Christmas season is here

So I have a tradition that I started with my family and it’s been about 7 years now that we have been doing this. It’s a tradition that I did with my Dad and siblings growing up. I grew up in Paradise California and I remember as a child going with my Dad higher up into the mountains where there would be snow. We would hike around and find a Christmas tree to cut and take home. I don’t know how many times we did this, but the few times we did are stuck in my memory. So I also started this tradition with my kids. It’s about that experience of going and enjoying the day in the mountains hiking around for a Christmas tree. Oh and yes we did purchase Christmas tree permit which you can get at recreation.gov. :) This year I went twice. lol Once with my family and another with my daughter and nephews. There is no snow here in Arizona where we go at this time of year, but it’s still very fun. The weather was in the 60’s. Perfect to enjoy the day and we did. It’s just so peaceful. I wish I could get out more often. So what are some of your traditions around this time of year?

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My Daughter cutting the Christmas Tree

Cool Forest Image

Just a cool area we came across

Forest Relaxation

Taking a nap in the forest

Christmas Tree

Our decorated Christmas tree

So I love to celebrate the birth of our Savior with family traditions and a time to remember how important the birth of Christ is. Are we actively engaged in a good cause? I sure hope so and of course we are imperfect, but we should always be trying our best.

Gifts are a joyful way to give and help others out. I remember as I was growing up I loved to make things. I’ve always made things like cloth bracelets, or beaded jewelry. I’ve gotten a lot more advanced since those early days and it’s continues to be a passion for me. I just like to make the best craft or jewelry item I can. I hope you can enjoy keeping up with some of my arts and crafts. I don’t post as often as I should, but this year I’ll do better. You can find me mainly on Instagram @danaarts and You Tube @JustinThorup

I would love to do another give away soon. I missed out on Thanksgiving which is when I like to do it. Maybe I can plan one for the beginning of this coming year. If you agree then just let me know so I can plan for it. :) If no one reads this then I’ll know it’s just not time yet. :) but let’s just keep giving and enjoying life together as we try and help one another out through this journey of life.

Gardening helps invite inspiration to my jewelry designs

So as many of you may know I love to garden even though I am really terrible at it. I do try and try though. Some years are better than others. Now that I’m in my house it should be a whole lot easier to work on the garden instead of having to travel to it all the time. This summers crops were the worst I’ve ever had as it was the building of the houses that interfered. We had no water for a long time and had to transport water. Then when we had it I had to come water it every day by hand. Plants were only surviving. We had no electricity to turn on my drip system. It was just a whole mess though I tried and tried. In the end it fail despite all my efforts. The little that may have survived died because the gophers eat or killed the plants off. So a new season is about to start so I’m excited. I just have to prep the garden and then plant for this winters crops. When I garden it inspires me so much. It uplifts me. I think it’s a combination of hard work and the care I put into it. I also love life and the plants that bring on this new life. Seeing them start out so small and then grow into beautiful plants just brings me hope and keeps me working hard to achieve all this plant life. It’s also just peaceful to be around. I love just sitting there staring at the garden. I waste too much time just staring and thinking.

This brings me to how gardening inspires me at times when I design jewelry. When I’m in that uplifted state, I’m more receptive to ideas and there are many times nature itself will be incorporated into my designs. Many times it’s the beautiful curves and shapes that blend together that make up an ever so unique and powerful design for jewelry. I usually will incorporate these patterns and designs into my pendants and rings. The rings are usually wide so that they can fit these organic patterns. There is more room for me to fill the ideas that flow from my head. Not all of them translate into a great design, but the ideas start happening and I can then jot them down and test them. If it doesn’t work then I can play with it until I find something that does work. I have so many designs I have made in CAD but have never cast into metal. As with any small business owner might know, I can’t just come out with new designs every day. I need to work on many aspects of the business to make it all work together. I do wish I could just sit and create all day. That would be the best, but for now I to it all so time is limited. Even through all that I still am inspired to design and build custom designs all the time. If I didn’t then I don’t think I would keep progressing forward one step at a time. That is where passion comes in. I do all the other non inspiring parts of the business to look forward to do the fun inspiring, joyful and satisfying parts of the artistic side of the business.

sun and wheat patterns inspired by nature

So if you ever wondered how gardening can be an inspiration to make jewelry then well now you know. Gardening does not have to be what helps you make jewelry, but it could inspire you to do whatever you are passionate about. With new life comes new ideas. Try it some time. It does not disappoint!

CTR Rings and bands

So I’ve tried in the past to sell some CTR rings which stands for “Choose The Right”. Then I stopped because of licensing issues. I am now proud to announce that I’m have permission to sell some CTR rings again. There are only five designs that I can sell for now. I have maybe 15 designs. I will work on getting the others approved. As of now I have these five available as I get time to list them on my site. I’m excited to share these designs with you. Here is the first one that I’ve listed. CTR Rock Foundation in Sterling silver

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To “Choose the Right” is not always an easy thing to do. I feel it’s easier to do alone than when around friends that may give a little pier pressure. Either way we need to stay strong and always remember to choose the right especially when faced with hard choices. We may be tempted to take the easy way out, but if we can learn to pre decide and know what we would say or do in certain situations we will make those hard choices become easy choices. So lets choose to choose the right.

DA update and life

So I’ll have to say that a lot has been going on because usually I can’t stand still and keep things moving along. lol. For Dana Arts I keep myself busy. I always have and will continue to do so. I’m a small business that is just me and my determination, passion and love for what I do that will keep it going no matter what. I have to admit that the past 5 or 6 months have been more than slow as far as sales go, but I continue to try and find ways to come up with new ideas, improve the website, or as of lately planing to do more video about what I’m up to. I have a few pendants that I think are really cool that will come out for the next few months as my newest featured items that you can usually see when they come out from the banner at the top of the webpage. I try and come up with ideas of what I think is cool. There have been times when a customer had an idea that we worked together on and are now available for sale. If you’d ever are inspired just let me know. I can do custom unique pieces just for you or we can work it out to put it into my line of jewelry. My shop is a bit cluttered right now. I have a 12’x12’ shed that I work out of right now. It has all my equipment for jewelry, gardening tools, and wood working tools. Oh an a lot of vw bug parts all over the place mixed in with everything.

So the shop has been real messy lately as I have been working more on my vw bug engine than jewelry. Ever since the fire I’ve been slowly trying to get parts and now cleanup to get this thing running again. So far I’ve managed to pull the engine from the car. (my first time ever doing so). Now I’ve been tearing it apart. I’ve managed to paint a few tins and am currently working on cleaning up other tins for painting. Next I’ll clean up the engine bay and then re wire the car. After that I plan to assemble the engine and put it back in. I want to test it to see if I can get it running again. If it does then I can work on the seats, windows, and the rest of the car to make it usable again. I just want to know if it can run before I spend the time fixing up the rest. The sad thing is that I am not going to be able to restore the whole car as it should be. I can’t replace the pans right now that have holes in them. I can’t do a lot of things that should be done since the car is stripped down to nothing. I don’t have the money to put into it, so I just want it running and drive able again. This way I can enjoy it once again even thought it won’t be perfect. It’s just a joy to drive my 67 VW bug. My first car. It’s a big fun project that I will share more about down the road.

The garden is doing well. After the last frost I pulled out all the tomato plants and basil. Right now I have onion, yarrow, mint, carrots, a few types of lettuce, bak choi, thyme, cilantro and a few other small plants and herbs. It’s starting to warm up a bit and I have planted a few carrots, celery, squash and more. It may not be the right time for some of these, but I will replant if nothing shows up. Already we have tons of tomatoes popping up from the old tomatoes. Same thing with the basil. It’s like a weed. I plan to keep the garden area a bit more clean this year. We’ll see how it goes. My henna plant may have died in the frost because it got frosted when my cover blew off it. Hopefully it survives. I could go on and on, but that’s just a small update on the garden.

Garden Area in the back and the fire ring up close to us.

The Garden House. It has begun. Yes the day we have been waiting for for almost 2 years now. The pad was built a few weeks ago and then it rained for a week. Now that it’s dry again the footing was just poured Friday the 16th of February 2024. I look forward to seeing the next steps and progress of the build. To get to this point felt like it would never happen. I did have to change the plans and lower the pitch of the roof from a 9:12 to a 6:12 because it just plainly cost too much. I also had to modify the foundation a bit to save some money. We are happy that our builder is our next door neighbor. He is amazing and so helpful. I would love to post about this whole journey someday. It’s a blessing that I’d love to share with everyone, but for today I’m just keeping it simple and letting you know that it has begun. Within six months we should be in our new home.

The House footing is poured.

Live is full of ups and downs. I know that nothing lasts and I’m sure hard times and good times come and go. I just know that if we keep God close to us we will be able to get though anything, appreciate life and see the light as we progress through life. Our outlook on life will be different and we will have greater peace within our life and that energy will show. I will keep everyone updated now and then on mainly the house, garden and of course Dana Arts. Take care and I’ll talk with you again soon.

Pendants

I love designing pendants because most of the ones I do are larger than rings and it allows more space for the design elements. Lately my favorite shape has been the round medallion pendant shapes. I have a few in the works and lots already done. I know they are big and heavy and not everyone likes that. I will try and design a few smaller and thinner ones in the future so that there is a pendant weight for everyone to choose from. My personal favorite is the “Paradise Pendant”. That’s the one I wear most often because it has to much significance to me. I like adding a thick leather cord to them because it is strong and will wear well with the pendants. Of course you can also put them on a thick silver chain, but they will wear out faster than the leather cord would.

Honey Run Bridge - Chico CA

Pendants can be so creative. There are so many shapes that can be used. For me I like to find what I feel is a cool shape in the moment and then start the design or idea for the middle. As I develop it I push and pull things around until I like it. I’m a very visual person so I usually can tell what will work and can see it in the metal as I design on paper or in CAD. Most of my design I start with and design totally in CAD. I think that’s funny because when I went to college I took many art classes. They always taught to design on paper first because you have more freedom to do anything you want. You mind can open up and be creative. That may be true, but for me I am able to be free even though I’m limited to the tools and my knowledge of the CAD program. I’ve used CAD for a long time and the tools are not really a hindrance anymore. If anything I can do things and be creative in ways I could not if I were to just use pen and paper. We all work different and have different skills and this is just how I’ve developed mine. I enjoy doing it in this way. I’ve also learned that I am not the best 2D artist. I love to draw and love to design on paper so don’t get me wrong. I just don’t feel I’m great at it even after all these years. I’m not a natural at it like some people. When I discovered CAD and started to learn sculpting in the computer, I fell in love. I’ve never sculpted clay other than making pots, but in CAD I love the ability to sculpt and save your file, then continue with it at any other time. I feel I’m a better 3D artist than a 2D one. It just makes more sense to me and 3D shapes are like real life so it comes easier to me. I’m still not perfect at it, but enjoy doing it.

So back to the pendants. This is why I design my pendants in CAD. The 3d environment make sense to me and it’s easier to do than draw my awkward 2D drawings. It’s interesting how we develop our skills though life. Everyone different with different paths. We do what works best for us and our families.

I hope yo enjoy my ideas coming to life in the form of pendants. I sure do. I get excited each time I’m able to spend some time building a new one. If you ever have a request for one let me know. I’d love to explore the idea and you will have had an influence on the design process. Thank you all those who actually follow me on social media or even read this blog. I doubt there are many, but everyone is important to me. As I try and grow my business please help out by sharing my posts with your friends. I just recently did a giveaway for a silver ring. I will be doing more in the future. Stay up to date and follow me on Instagram. @danaarts

Ring Giveaway

Introduction

I have been thinking a lot about ring giveaways. I’ve decided to give it a try and I am excited to announce that I will be partnering up with @delaneymay.designs for this giveaway. They will be giving away a beaded bracelet and I will be giving away a ring from the “Impressions of Nature” collection. I will do this every so often per ring category from my site. If whom ever wants to participate they will just have to follow the rules to enter. At the end, the randomly chosen person will win a free ring of their choice from that category. How about that. My goal, of course, is to help spread the word and grow Dana Arts following both here and on Instagram. Please help by spreading the word and you might win a free silver ring. So lets just get right into it.

Rules to enter:

1. Like the contest entry instagram post/reel.

2. Tag a friend in the comments of the Instagram post (separate comments for each tag gives you more of a chance to win)

3. Follow Anja @delaneymay.designs and me @DanaArts on Instagram.

Dates: October 7th 2023 is the first day to enter. Winner will be randomly chosen Saturday night October 14th at 7pm Arizona time. :)

Winner: Once the winner is chosen and they chose a ring, it will take 3 weeks to make it and get it to you.

Rings from my collection “Impressions of Nature”

Jewelry Cleanup after Casting

The Raw Casting

After a ring is cast into metal it has this casting skin on it that prevents the metal from shining. Also the surface is semi smooth for smooth waxes and a little more rough for waxes that were not that smooth before casting. The color is also a little different. Just after casting the metal is a bit oxidized which means it’s black on the surface with a hint of the metal color mixed in. It needs to be “pickled” or put into some acid that will get rid of the black surface and make the metal a nicer color. For silver that is a dull white and for 14k yellow gold it’s a dull yellow. Now it’s ready to go to the cleanup process where the casting skin can be taken off.

Just after casting. The ring is now ready to go into the “pickle” or acid to get the black surface to a clean surface.

These silver castings have already been pickled to a dull white color. Some of them have been cut off the tree.

The cleanup process

Cleaning up the jewelry after casting can be a lot of work, but it’s rewarding. Bands are probably the easiest to clean up. Some engagement rings can be very difficult and time consuming. So let me explain the process so you can have a better idea. I’ll go through the general idea.

After a ring is cast the sprue has to be cut off which is where the metal was poured into the impression of the ring (see the image above). You do that by grinding it off until smooth with the rings surface. I usually will get it as close as I can, but not quite all the way. I can then use a finer grinder or even a file to help file it down. Then sand paper at various grits can be used to get the surface super smooth. This is the general idea. I’ll go over wedding bands and engagement rings in the next parts.

Sanding the sides of a ring after it had been blackened.

Wedding Bands

So wedding bands are usually simple and straight forward. Again, once cut off it has to be grind down so that it’s non existent. As you get close to the actual ring surface while grinding you have to slow down and take your time and use less aggressive methods. Then the whole ring has to be done in this way to get every surface clean and smooth as possible. Now it’s ready for polishing.

Silver rings that have been blackened and a light satin finish applied. Ready for polishing.

Engagement Rings

Engagement rings are sometimes a bit trickier to clean up. For these more difficult rings you need to used small files or even a small amount of sand paper wrapped around the tip of a mini file to smooth hard to reach areas. Also using a rubber wheel can help out a lot. This is attached to your flex shaft. It spins very fast and can speed things up if you are careful. Leaving it too long in one spot can dig into the surface and ruin it. So be careful and take your time. There are times you even need to use dental floss with polish on it to polish up hard to reach areas. Although there are some places you can’t get to there is a solution to at least brighten it up. Using a magnetic tumbler with tinny steel needle like pieces are used to tumble the ring and get those non accessible areas. Once the ring is cleaned up to the best of your ability and as smooth as it can be it’s ready for polishing.

Rendering of a platinum engagement ring I designed many years ago.

Conclusion

Cleanup after casting a ring is a very important process to go through. This will determine how much easier the next step of polishing will become. It makes the ring clean and free of blemishes and rough surfaces getting it ready for polishing. I have to say that I don’t think many people know what’s involved in getting a ring ready for final viewing. Usually it’s seen as a highly polished and perfect piece of jewelry, but it wasn’t always like that. It is quite the process that takes progressive steps along the way until its shine goes through. I hope this explanation helps a little bit to visualize the process and maybe think about the craftsmanship that goes into making a finished jewelry piece.

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Lost Wax Casting

What is lost wax casting? I’m glad you asked because I’d love to explain what this is. It’s a process in which you take a wax, invest it and then cast metal into where the wax was. This is the most simple explanation. I’ll go into more depth in just a minute.

So I’ve been casting my own silver for a long time now. I enjoy it very much. I feel it helps me fell more complete as an artist. This is because I am able to do the whole process myself. I design something in my head or on paper and then can build it in CAD without having to rely on someone else’s ideas or influence the design. I also don’t have to micromanage a designer to pull out what’s in my head. I can then get a precision wax made of what I built in CAD. From there the wax is sprued up into a wax tree. This tree can then be weighed and covered in a metal flask. The investment is then mixed and poured into the flask. Once dried the rubber bottom is then removed and you’ll see the wax sitting there. You put that part face down inside the kiln. During this process the wax melts out and leaved the impression of the art piece. Once it finishes an 8 hour cycle and brought down to the proper temperature, the flask is removed and placed on the vacuum cast machine. There are other types of casting machines, but vacuum casting is the method I use. I then take silver and heat it up to the proper temperature and then pour it into the flask where the wax once was. The silver solidifies and cools off. I can then quench it in a bucket of water and remove the silver casting. If everything worked as it should, the jewelry item is with all the details the wax had. Then the sprues (which are the wax rods that connect the opening where the silver is poured in to the jewelry item) are cut off and the jewelry item can be cleaned up and finished. It’s a lengthy process that is very rewarding as an artist. I do not cast gold even though I could and have before. This is because it’s a bit costly for me right now. Maybe in the future I can. Anyway, that is the process of the lost wax casting. I hope you enjoy the process.

Garden Beds

I love gardening and I wish I had more time for it. last weekend I was able to make one more garden bed 18’ x 5’. I had planned on making two more of them, but only had time for the one. The next few weekends are busy. I had to get some seed into the ground for this growing season. My family and I were able to plant more carrots, some lettuce, three or four types of tomatoes, broccoli, onions, sweet snap peas, sun flowers, basil and thirteen types of peppers. I think that’s all. Hopefully something comes up. I’ve never had much success with tomatoes from seed, but I did a whole row of them. I hope at least a few come up. Anyway, if all of it grows we will have more that we need. I plan on doing what I can to preserve extra and then give away the rest to family and friends.

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Garden Beds

Ok so another week passed and I didn’t post. There is another garden bed as you can see. This time my daughter Anja wanted to learn and took the initiative to do it herself. I helped and guided, but she did most all of it from pick axing the ground, mixing the dirt, making the frame, adding more dirt and then the water spraying system. So proud of her. We had a freeze one day that I think was the last, but it did some damage to the citrus trees. The leaves are falling and since they are just freshly planted I hope they can recover now. Because of the frost I feel no seeds have come up after the time frame they should be coming up. I may plant more just in case or maybe the seeds know and are waiting for the right time to pop up.

added another garden bed to the right

Slowly but surely we will get this garden dirt better and better every year and hope this all works out. I did run into a slight problem. Finishing off the water system by adding the last spray heads dropped the water pressure too low to work for these three beds. We took out a few spay heads to try and spread out the water. We managed to get it pretty good, but not perfect. I’m thinking I may just take out the water pressure regulator that is set at around 30psi and just not have one. The pressure is low anyway at around 42psi. That just might fix the pressure though. This also gets me to worry about the water pressure in the house. Hopefully we can maintain a nice pressure from the street that is so far away. We’ll see when that time comes. For now the garden is starting to take shape. A place to come to and take care of. It has taken almost a year to get to this point, but it can only keep improving from here. Until next time. :)

A little update on life

So the holidays were great! It’s a wonderful time of year where we can all enjoy good spirits and family. Now that the new year has started I have hopes that life will continue to grow and expand and mature as the year goes on. I will go through what my plans are for this year.

First off Dana Arts will be posting a new design every month for this year. Keep an eye out for these new and exciting designs. I love designing and want to keep the flow of creativity going through the year. This means creating new design even when there are so many other things I have to take care of in life and in the business. I hope you will be as excited as I am to see each new design as the become available. I’ll try and promote each one through the month so you can have a look at it. I hope to grow Dana Arts this year as much as possible. I need your help to spread the word and continue buying rings that you love. Every bit helps when you are a small business like me with no employees.

American Flag Star ring with and eagle on the inside.

The Garden House. Well the plans were submitted on December 8th. I called today and it has gone through various steps and it’s in the actual plan review stage. They say it will now take another 30-40 business days. Really? They blame it on the holidays and being backed up. They say they are a week ahead and we should have them reviewed by the end of February. That’s a total of 3 months. Wow! I really hope there are no revisions that have to be done because each revision will take another 2 weeks for them to review and hopefully I won’t need weeks to make the changes, but it’s possible. I’m starting to have the feeling the house will not be completed before my son returns from El Salvador in November. I was trying so hard to make that happen, but it will be close. I’m so tired of waiting. Once the plans are approved I know things will move forward and wont' worry so much.

The Garden at the Garden House. Well I have finished the second strip of garden box. They are both 5ft by 15ft. The next ones will be a little longer. I need to pull weeds and then start mixing the dirt. I would like to get a few more done before spring planting. The new Home Depot just opened here in San Tan Valley so I can make shorter trips for the things I need. for building, so that is a plus.

The driveway. We need to be working on this. I have a friend that will come help me cut some 23” pipe that will hopefully go in at the front of the driveway. I need to destroy a little of the old cement of the old spot for the pipe so this new one can go in it’s place. I then would like to brick lay the end of it and then fill the top with cement. The top cement layer will be thin as this pipe is in reality too big and should be smaller, but that is what size is there and our wonderful neighbor is so kind and generous to give us that pipe. So I’m humbly thankful for their generosity. Once the driveway is fixed we can get rid of all the trash that is on the property. It will feel good to have it cleaned up a bit more. Each new stage is challenging and I am up for it. This is where I want to live and improving the land is a way to make life happier.

Broken part of the driveway.

We all need something in life that keeps us going and keeps us happy. For me it’s believing in God and Jesus Christ and all they do for me as I strive to follow the gospel that has been taught. My family and the joy they bring to me everyday. My work that to me isn’t really work, but play time. My new home where I can create a place of peace and beauty for my family and I. A place of safety where we can all grow together. This is what life is all about. With this we can also then think about serving and helping others the best we can and know how to. We are all here on this journey through life and it’s wonderful to serve and help others the best we can. It only lifts our souls and make life that much easier and joyful. I hope this year that we all can progress together on this journey of life to live it to it’s fullest.