Studio Saturday with Erin Prais-Hintz, Tesori Trovati Jewelry

Welcome to Studio Saturday! Each week one of our contributors gives you a sneak peek into their studio, creative process or inspirations. We ask a related question of our readers and hope you'll leave comments! As an incentive we offer a free prize each week to bribe you to use that keyboard. The following week we choose a random winner.

This weeks winner is Elaine Robitaille of Too Aquarius!  

Congratulations! You have won a  sweet little ring dish from Shannon of MissFickleMedia!

Send Shannon an e-mail with your address and she will get it right out to you.

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This week we visit the studio of Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati Jewelry.

 I don't know about you, but I am the sort of person who can't say no. 

Some months ago, I was talking with the director of my daughter's dance studio pitching her the idea that I could take my 'simple truths' pendant line and do a semi-custom order form for the dance studio that would be a fundraiser for them. I would take 2/3 and they would get 1/3. And the dancer's would have a semi-custom necklace commemorating the 10th anniversary of the studio.

Win. Win. Win.

But I agreed to do more. I am also working on a showstopping necklace for Ms Tori to wear during the performances next weekend. Something that shows up on that stage with all the bright lights shining when she takes her bow. I have a good idea and I did actually pre-order some materials. But I have yet to start it. I sure hope that I can pull this off (just as soon as I take that ham out of the oven for the Easter dinner that I am serving!). 

But wait! There's more! 

Ms. Tori approached me to say that she had an idea to treat the young ladies who have been dancing with her for 10 years. They were the foundation of her school starting and these families have been the backbone. Would I take on that challenge? 

Here is where the problem comes in. I cannot say no. I see that challenge as an opportunity and I just cannot walk away from it. And I love to help. So, of course, I said yes. Even though I had every single second of the month of April scheduled out and there would be no room to take that on between dance and baseball and softball. And oh, did I mention that I am hosting my husband's family tomorrow for Easter? Those eggs don't hard boil themselves you know!

So in the midst of creating the 25 special necklaces that were ordered (and I have a feeling there will be more orders after I deliver them next week) and the drop-dead gorgeous necklace (that is merely in my head!) for Ms. Tori, I agreed to take on 14 more necklaces.

Someday my Tiny Dancer will be honored with the ten-year prize. And if all goes well I may be doing this for a long time for her. (Plus all these projects are going to pay off the 4th quarter tuition and the 11 costume changes for Tiny Dancer for next week. Eleven! And you know those things aren't cheap!)

I had a rubber stamp of the studio's logo made so that I could use it for the other pendants. Could I use it for etching on metal? Why not! Now etching metal is something that is still quite new to me. You can read about my earlier exploits with etching here. When I started developing my 'simple truths' line, one of the materials I was experimenting with was etched or stamped metal. So my 'market research' last fall included creating dog-tag style necklaces with one word of each power phrase per tag. People love them. And they are quite novel where I live, but I knew that there were plenty of people out there in Etsyland who were far better than I would ever be at etching and stamping on metal. That is when I came up with the current look of the 'simple truths' pendants. But I digress (if you know me, you know I do that a lot! ;-).

{copper tags awaiting a spin in my new Lortone tumbler...first time out of the box!}

I have no problem saying I will do that thing that I do not the know the first thing about doing, and in my wicked overconfidence I don't seem to see that there would be room for error. But there always is.

My first experiments with the resist were not pretty. The paint pens were blotchy, the toner transfer flaked off and in one instance I left the metal in the etching solution for far too long and it wore the image down completely. Drats. And now I only had 4 more days to complete this until the deadline. Still I had to keep going. Because I promised.

{etched dancer logo on copper with hammered texture - pre-tumble}

I was able to get the dancer logo etched but the words were just a hassle and there was originally a skinny border around the outside edge (if you squint just so you can still see it). In my frustration I took a hammer to one... and I liked it. I hammered all around the etching, obliterating the sparse etched line, and creating texture which was repeated on the other elements.

Since the etching wasn't going my way, I opted to use my very favorite stamp set to personalize a tag with the dancer's name (which I will have to buy again at Bead & Button since you can barely make out the 'e' or the 's' anymore!).

 

A third tag captures the Dance Education Center's motto: never surrender your dreams. 

To finish them, I added a little eyelet to the hole for a nice finishing touch (and finally taught myself how to use a tube rivet - thanks to my friend mary jane dodd!), aged them with liver of sulphur, conquered my fear of my new (sitting in the box since November!) tumbler, buffed them all with steel wool, rubbed them all down with a layer of Renaissance wax, packaged them in pretty little pillow boxes with my signature chocolate satin ribbon. (Seriously... how many new things can I teach myself with one project? Does anyone else out there do that? It is just dumb luck that any of these things worked!)

I delivered them all on Wednesday. And now I have one more custom order for one of these charm neclaces... for Miss Tori herself!

In my etching experiments, I etched some tags with the motto that I did not use. They are raw copper, so they are like blank canvases that you can age with Liver of Sulphur, or color with paint, or maybe enamel, or play with patinas. There are no holes, but if you ask I will be happy to add them for you.

 

Next week I will have Heather select three winners of one of these etched copper tags for you to play with. All you have to do is answer this question:

What is your wildest dream?

Enjoy the day!

Erin Prais-Hintz writes about all things that inspire her at Treasures Found::Inspiration Is Everywhere. Her jewelry designs are one-of-a-kind made one-at-a-time. She collects quotes and dust and invites you to send her your favorite (quote - not dust!) to enjoytheday@tesoritrovati.com.