Cinnamon Jewellery

I went through a hoop phase a couple of weeks ago when I just had to make some hoop inspired jewellery. I quite often get these urges - sometimes it's for enamel, sometimes it's etching, it just depends. I'm currently in the grip of a hollow form phase but I'm having to wait for supplies before I can go any further which is a bit annoying but does serve to make me think about it a bit more before diving in! I wanted to continue my bezel setting practice so I added cabochons to the hoop earrings and pendants. I stamped a circle design onto the hoops and added a jump ring at the top then pierced out the part of the hoop in the centre of the jump ring to make a cute hanging hole. The glass cabochons are from a Turkish shop on Etsy and are lovely!  They remind me of jelly sweets. Tip! Put a piece of aluminium foil behind the glass cabs before setting them. The foil gives them a luminous glow in the light and avoids the backs of the bezels darkening an...

Not usually something that crosses my radar being a committed earring freak, strangely I had a sudden urge a couple of weeks ago to make some bangles . I made the first one at night school as I needed something to do in the last couple of weeks that wouldn't take too long. I enjoyed making it - it was a hammered round bangle made from 2.6mm copper wire which I soldered three coils of thinner wire to.  I soon discovered that soldering the coils onto it meant I couldn't reshape it. I used paste solder for the coils as I thought it would be easier but two attempts and some burnt blobby messes later I went back to sheet solder which worked. In the meantime the bracelet had been bent out of shape slightly plus it needed a good hammering to work harden it as it was a little "bendy" having been well annealed with my soldering attempts! So having learned what not to do - I never got on with paste solder so why I used it I don't know! - I bought a bracelet...

  If you're a budding metalsmith who wants to watch decent how-to videos made by an experienced jeweller then have a look at Soham Harrison on YouTube. I discovered his videos a couple of weeks ago and love watching them!  Easy to follow - in other words no weird music/total silence/blurred images or hands in the way, Soham's 141 videos cover a huge range of projects including claw setting, bangles, rings, bezel setting, sweat soldering and die forming plus some on how to use various tools and then there's the one on making creme brulee :D He has a very calm manner and explains things clearly plus explains what to do if something doesn't go as it should. They're great to watch if you need a bit of inspiration too.

This Tuesday night (14th May) is the last week of my silver jewellery course. I feel a bit sad to be honest as I've met some lovely people and had a lot of fun. I've also learned stuff! The main reason I went on the course was to learn how to bezel set and hopefully to become more confident with soldering and piercing. Well I certainly feel a lot better when I'm sawing and piercing now. I don't have a proper jeweller's workbench and have to make do with working on the diningroom table and in the kitchen so sawing metal was a bit of a challenge as the table is too low. I used to resort to sitting on a silly little plastic stool and feeling uncomfortable and a bit stressed about it all. Then I thought it might help if I used a G-clamp to attach my bench peg to the table instead of the metal clamp that came with it (that I'd managed to bend out of shape!) and use my computer chair to sit on as I can adjust the height. The result - a much better position and ...

After rather a long delay - almost a year - I'm happy and relieved to say my very own website Cinnamon Jewellery has been set free to roam the internet wilderness. I bought the .com and co.uk domain names last May with the intention of making a start on my own site but other things got in the way, the amount of work involved was putting me off and I started having doubts about whether anyone would actually find it so it just got put on the back burner. But with laughable views to my shop on Folksy and dwindling sales there I thought it was time to start work on my own website. I made a start about six weeks ago starting with the boring stuff - privacy policy and terms and conditions, delivery and returns and I even designed my own 404 and contact page. I worked on it for about 1 hour a day to avoid burnout (!) as some of it is incredibly boring to do and slowly got more into it and into making it more personal than a shop on a selling platform. I added jewellery inf...