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Showing posts from April, 2011

Foldform Copper Heart Earrings - My First Attempt!

                                           I'm slowly teaching myself some more basic metalwork techniques. I love making wirework jewellery and torch enamelling but I think I'm at my happiest when I'm hammering bits of metal and playing with my torch! I recently bought a new metalwork jewellery book - Mixed Metal Mania by Kim St. Jean. It's a very good book with an informative tool section and easy to follow instructions and covers some basic techniques including soldering, riveting, forging, foldforming and reticulating. Her jewellery style is quite rustic - something I find hard to do being a bit of a shiny neat freak but I'm sure I'll learn to "let go" eventually!                                                                I've seen foldforming before and did have a quick go at it a while ago but the copper sheet I had was too thick and I also tried to do it without annealing the metal (stoopid!) so talk about making life difficult!

A Recent Commission & A Thank You Note

I very rarely make necklaces, preferring to focus on earrings and the odd bracelet, but recently a buyer contacted me to ask if I would make a necklace to match the stamped copper and green pearl earrings she bought for her Mum a couple of weeks ago. Of course I said yes! She gave me pretty specific instructions for the design which was great and does make life easier. It was basically to match the design of the earrings with a copper chain. The pure copper chain I already had was a bit thick so I offered to order a finer one (most likely from the States) but in the end we decided to use some antique copper chain that I could order from a UK site (still took a week to get here though!) I was a bit worried that the chain would be too dark but when I sent the photos to the buyer she said her Mum loved it so I went ahead and listed it in my  Folksy shop . Here are the original earrings the buyer bought for her Mum  Yesterday  I received a sweet thank you note from the buyer'

Wire Artists Gallery On The Wireworkers Guild Blog

Author of the Wireworkers Guild blog  Linda Jones, wirework jewellery maker, magazine contributor and author of several jewellery books, has posted a gallery of photos of wirework jewellery made by the guild members on her blog. It features a selection of necklaces like the one pictured on the left by Sally Pitman, bracelets, earrings, rings and tiaras. It's lovely to see the variety of wirework styles out there and also nice to see a pair of my copper earrings included too! Sue Mason-Burns Wendy McClean My copper and turquoise jasper earrings now happily residing in Londonderry with Colleen of Folksy shop  Clover Jewels