Skip to main content

New Year New Designs!

The New Year has inspired me to come up with some new earring designs. I'm going great guns at the mo - full of ideas and feeling like there's not enough hours in the day at the moment! I've even made a stock of ball-end earwires and headpins with my new torch ready for when I'm making earrings which is very unlike me, I usually make them as I need them.

I love my new torch but I'm still at that "slightly scared of it" stage which I'm sure will soon pass! It's soo much better than using the ring on the gas cooker and means I can ball the end of copper wire now (the flame on the cooker isn't hot enough). Here's a selection of what I've made so far soon to be listed in my Folksy and Artfire shops. I've also just finished oxidising some heart inspired earrings ready for Valentine's Day - I said I was going great guns!

Copper and riveted Sterling Silver Spiral

Swarovski Pearl and Sterling Silver Wirework


Lampwork Bead and TierraCast Violet Leaf Charm


Freshwater Pearl and Sterling Silver Disc


Copper and riveted Sterling Silver Discs

Labels:

Comments

  1. My Life with God, Family and LupusWednesday, January 12, 2011

    They all look very nice! I am busy cleaning out old stock so I can buy new and create new!

    ReplyDelete
  2. tammykingdonWednesday, January 12, 2011

    Very nice!

    ReplyDelete
  3. FairlyGirlyThursday, January 13, 2011

    They are all lovely but I especially like the leaf charm one.

    ReplyDelete
  4. CatherineSunday, January 16, 2011

    Love these, Tracy! Wear the earrings I ordered from you often and always get wonderful comments :) Your designs rock!

    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...
32 comments
Read more

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 th...
37 comments
Read more

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...
34 comments
Read more