Skip to main content

Metal Shapes, Enamel Colours and New Earrings



The more you do it the easier it gets {unless you play football for England that is.....} That saying is definitely true when it comes to using a jeweller's saw. From really not enjoying cutting metal with a saw and using shears if it was at all possible, I now love using my saw and wielded it almost like a pro {almost} to cut out some cute shapes recently.




 I'd downloaded a lot of shape silhouettes from a graphics site that had a 7 day free trial a couple of weeks ago and I chose a frame shape and a five petal flower shape to start with. I resized the shapes in Word then printed them out and stuck them onto the metal. The flower shape was a bit trickier that the frame shape but I got there eventually.
I domed the flowers and bezel set a London Blue topaz cabochon in the centre. It's the first time I've used the LB topaz and I must say it is a beautiful sky blue stone. Keeping with the blue theme I set turquoise and sodalite cabochons on the copper "frame" earrings and did another new thing which was to solder the hanging loops closed on the earwires on both pairs for added security.






Continuing with the shape theme I was asked recently if I could do a square version of my enamelled discs for a customer who had a necklace made from green enamel squares and wanted to make herself a pair of earrings to match.




The copper squares cut and holes punched.


.

Counter enamelling done and the first two squares given their colourful enamel coats in lichen green




Finished! Mint, lichen and pea green :D




I have new colours! Thompson enamels from EnamelSupply in Denmark {not the speediest of service but faster than ordering from the US}
The new colours include opaques in willow green, mauve purple and bitter green which is a shade I've seen used and really liked but have only just gotten round to ordering and transparents in geranium pink and woodrow red which I'll need to wash if I want to use on top of an opaque. I also topped up with seafoam green which is a lovely colour and very popular. 

I can feel an enamelling session coming on.......


Comments

  1. Loving those enamel colours.
    Heather :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. They are so lovely - the frame earrings have a distinct Egyptian feeling and the flower earrings look beautifully mysteriously. I hate using hte saw too, so hopefully one day I will get over my fears and make something half as beautiful as these earrings

    ReplyDelete
  3. hello

    Your collection is awesome you have done a very nice jobs i like it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow! You've done an amazing job with the metal cutting. Both pairs of earrings are beautiful. The new enamel colors look really cool. I can see why would be excited to start using them!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Val. I still haven't had time to try the new enamel colours yet :D

      Delete
  5. Loving the london blue topaz.... very pretty earrings!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Your comments and questions are very welcome!
If you would prefer to contact me directly please use the contact form on my "get in touch" page.

Popular posts from this blog

Combining Soldering And Enamel

The need to make cute, brightly coloured enamel studs propelled me into the world of combining soldering with enamel a couple of years ago. I knew from reading up on it that it was possible to enamel and solder on the same piece but wasn't too confident I was able to do it back then. It was a slightly embarrassing occurance that made me just get on with - I'd made some enamel studs with glued on stud posts. I'd used 2 part epoxy resin which was a job in itself as it set hard after 5 minutes so I had to keep mixing more up. The finished studs looked ok but that little voice in my head kept asking "are you sure you want to use glue?" I wasn't but didn't think I had any other way to do it so I used glue. I sold my first pair and merrily sent them on their way to Canada. A couple of week later the buyer got in touch to say the stud post had come off one of the earrings and the other was hanging off. I was mortified, apologized profusely and refunded her m

Torch Enamelling - What I've been Up To Recently!

I've admired enamelled jewellery for a while now and not too long ago did a blog post about Etsy seller tekaandzoe  and her wonderful kiln enamelled creations. I didn't think at the time that it was something I would ever be able to do as the cost of kilns plus lack of space would be a problem for me. That wasn't until I saw an advert for a torch enamelling tutorial from US jewellery supplies website Beaducation  by Steven James . It's a great tutorial showing the basics on how to torch enamel on copper. Of course I bought it! I then spent hours scouring the internet for more information on torch enamelling, where to buy the tools I'd need and of course the enamel powders. There are quite a few UK sites selling enamelling supplies and tools but as usual I found the US sites had more choice (why do we always lag behind?) I bought some enamel powders from a couple of UK sites to begin with - Cookson Gold have a good selection but bear in mind the leaded enamels ha

Etching Silver Using Nail Art Stamps

So my love/hate relationship with etching sterling silver continues. I've tried a few times now and always end up with different results most of them not that great to be honest. I've tried connecting the silver and a piece of copper to a 9v battery and also heating the ferric nitrate. Sometimes the results are good sometimes not so good. I currently have an etched piece of silver sheet waiting to be reticulated and rid it of the mess that is the etched "pattern".  I now know that using stamps and Stayz On ink just doesn't work with silver - the time needed to etch using ferric nitrate is much longer than etching copper and the ink starts to wear away after about an hour. This results in the pattern being patchy as the resist is eaten away and the silver ends up quite lumpy and course looking. I have yet to try using pnp paper. I don't know why but it all seems a bit of a faff to do. I don't have a laser printer so would need to find somewhere or