Oh Phewy!

I woke up this morning with such great expectations! I have made quite a few sketches of what I was positive would be the next years new projects, well I was greatly mistaken! Out of four that I tried to do, only one came out remotely like it was supposed to and that turned out to be pretty lame. Now don't get me wrong, they were all great in theory, they just didn't work off of paper. I have one that I've not given up on, but I've modified the original idea so much it's barely the same thing. I'll try to work on it some more tomorrow.
Today's tip comes from, "do as I say not as I do." I have been known to tell my students not to tape their pieces to their templates before using the rolling mill. There's a good reason, and I was reacquainted with that reason today when I taped my pieces to a particular spot on the template that I wanted to make sure got imprinted. I spent the next 35 minutes peeling tape off of both the sterling silver that I was texturing and the brass template. I was fortunate in the fact that it didn't adhere to the rollers of the rolling mill too. So....once again, I do not personally recommend that you tape your pieces to your texture plates or anvils for that matter, when texturing unless you enjoy picking mashed and mangled, very sticky tape off your piece when you're through texturing. If so, keep a good supply of GooGone handy. But even that didn't help me get the tape out of the deep impressions made by the texture plate. On a happy note, the texture came out very deep and exactly where I wanted it. This is the project that turned out ok. It makes a pair of earrings that is inexpensive, easy and looks great, but would not be a very good class, it's really done much too quickly for a class. This will have to be a magazine submission. Very simple and low tech.