Etsy Metal Charm Swap 17: Progress Report 6

 Michele Grady has received her first Charm Swap package!
They will all be rolling in shortly. I have gathered a few photos below of  some of the finished and in progress pics that were shared by the swappers this week.

 

The way the swap works is, Etsymetal members sign up to participate. The number of sign ups we have decides the number of charms to make. This time there are 7 participants and a theme of "Animals". Each participant makes a charm for each member plus 2 extra. When they are finished they send the charms to one of the curators who in turn will sort and pass them back out to the 7 participants. The 2 extra charms have a purpose as well. One individual charm will be sold in the EtsyMetal shop and the other one will be going on a "charm holder" necklace this time around instead of a bracelet. 50% of the funds collected from the sale of the charm swap bracelets and necklaces will be donated to a Youth Arts Organization (TBA) to support budding young artists. Below are the Artists participating in Charm Swap 17 and some work in progress photos:

Victoria Takahashi    Michele Grady   Jessica Lopour   

Andrea Ring   Stacey Maddock   Nina Gibson   Regina Ewer 

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Andrea Ring "Tiger"

Nina Gibson "Koi Pond"

 

 
Stacey Maddock "Where We Live"

Regina Ewer  "Clown Fish"

Victoria Takahashi "Handcarved Antlers" and packaging.


Michele Grady  & Jessica Lopour  
are busily working away on their charms, can't wait to see them!

Stay tuned to see the "Shop Charm necklace" that will have a handmade charm holder made by Michele Grady and it will be available in the shop in the very near future also along with an individual charm from each maker.
Thank you for following along with us <3 font="">
See you soon!
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Etsy Metal Charm Swap 16 News!

The latest Etsy Metal Charm Swap is complete! It is a beautiful collection of sixteen charms which have been sent out to all the lucky participants. Each member has also created two extra charms to be sold in our shop, EtsyMetal  There will be sixteen individual charms for sale and a fantastic bracelet of all sixteen! The proceeds from the sale of the bracelet will go to a charity. (More about that later.)

Work on our charms began in earnest late this summer. Join us with a look back in time with this post coauthored by me and Jessica:

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The Etsy Metal Charm Swap is celebrating its "Sweet 16" and from the progress photos it is not going to disappoint. I am Jessica Lopour of abellablue, the swap facilitator and along with Ann Jenkins the charm manager from tuizui, we will be sharing the progress of our sixteen (just a coincidence!) participants. Here goes:

Carrie of CarrieNunes is working on this stunner of a wax carving. This little bird charm is sure to look fantastic.

 "Carrie Nunes Little Bird Charm"

Meg of simplyMegA is well on her way with these cool sailboat charms. I can't wait to see these all finished up!

"Simply Mega Sailboat charms"

Michele Grady michelegradydesigns says "I'm working on my charms! here's my WIP pic..... I have never tried fold forming before and it looked fun so I thought I'd give it a shot!" They are gorgeous!

"Michele Grady copper leaf charms"

Victoria of experimetal sent in an intriguing shot of her colorful recycled Kikkoman tin whistles drying after being soldered and cleaned. Can't wait to see a close up! Whistles!!!

"Experimetal whistles"

And last but certainly not least is Sue from tinkertown with this intriguing work in progress shot. She says her notes give clues as to what this will be once she is finished, can you guess what it is?

"tinkertown WIP"

Keep an eye out for more updates and progress shots from charm swap 16. In the mean time check out the amazing work from past Etsy Metal charm swaps 

EMCS15: Charm Swap Update - The Final Progress Report

A mere 5 days to go until charms are due in Renee's hands! Our participants are working like crazy (I hope!!) to finish their charms and get them in the mail.

We have a lot of updates and progress photos to share this week so, let's get to it!

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Michele of MicheleGradyDesigns gives us this update:

"I have used CopprClay to make little skulls from the molds I made last week. For those of you who know anything about pottery they are in the "greenware" state at the moment. Which means they have not been put in the kiln and are still soft enough to work like clay. I still have to let them dry a little more, clean them up and fire them in the kiln before they will become metal."

And her finished charms:

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Ann from Tuizui is done! Here's what she has to say:

"Inspired by antique weathervanes and folk art-----"Swim,float,fly charm"

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Laney from Silentgoddess (hey, that's me!) has made some serious progress:

"Here's what I am working on. I am doing my antique bronze Gadabout travel trailers and adding a cocoa brown flush set CZ as a hubcap.

Bail holes drilled

Initial finishing work

Cocoa brown CZs flush set in place

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Reagan of ReaganHayhurst says:

"All finished and ready to ship out tomorrow."

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Anna of SeverinMetals says:

"Mine are ready to ship out today!"

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Nina of NinaGibsonDesigns is up next. She is happy to say:

"Finished! Packing and shipping today or tomorrow!"

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Victoria of Experimetal says:

"Charm Swap 15 work-in-progress, they are nearly done and ready to fly off to their new homes."

"just a few birds in the hand"

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And we wrap up this week's update with a progress report from Andrea of AmuckDesign:

"Almost there! pieces are cut finally and tonight I will solder,sand and polish."

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And that is all I have for this week. Charms are due to Renee by next Tuesday, March 31st. Once she has them in her hands, she will get them sorted out and then shipped back to the participants. I will wrap EMCS15 up with a final blog post in the coming weeks. Thanks so much and until next time...

EMCS15: Charm Swap Update

Short on time this week, but not short on content!

We have lots of progress shots. Here we go:

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Michele of MicheleGradyDesigns shares this teaser!

"I have made molds from some carved stones that I would like to make into metal clay charms. I'm not sure what kind metal clay I will be using as of yet. They will be either made from copper clay, white copper clay or bronze clay...or maybe all of the above!

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Nina Gibson of NinaGibsonDesigns writes:

"The squares are now cut, drilled, edges hammered, name stamped, annealed and pickled. Read for their next step!"

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Work in progress shots from Ann of Tuizui

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Anna of SeverinMetals shared her progress shots:

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Francine of JewelrybyFrancine is DONE!

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And finally we wrap up this week's charm swap post with a work in progress shot from Victoria of Experimetal:

Victoria writes, "Charm progress, saw, saw, saw, file, file, file and then stamp, stamp and stamp some more and then to assemble, patina and add their finish! Almost done kinda."

We are down to the final stretch. Charms are due in Renee's hands in less than two weeks on March 31st. We are pretty excited about this swap's charms. It is going to be an amazing collection!

Until next time...

EtsyMetal Charm Swap 15 - The Official KickOff Post!

And we are BACK! The 15th EtsyMetal charm swap is well underway. This one is a bit (or a lot) different than those in the past. We have a MUCH shorter time schedule because we got started later than normal. Because of the late start, we decided to try out doing a smaller lineup of participants. This should make for a really great swap as everyone can focus on creating amazing charms and not have to work quite so hard to fabricate the usual 22 charms.

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EtsyMetal Charm Swap 15 details:

Renee Ford of PanicMama and Laney Clark of Silentgoddess are this swap's co-curators. Renee will be receiving and sorting the charms as well as selecting the Youth Arts Organization that 50% of proceeds from the sale of the completed swap bracelet will be donated to. Laney (that's me) will be posting blog updates, answering participants questions and keeping everyone on track.
We have 10 artists creating charms. That means this go-round we have to create a total of 12. 10 charms for the 10 artists and then 1 charm for the EMCS15 charm bracelet and 1 charm for the EMCS15 individual charm. These latter two will be available in the EtsyMetal team store at the conclusion of this swap.
And with that, we can get to the fun stuff: progress updates!

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First up is a teaser from Ann of TuiZui:

She doesn't have a photo ready to share but she says this about her charm design: "No sample yet but I am going to make a copper fold form boat shape with smaller boats of silver inside that move. Maybe a gold element too. It will hang horizontally by a forged silver bail."
If that doesn't get your curiosity piqued I don't know what will!!

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Next up is Andrea from Amuckdesign:

Andrea is working on a death's head hawkmoth idea

Here's her mock-up so far of her death's head hawkmoth. The finished charms will have gold skulls and spines.

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Next is Anna from SeverinMetals:

Anna says: "mine will look somewhat like this pendant I donated for a silent auction to benefit the family of a man who suddenly passed away on valentines day. It will be smaller and possibly have moonstones if they are shipped in time."

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Next is Victoria from Experimetal:

Victoria says: "I finally scaled down the size of my little Jackdaw charm, she is just a little over an inch long. Her wings flap when you pull her tail! Now to just get 12 of these made, deadline approaching in less than 2 weeks! WooOOO!"

Original prototype:

Final charm shown along side original prototype:

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Next is a sneak peek from Nina of NinaDesigns:

Nina is currently participating in EAD2015 (Earring a Day 2015) and is considering using a design she used for a recent earring:

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So far, so amazing, right? I am really excited about the scaled down format of this swap. Please stay tuned and come back weekly for more progress updates.

Until next time...