New Article Up On IndieSmiles

My latest Folksy article is now up on IndieSmiles! It's the interview I did a while ago with Serena of The Copper Swallow.

The IndieSmiles site has had a revamp and is looking a lot better for it! You can see the latest articles on the home page and the whole site looks tidier and more professional ~ well done to the designer!

Incase you haven't come across it before Indiesmiles is a great place for news concerning handmade shops in regards to marketing, business tips, Indie shop reviews and interviews and more, as well as off topic that relates to various subjects including how handmade (Indie) teams are making a difference with their charity and community work.

You can also advertise your shop by placing your 125×125 image on every page of IndieSmiles.com. All ads rotate to provide optimum visibility. The cost is $12 for two weeks or $20 for 1 month. It's definitely worth a look!

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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...

My Jewellery Shed Gets A Lick Of Paint

At the end of last summer, after an incredibly busy few months jewellery-wise, I decided to take a break and repaint my shed. I'd painted it a pale green colour when I first got it and it was starting to look a bit faded and sad. So I did what I expect most people do and started looking online at what wonderful colour I could repaint it. There are lots of great colours out there by Cuprinol and Ronseal and the DIY stores own brands. I took a long time deciding on a colour then got in the car to go and buy the paint. That's when I discovered that B&Q and Homebase only carry a limited selection of shed paint colours {8 if you're lucky} and if you then find something in stock you do like they quite often don't have it in the size pot you need! So the colour I bought was a bit of "Oh buggar it, that'll have to do". Luckily it turned out to be similar to what I'd originally wanted by the time I'd finished the third coat - yes it took three coat...

Amazing Enamel Effects

Buying a kiln recently has given me the chance to experiment with enamelling on larger pieces of copper and to produce some really cool effects. These effects happen when you combine different types of enamel. I usually use smaller flat pieces of copper for making enamelled earrings and have had some of these effects happen when firing with a torch but they are much more obvious when you use larger pieces. I made a few practice pieces which you can see in the photos below. This was flux {a transparent enamel not to be confused with soldering flux!} applied straight onto copper and fired until the copper was a bright golden colour. Then I added a layer of liquid enamel in green and red over the flux and fired again. The lines and spots form when the enamel becomes hot enough to start moving and in this case the transparent pushes through the liquid enamel layer forming these cool lines and spots. The effect is better in the green liquid enamel than the red. N...

Cinnamon Jewellery

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