memories and treasures found on the beach into a piece of art.

Another way I used the shells I found was to make them into necklaces. I created a few custom pieces in which I drilled holes into the clam shells and combined the shells with different crystals and pearls to make a one of a kind necklace to give away as a gift and a nice way to remember your vacation. You can see a few examples of the custom work (not for sale) I have done on this wampum necklace and this clam shell necklace that I did last year. I also have a beautiful jingle shell necklace for sale that was a shell we found also in South Carolina that just begged to be made into a one of kind necklace. We have another black jingle shell necklace in the works hopefully to be added to the site soon.

I also do wire wrapping for many of the treasures that I find on the beach. The beach glass and the stones that we find, especially in Cape May Point, seem to really come out beautiful in these wire wrapped pendants and they are great gifts to give as a reminder of a vacation or that special time spent at the beach. Check out the various wire wrapped jewels from the sea that we have available on our Cape May Collection. We can also wire wrap a special piece of beach glass, a shell or even a stone for you to help you make a one of a kind gift for that special occasion or for the holidays. Contact us and let us know what you have and we can give you a price quote to make you a one of a kind creation.

I see a lot of folks interested in learning how to polish stones they find on the beaches. What makes stones that you pick up off the shoreline unique for rock tumbling is that most likely they have already been tumbled by the ocean to get the rough edges off of them and they are for the most part smooth. With normal tumbling, you have rough materials with jagged edges that need a lmuch longer time in the tumbler with a coarse grit to take away the sharp edges.

Since I was a little girl, I have always collected my pieces from the beach, so I skip step one of tumbling the stones. So here is the secret I have been using to polish up these little gems.

First you need to buy yourself a tumbler. Harbor Freight has several tumblers that I have been using and it works, but the belts wear out rather quickly on the dual drum model and I had to replace the belts every few weeks. Problem is that Harbor Freight does not have a cheap belt replacement so I am considering getting new tumblers once the belts I got off of Ebay are gone as the cost to replace the belts is starting to outweigh the actual cost of the tumbler, although it is a reasonable price for a tumbler for the hobbyist. You will also need to pick up the grits for the rock tumbler which Harbor Freight also carries.

Ok – so now you have your tumbler and you have your rocks…so what’s next? Next you need to clean your rocks to ensure there is no debris left on them like sand etc. Once they are clean, fill up the rotary drum about ¾ of the way up with the rocks like this:

Next fill the drum with water just slightly above the rocks so they are all submerged with a little water over them.

Next, you take your fine grit and put about a tablespoon and a half in the drum. This is the grit that I start with when I have stones that have been tumbled in the ocean as you really do not need to work off any rough edges if the stones have already been tumbled so I skip the coarse grit. Although this is not a great picture, you can get an idea of how much grit is in the water.

The next part is putting the tumbling drum back together. You need to ensure the first part of the top gets put in properly as this top creates the waterproof seal to ensure water does not leak out of the drum as it tumbles. You want to put this piece in on an angle first and then slowly push down the side as you will hear it seal as it gets put in place.

After you get the first part of the top on, you will need to secure the rest of the top by placing the cap on the tumbler, pressing it down hard to ensure it meets the side of the drum leaving no gaps. If there are gaps and the cap is not on correctly, the drum will not move evenly, so use a soft mallet to gently tap it in place if you cannot get the cap to fit properly. Next you will need to use the washer and the black screw and ensure you screw the cap on tightly as this will also help create the rest of the seal. You may even hear a little air escaping as you tighten the screw down.

The next part is easy, just place the drum (or drums) on the tumbler and turn it on! Make sure you have the tumbler on a nice smooth and stable surface to allow for even tumbling. I personally have the tumblers on my garage floor just to make sure they don’t vibrate off a table.

Each cycle in the tumbler takes approximately a week for each type of grit, but sometimes I let it go a little longer just to make sure the cycle is complete for that grit. Once you are ready to change out the grits to the next level (ie. Fine, then pre-polish, then polish), you will need to turn off the tumbler and remove the drum. Remove the cap, screw and washer. You will then need to grab a screw driver or something that will allow you to pry open the other stopper top.

Once you take the top off, it would be advisable to dump the stones into a colander of sorts to drain off the grit/water.

You should then rinse the stones off very well to ensure you leave no grit on the stones. If you do not rinse the stones and the drum out well, it could cause problems for the next cycle as you would be mixing different types of grit.

Once both the drum and the stones are thoroughly clean, you would then go back and follow the steps for loading up the drum initially. This process is repeated until you complete your final polish stage, and then you can enjoy your polished stones!

Hope this helps someone!

Alright – so this weekend we again ventured out to Cape May Point to relieve some stress and enjoy the last few days of summer. Despite my husband getting us stuck in the sand at the Coast Guard station when we tried to bring our boat back in, my daughter and I had some time to walk the secluded beach at the Coast Guard boat launch. At that boat launch there was a little beach that had partially tumbled glass. At first I was just going to through it back, but being so rare these days….I decided to keep it, epspecially when one of the pieces was light blue and very large. So what do I do with partially tumbled beach glass? What I am going to do…I think…is to through it in the tumbler and see what comes out…worse case scenario is that I have polished glass that I can use at the bottom of vase…best case is that I have something usable in jewelry. Once my current batch of Cape May Point stones come out of the tumbler (sometime next week) I will experiment and put the unfinished pieces in there to see what happens.

We also found tons of quaghog shells broken up into pieces but had gorgeous hues of purple, so we collected these and the shells will also be next to go into the tumbler to see what comes out!

As the summer season comes to an end, a new season begins…Rutgers Football Season! We are excited, overjoyed, and super happy to introduce our newest line added to Vael Designs. Please stand up and scream GO RU for our new line of Rutgers University Jewelry! We are so excited to have this opportunity to support and raise school spirit for Rutgers University by creating these one of an kind creations sporting the official Rutgers Block R spirit mark. Each one has a handcrafted Block R in pure sterling silver and accented in a variety of ways. Our daughter was just so delighted over our line she just had to get up and cheer!