Let's get Hammered!!!

Oh, I have found a new love!!  Or perhaps I have lit up an old flame.  I have always love hammered metals.  I mean REALLY love.  I like hammered decorative accents in my home like bowls, platters and lamps, and I love hammered jewelry.

I fondly remember silver hammered continuous hoops in high school.  I don't think I ever took them out and I think I wore them until they had no more love to give and they broke.  I have picked up some other hammered things over time, but nothing compared to my first hoops.

Then, I started noticing a lot of fake hammered marks in things.  Metals given a texture to look like hammering, but not actually hammered.  Hammering must be a long arduous task if someone needs to come up with ways to fake it, right?  Surely it must involve skills, a torch, red hot metal and some medieval protective gear.  And skills passed down through generations of artisans.

Or it might only require these:

She is at it again, that crafty sister of mine.  My birthday is coming up and she is helping to foster my creativity and push me out of my current comfort zone.  She gave me my birthday present a month early, while she was visiting.  A ball peen hammer, a book and an anvil.  I shamefully admit that I haven't looked at the book yet.  But last night I picked up the hammer...

Oh happy day!  Could it really be that easy?  Now this is just practice on some gold craft wire

 And here I created a hammered paddle headpin for the stones

 and hammered random findings and I have ZERO experience, but imagine what I can do with some dead soft sterling!!  And after reading the book, of course!!  I see a lot of hammering in my future. 

Oh, and despite the title of this post, I do not recommend hammering while hammered, or you may smash a finger or two.