We’ve been in the Philippines for two weeks already and I haven’t even finished posting about Bali. Action packed times, no time for blogging! Anyways, this will be the last post about our Balinese experience.

Being in Ubud made me want to learn all sorts of things since so many classes were readily available. Just for kicks, I took a silversmithing class where I could make my own 5 grammes sterling silver pendant. The class lasted about 2.5 hours and this is what we did.

First, I sketched out the design I wanted to make which was inspired from one of the pendants I saw in the store.

My teacher, Ketut, gave me the 5g silver wire to work from.

I cut and plied all the little circles required for the design. It took a while… the circles needed to be so small that they kept slipping from my pliers. I spent a good deal of time on my knees in the workshop trying to find the little darn things.

All 17 small circles, one big one, and 2 curvy wires.

Then, I arranged all my little pieces as designed and got to pump the awesome foot cranked soldering machine while Ketut did the very delicate and somewhat dangerous task of soldering the tiny pieces together.

It’s now one piece!

Off it went into sulfuric acid to finish the binding after which it was ready for polishing. I did most of it, but apparently I was too gentle so Ketut kindly gave the last polish with his expert skills.

And here it is, shinny and made by me!

PS: While I was working the pliers, Justin was figuring out how to ship the cow skull… very productive 2 hours.