Door County Show, Messed Up Silver

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Went to the beach on Sunday with my husband and kids… We are so close to so many beautiful beaches, state and national parks, private parks and gardens…. we are spoiled. Wisconsin has very high state tax. I think they are in the top 3 most expensive state tax brackets in the nation: however, they spend it well… our parks are beautiful and our water is beautiful and our woods are beautiful. Keeping it all up does come at a cost.

I have a show not far from me this weekend in Door County Sat and Sun at Sunset Park in Sturgeon Bay. It’s a nice show with friendly people running it. My kids will go and play on the beach all day and pretend to help me being salesmen at the checkout, playing ‘store.’ But this is how they learn.

I wanted to include a picture of some metal that I pretty much ruined. I was annealing (heating them up to a dull red and putting them in cold water to make them soft) several pieces of silver for pendants and doing it systematically. I was quenching them and not really paying attention to when and how I was doing it because I had about 20 of them lined up. I normally count to 10 after I anneal something and then quench it in water. Well, I did not do this apparently with this piece and this is what happens ~~~~ Wow! Nice Stress Fracture! I have never seen this before in sterling silver. This happens from quenching the piece too soon and stressing the molecular structure to the point of breaking. It happens easily with Argentium Sterling. So, this piece will end up being punched into little tiny discs that I use for detail work. I was surprised though… jeez… taking my silver for granted…….. I will pay attention to my 10 second count next time! and not quench so fast that I completely damage the crystalline structure so badly that the pieces fractures like this! 

Really looking forward to the weekend and talk to everyone next week which will be Go Time for The Bead and Button Show in Milwaukee. My class has 16 wonderful students in it and we are ready to make everything we can in one day 🙂 The rest of my 6 days there will be as a vendor and that will be an adventure for me because I have never done a vendor show before let alone one of that size. I am ready though. Could leave tomorrow if I needed too.

Above photo is of the beach at Bay Shore State Park in Southern Door County. We visit there often to find rocks and make sand castles. It’s beautiful park and often enough during the week there is no one there, bonus! Our own private beach and hiking trails.

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