the guts of a dvd player
Posted by Leah on Jun 25, 2008
Have you ever wondered what the inside of a dvd player looks like? Honestly, I never had. But then my (cheap) dvd player broke, with a netflix movie stuck inside it. So…I took it apart.
One of the screws was on so tight that I ended up breaking the plastic exterior, and then I figured it was beyond repair, so I took apart all the stuff inside. Turns out dvd players have a lot of fancy circuit boards inside that look like the insides of a computer hard drive. (Bud dvd players are easier to take apart. If you’ve never tried taking apart a hard drive, you won’t fully appreciate just how difficult they are to dismantle - tiny, supertight screws, and thick metal casings - they are definitely built to last.)
I once got a bunch of free hard drives that someone was going to throw away because I thought pieces of the circuit boards would look really cool embedded in resin. But I quickly got frustrated with how difficult it was to get them apart and gave up on that idea.
Fast forward to last week, when my cheap dvd player broke. I finally have some circuit boards to make into jewelry! This one is going to look so cool once I get it cut into little pieces and covered in resin….
New Camera
Posted by Leah on Jan 14, 2008
My old digital camera (a Sony Cybershot that I had for almost 4 years) broke, and since I’m running a business that operates partly online, I really needed to replace it quickly. I liked the old one a lot - it was easy to use, and took pretty good pictures of my jewelry, as well as my husband’s artwork, and was a great point-and-shoot for vacations, holidays, and pics of my pregnant belly over the last seven months.
Well - I replaced it with a Nikon D40, and I have to say, I never knew taking pictures could be this easy. It is a DSLR, so it has all kinds of manual controls that I could use if I knew more about photography, but what I love about it is that, set to automatic, and with the lens set to autofocus, it does a really good job on its own. I haven’t had time to really play with it and see what it can do, but here are a few jewelry pictures I shot over the weekend.
This one is a resin pendant I made a while ago. Resin can be tough to photograph, because it is so shiny there tends to be glare. For this shot, I just put the pendant on a background outside & snapped a few shots. I think it looks pretty good.
This is a close-up of an earring I made recently. I have always had trouble getting decent pictures of earrings for some reason, but I think this one isn’t bad. I think better lighting would have improved the shot, but it’s better than most of my previous attempts using the old camera.
I didn’t edit these at all, except to crop out the excess background. Oh yeah - both pieces are for sale in my etsy store.
Here’s a link to the camera on Amazon: Nikon D40 6.1MP Digital SLR Camera Kit with 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED II AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens
New Resin Pendant
Posted by Leah on Aug 27, 2007
One of my latest resin pieces, which I just finished over the weekend. (It is for sale in my my etsy store.)
Because I make my resin pieces using deep bezels for a three dimensional effect, they can take several weeks from start to finish, with thin layers of resin and found objects built up one at a time. I like the appearance of floating objects on a colored background. I mix my own colors using dyes, powdered pigments, and even cooking spices or cosmetics, then layer clear resin and objects on top of the custom colored background. Each pendant is finished with a shiny domed resin top to magnify the scene I’ve created in the resin. Once all the layers have completely set up, I finish these pendants with a handmade Argentium sterling silver bail. It is a very time-consuming process, but I enjoy creating these miniature wearable art pieces.
Crocheted Purse and a WIP
Posted by Leah on Jun 29, 2007
I know it isn’t jewelry, but I made this cute crocheted purse while following along with the learn to crochet lessons at Crafty Daisies. There was a link to a purse pattern in lesson #4, which I altered slightly, mostly by making it bigger and winging it on the ruffle part since I didn’t write it down (but ruffles are easy enough to crochet without a pattern).
And since this is supposed to be a jewelry blog, here’s a picture of my latest in-progress resin piece, using the top of an altoid tin as a bezel:
