Skip to main content

Lists, The New Year And Things I Really Like

Fireworks

Photo : Nigel Howe on Flickr

Firstly, Happy New Year to everyone!! I hope 2014 proves to be a good year.

Like everyone else, the end of the year makes me think about what I've done over the past year and what I want to do in the new year. It's also a time I makes lists. I make lists all the time as they make me feel organized but the start of a new year is the time for lists. I currently have two lists on the go: a "to buy" list......


and a jewellery "to do in 2014" list....


Click on the photos if you really want to see what I've written!
I've made a good start on the "to buy" list and I'm now waiting for lots of nice packages to arrive through the post. One thing I have come to realize over the past year is that I have developed a bit of a thing for stamps. My stamp colection now has it's own box to live in. I started buying them to use for etching copper and have also started using them to decorate my jewellery packaging. I use flower stamps and a "thank you" stamp on a tag I attach to gift wrapped jewellery and I also started using them to prettify the PIP boxes I use for posting jewellery in the UK. The boxes are brown and a bit boring so I now stamp them on the back and inside with various designs. They look a bit more interesting now!

When I was browsing recently for "stuff" I came across a lovely craft website called Sticky Tiger. It's a really nice looking site and you can find a large variety of craftiness there such as stamps (really?!), haberdashery, jewellery making things, papercraft and packaging. Their selection of stamps is a bit different from the norm and there are some at very reasonable prices.I bought a few new ones just after Christmas which arrived last Saturday (28th Dec). I also found a couple of sites that sell Indian wooden carved stamps similar to this one from Etsy shop Indian Beautiful Art.


I bought a few of those too from Rainbow Silks......well they were only £2.50 each! I'm hoping they will work well with Stayz On ink for etching copper.

I have lots of ideas for new jewellery in 2014 (see list!) Since I started making jewellery "properly" I've become a bit of a multi-tasking fiend. I can't bear to have nothing to do and often have three things on the go at once. I never got round to making anymore enamel cabochons so that's something I must do plus start using up the stone cabs I have. My handmade findings need an overhaul and those that don't sell well retired and new designs added. I'm already thinking about Valentine's Day and things to make with hearts. My strange new love of sawing and piercing also continues (strange because I used to hate it!) so some pierced design pendants will probably appear at some point during the year.
I also have my rolling mill to play with and a bit of tidying and sorting out to do so from where I'm standing I think 2014 is going to keep me very busy one way or the other!

Labels:

Comments

  1. LesleyWednesday, January 01, 2014

    Happy New year and thanks for the heads up on those indian stamps...they'll be great for clay work too :) Looking forward to seeing where 2014 takes you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. littlecherryhillThursday, January 02, 2014

    lol it looks like you're not alone with those stamps! There is a shop where my mother lives that has a selection of them too and they're simply gorgeous! I'm a list maker too, I've made one for things to buy a couple of years ago (mainly big ticket tools) and I'm slowly crossing things off. And every year I make a list of 'goals' for learning new techniques. I hope you had a great start to the new year and that 2014 is awesome for us all! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Cinnamon JewelleryFriday, January 03, 2014

    Thanks Em! I enjoyed a little break over Christmas and New Year but now I'm ready to get going again!

    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.
Any comments containing links will be deleted so please don't waste your time.....

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

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...
31 comments
Read more

Embossing Metal With My Sizzix Bigshot

I must admit up until a few weeks ago I was vaguely familiar with the name Sizzix but as to what you actually did with a "Sizzix" I was completely in the dark! That was until I stumbled across a video from Vintaj showing how you could use their embossing folders with a Bigshot to create designs on metal ("metal" - my favourite word after chocolate!) I was really impressed and itching to have a go, I just needed a Bigshot........ I waited a few weeks then when the urge to possess one overcame me I went out debit card at the ready..............and the shop had sold out! So I trundled off to The Range on the off chance and came home clutching my own surprisingly heavy pink and black wonder machine. It sat on the dining room table for a couple of days while I waited for the embossing folders I'd ordered online to arrive then the time came to start playing! I started with some pre-cut 24g copper hearts and the Wildflower Vines and the Butterfly Swirls Deco ...
26 comments
Read more