Circle Of Life Has Become Sphaerae Vitae!

Hello y'all!

Busy times here in Austria!

At the moment I'm concentrating on a 30-day "Set Up Shop"-course,

that helps me rethink and define my goals and plans for my jewelry design label.

Finally, and after much brainstorming and consideration,

I'd like to announce the new name of my jewelry label:

From now on it will be

"Sphaerae Vitae" - Sleek&Unique Contemporary Jewelry - Handmade for Happiness!

Here you can come and visit me and my - soon - freshly styled shop:

http://etsy.com/shop/SphaeraeVitae

http://SphaeraeVitae.dawanda.com

http://facebook.com/SphaeraeVitae

http://twitter.com/SphaeraeVitae
http://pinterest.com/SphaeraeVitae

http://www.gerlindelanger.com

The name "Circle Of Life" has already been reserved by other users 

on Facebook, Twitter and many other sites...

So I wanted to come up with a lovely alternative, to give my various online presences a cohesive look.

In the end I've chosen the name "Sphaerae Vitae", because it offers a

beautiful Greek&Latin rendition of the former "Circle Of Life"...

The sound of the name immediately struck a chord with me.

It still represents my work with hundreds of tiny jump-rings... circles... sphaerae!

"Sphaerae" has an aerial and somewhat breezy feeling to it that suits my jewelry...

And on top, the word "sphaerae" can be found in Greek language, too, what holds a very personal,

special meaning for me, because I've lived in Greece for a long and intensive time of my life and

will forever feel the strongest inner connection with this country!

"Sphaerae Vitae" - my new meaningful, unique and personal shopname!

Let's celebrate a little :-)

Glossy jewelry...!

Hello again!

Today I want to share some pictures of one of my favourite devices for jewelry making with you!

After finishing a new chainmaille piece it looks quite lovely already, 

but the one important finishing work has still to be done...
And here is what I like to do:

I throw almost all my finished jewelry into the rotary tumbler!

The stainless steel designs remain in there together with abrasive material 

and deburring solution for about 6 hours - 

this takes away even the last tiny raw edges of all those closed jump rings!

Afterwards I take all the stuff out of the tumbler, give everything a thorough rinse 

and then the bracelets, pendants and other beauties go through another 12 hours of tumbling...

This time together with steel shot and burnishing solution that tumbles everything to the glossiest shine!

My sterling silver pieces are tumbled to shine for about three hours...

In case you are curious to see what all this stuff looks like - here are todays pictures:

from left to right - back: deburring + burnishing solutions - abrasive medium - rotary tumbler
front: some steel shot - shiny CircleOfLife jewelry

steel shot in various forms - glossy "Sleek Snake" stainless steel bracelet - cross + celtic labyrinth pendants

closer look on my freshly tumbled shiny pieces

from left: deburring + burnishing solutions - abrasive ceramic pyramid pellets - rotary tumbler

tumbler with freshly tumbled "Sleek Snake" bracelet and "Shiny Elf Weave" bracelet...

See you next time!

Busy Summertime!

A warm and sunny "hello" to you!

Finally summer has returned successfully to Austria!

Afternoons spent at our pool with the kids,

enjoying the garden, 

relaxing as much as possible with a 5 year old little whirlwind ;-)

Last week our very, very aged cherry tree received a "new haircut"!

Gone is a heap of old and dead wood -

our lovely tree with a beautiful new look remains...

work in progress... ;-)

froggy - looking somewhat bewildered at the mess... ;-)

 little Simon and my dad helped cleaning up...!