welcome

mary jane dodd

malachite azurite 

each month, our very generous readers/supporters donate their wares to our artspark... recently, i was contacted by laura and karl hansen of cabbing rough... she offered to donate to our group every month so that you very lucky people (who need only submit to the artspark challenge) might win one of the beautiful stones they will provide....

think of the techniques you can start learning to use them - prong setting, tab setting, making bezels of beads or metal, wire wrapping... 

cabbing rough has a blog, etsy shop and flickr group... their family was even featured in the etsy blog... for this truly is a family business... you can follow all of the links to learn more... 

i asked laura to share a bit about cabbing rough so that we could bring people to the name... 

My husband Karl and I work together cutting our stones, it started as a hobby but we now work full time from home. We have 4 children Dylan (12) Tyler (11) Molly (6) and Charlie (4). Our kids are the center of our world. They are all very involved with what we do as well - rocks are fascinating to kids! Especially our daughter Molly, she can cab a rock herself with almost no help, and can identify more stones than most adult collectors!

 

Karl and I are both completely self taught. In fact, we tried cutting our first rocks with a tile saw because we did not have the money for lapidary equipment. It was just about 6 years ago I ran into a 92 year old man at a flea market that sold us our first grinder and saw for $90.

 

Cutting stones is the greatest job I have ever had. It's amazing to be able to take something that looks like nothing, cut it open and find the amazing colors and patterns that are possible. I love the thought that the rock I just cut may have sat for a millions of years in one spot. A dinosaur could have stepped on the rock I cut this morning!

 

So we take rocks and cut them to look beautiful, then send them all over the world to become something amazing by some of the most talented artists. When I work on a rock, I often imagine a finished jewelry design for it. My favorite part of my job is too see our stone in a finished piece of jewelry.

 

We sell our stones on etsy. My mom actually pushed us into etsy about a year and a half ago. We never thought there would be any market for our hobby. Since then we have cut and sold over 3000 stones through the marketplace. And through etsy I have made so many very good friends.

there is even an article on how to cut a rock on their blog... 

dinosaur bone

so welcome laura and karl to our little village... and many thanks to you for your generosity... 

august's artspark theme will be announced shortly - be on the look out for cabbing rough's beautiful donation for the month...