Skip to main content

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! 


                                                              64162prelim.ashx

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!
The book has several projects which use foldforming including a brass foldformed heart pendant which inspired my copper heart earrings. I already had the copper heart blanks - sent to me by mistake from beaducation.com when I ordered flower blanks (!) but as they are 24g they are perfect for foldforming.



I started off by annealing the hearts to soften the copper then after quenching and drying folded them diagonally and hammered the fold flat. After annealing again I used an old kitchen knife to open up the hearts then flattened them using a mallet. After pickling to remove the firescale and a bit of a scrub with wire wool I used a center punch to add some texture to the fold then added a bit of detail ( I like my little details!)with a couple of fine silver ball rivets. This is something else I've just worked out how to do - use a nail punch with a concave end to support the silver balls as you hammer the rivets on the other side. You need something to hold the nail punch upright - I use one of the holes in the block my dapping punches live in. The nail punch is actually stuck in there now from the hammering but at least I'll know where it is!

I finished and photographed another foldform pair of earrings yesterday. The discs had been sat on my table waiting for inspiration and it finally came in the form of antique copper flower beadcaps and pale green chrysotine rondels. Now I know how to rivet beads and things onto metal there will be no stopping me. These are still quite shiny shiny so I'd better get working on my rustic side!



Labels:

Comments

  1. Miss Val's CreationsThursday, April 28, 2011

    These pieces are both gorgeous! It does not look like you just learned the technique. I have never tried this. It looks like fun! ~Val

    ReplyDelete
  2. somethinguniqueThursday, April 28, 2011

    How beautiful you have a very special talent, very unique and creative ttfn L:)

    ReplyDelete
  3. NRjewellerydesignThursday, April 28, 2011

    Great stuff! Much much much better than my first attempts lol. x

    ReplyDelete
  4. NancyFriday, April 29, 2011

    Great earrings! You're a natural at this technique.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Cinnamon JewelleryFriday, April 29, 2011

    Thank you nikki and Nancy :D

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownSaturday, April 30, 2011

    So so pretty! Xx

    ReplyDelete
  7. NicoleTuesday, May 03, 2011

    Really cool! I wish I could learn this technique! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. JillThursday, January 12, 2012

    Blue Cottage Handcrafted Jewellery said .....
    These are lovely work. I have been fold forming and learning to rivet last term at college. You have done well to learn these on your own. Beautiful work! Well done!

    ReplyDelete
  9. NCornettMonday, April 07, 2014

    I am trying to find out how to rivet a bead on to metal. I have seen a number of examples, but when I want to know the specifics I can't find anything! Except YOU, oh wise one :) This blog entry mentions it, but now how to do it. Would you be willing to share how you learned? Or what you learned? I know this is a 3 year old post but I hope you still get notification of a comment. I have been following your blog for a while now - beautiful stuff!

    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