The Pepper Market in Syracuse.

Wishing everyone a peaceful new year.

This weekend East Street Tins will be at the Pepper Market in downtown Syracuse 10-5. A spicy time for all is promised.

these are the spicy bracelets made for the occasion:

Christmas ornaments for this year's It's a Wonderful....Shop

It's a Wonderful .....Shop 2011

The 2012 version will be just as liveley.   Come visit!   Saturday,  Dec. 1 9-4.

Working hard for 2 December shows:

Thanks to all of the people I met in Rochester who made the MayDay Underground Show a success for  me yesterday.

Just a little spooky shout out to everyone to venture out on Saturday to the MayDay Underground Craft=Art show.  http://maydayunderground.wordpress.com

Recycled Altoid tins are going to be my boxes for mailing earrings this season.

The shutter display is finished due to a very kind husband.  I have revamped the display cards to work with the shutters.  I think this will work extremely well for my upcoming MayDay Underground show on the 3rd of Nov.

I will be in Rochester at the Mayday Underground show on November 3.  Come visit!
http://maydayunderground.wordpress.com/

I scoured a salvage yard today and pulled these three shutters out which will become the display for my earrings at my fall and winter shows!  They will need to be scrubbed and hinged but will work extremely well.

Here are some more brooches I made with tin harvested from the same can.  50's or 60's I'm not sure but they're all so kitchsy and fun.

Look at how cute these brooches turned out.  The tin was from a cookie tin from the 60's or 70's.  I tried to make them look like stamps from that time period by attaching them to copper which I textured and patinaed.

Earrings made from the Edgeworth tobacco can.

Just back from a lovely trip to the coast of Maine and was able to find some great tins.  Look for these in the upcoming months to show up in my jewelry.

Buying new tin for materials is wonderful.  I'll post a picture of the new finds shortly.

This lovely little tin was awaiting me on my front porch when I went to get the mail just now.  Love to get such great surprise presents like this!

It was from  the wonderful artists Theresa and Keith of  Unite Two Designs.  Check out the way they recycle!  www.unitetwodesign.com/

I guess it's all the baskets we use in the summer collecting veggies and the like that was the inspiration for the my latest bracelets.  Weaving the metal wasn't easy due to the fact if you tried to slide the pieces together you had to be quite careful not to slide off a piece of skin in the process.   I was quite taken by the result and will see where this new idea takes me.

The last couple of days I have been working on a series of oval bracelets.  A friend had asked me to try making some, so I finally had time to explore an idea. The pieces are above. I  connected them with links made from baling wire.

And here are the finished products.

Ever since the Lavender Festival, I have been making new earrings and necklaces for the fall season.  The tin for this necklace came from a pipe tobacco tin.  I was drawn to the sailboat.

I had to share pictures from the Lavender Festival.  You can see from the last one what my view was.  It was delicious smelling!

Thanks to all who visited my booth at the Finger Lake Lavender Festival.  What a super location for a craft show!  This is what I created for the show for me to wear at the show.  The large cream colored disc was bottom of a spray paint can I found on a beach on Lake Ontario.  I layered colored tins on top and made the chain.  I had to have something lavender colored to wear!

I have been doing all of the final touches for the Finger Lakes Lavender Festival this week.  Every thing is priced.  I have worked out some new ways to display my wares working with hardware cloth, a  bench, a stool, and an apple crate.  I want to keep within the parameters of the recycling theme.

The festival is on Saturday and Sunday 9-5.  Come visit.

Today I worked on a sign for my booth in next weekend's upcoming Lavender Festival.  The brass stencil letters were given to me by a friend clearing out things and I think they work well.  I layered them on a cookie tin stretched out flat and nailed them to a piece of driftwood.  A total recycled effort!

I have been working very hard on new displays and new jewelry for the Lavender Festival in Skaneateles on July 14 and 15.  Come on out, West Lake Road, cut your own lavender, be part of the fun!  It just smells so good in the lavender fields!


http://www.fingerlakeslavenderfestival.blogspot.com/

Great article in Plank Road Magazine this issue about East Street Tins by the talented Lori Ruhlman and photos by the equally talented Sarah Jean Condon.

I have been working with these tin candle reflectors all week in spare time.  They are fascinating and present such wonderful design possibilities.

New materials are always exciting.  I put them out on a table and look at them as I walk by so that ideas start percolating in my brain.  Now I have to find the time to work on them!

A dear friend cleaned out her out buildings and gave me a set of tin shapes which started out as Christmas tree candle reflectors.  They have been call ing my name ever since I got them and today because of rain I was inside and worked on one which became a brooch.

Busy time of the year, what with school winding down and gardens calling my name.  I made these earrings last week and am just getting ready to post them now.

Plank Road Magazine is going to publish an article about my East Street Tins business this summer. Lori Ruhlman came and interviewed me and Sarah Condon came this week to take pictures to accompany the article.  All of this because I met a grad student at a crafts fair last October.  She did a short video and posted it on Vimeo which Lori saw and hence the article.  I'm very excited.

I saw some earrings on a woman in an airport this week and loved the shape and the way they moved. I took the idea and created some from tin when I got home. Not the same, but my spin on it. The tin came from an tea tin which I think was British although each side had a different image from various tea growing areas in the world.

I have been reworking and redesigning the blog look. My business name has evolved into East Street Tins. Hence, the new look.

I have been working on some BIG earrings-still light weight due to the tin but bolder in look. These are 1 5/8 " in diameter. Some are layered tin, Some are cut out with the jeweler's saw. One pair has domed discs in the center.

This link takes you to a blog named Love2Upcycle. My necklace is featured on the blog. So exciting.

http://love2upcycle.blogspot.com/2012/03/wasteless-wednesday-contain-it.html?showComment=1332413718419#c4057850954236675305

One of my necklaces was features on another jewelry maker's blog. Check it out:

http://www.tangleweedsjewelry.com/2012/03/inspired-by-teaching.html

Yesterday I delivered a package of 15 pair of earrings and 3 necklaces to the Schweinfurth Art Center in Auburn. That felt good.

Later this month, I will be the craft portion of a fund raiser at the art center involving beer and cheese. My part will be with recycled beer cans and bottle caps. These are the proto types for that event.

Here's the link: http://www.schweinfurthartcenter.org/events/current.html

Last bit of news is my tin jewelry shop name has now changed to East Street Tins.

I worked on and finished some new earrings today. They were from a lovely tin so I wanted to try a new way to form ear wires so that they would hang sideways.

The finished bracelets!

I've taken the idea from the previous post and expanded it. I like finding the little pictures for the frames. These will all become bracelets like the ID bracelets of the 60's, only there will be an image instead of a name.

I have been working on a new design for a bracelet which includes a framed tin picture. This one came from an olive oil can and is about 2"x1". I've formed it around a bracelet mandrel to give the curve of a wrist. The next one will have an even bigger picture and frame.

A little valentine love for my sweethearts.

I have really enjoyed piecing together metal necklaces out of graphics from tin containers. This one also has brass, silver and copper rivets and a rusty found bottle cap. Then I added the handmade steel chain. Everything was polished at the end with a jeweler's wax.

A delightful grad student at Syracuse University, Amanda Marzullo, asked me if she could do a multi media piece on my business and my studio. I met her at the Syracuse Urban Craft Market in October. She visited several times and asked me all sorts of questions and took still pictures and shot video. She just sent me the link of the finished product and it is very well done. It is just super when someone edits what you say and makes you sound like you know what you are talking about!

http://vimeo.com/35467991

Here's the latest piece: my ode to Aretha Franklin. Brass base and tin graphics from two different olive oil containers riveted together with silver rivets. Add a handmade steel chain and I am singing Aretha's song!

Sweet as a nut

A day off from school allowed me to finished the necklace started right after the new year. I joined the metals with copper rivets and created the chain from steel wire. Everything has been polished with renaissance wax. I was pleased with the result.

I was featured in a blog about repurposing materials. The other items, as well as my bracelet, are worth a look. It is written by Susan and the name of her etsy shop is Tparty. Check it out!

http://tparty.typepad.com/the_tcozy/2012/01/repurposed-inspiration-on-etsy.html

Last year my goal was to come up with a new design every week. It was a tough goal to keep and like many artists I had periods of activity and some slower times due to outside forces.

Just to keep working is probably my goal for this year. The more you work, the more ideas seem to flow for me.

Here are some new earrings combining printed tin, copper rivets and steel wire.