Cinnamon Jewellery

My recent holiday gave me a chance to come up with a few new copper bangle designs. They are a good seller in my Etsy shop and website so I figure expanding the range makes good sense. I started by making an intertwined set using 2.6mm round copper wire. It's very simple to link the bangles - it just consists of an extra step once you've soldered, shaped and textured them. Two of the bangles need to be cut open again at the solder join and one of them linked with the remaining soldered bangle and the other bangle linked through the first two before they are soldered closed again and finished. I made the bangles slightly bigger than normal to allow for the space taken up by the bangles being linked. I then had a bit of a brain freeze moment about it all and thought they were still going to be too small but opening them out fully and measuring the inside diameter reassured me they were the right size {does that make sense? I hope so!} Next I made a set using some...

Issue 71 of Making Jewellery magazine comes out today {21st Aug} featuring lots of fab projects including my first torch enamel project for a magazine. I've done several wirework step-by-steps for Bead magazine in the past but never anything involving enamel so it was a treat to do it. I was emailed by Sian the editior of Making Jewellery a few months ago asking if I'd like to contribute a project. I said yes {of course!} then immediately wondered if I was going to be asked to make a wirework piece. I don't make much wirework jewellery these days so was really pleased to be told I could do a project using torch enamelling as they hadn't had any torch enamelling projects in the magazine before.   After finding out the theme for the issue was going to be "autumn" I decided to go for a copper leaf enamelled in a blend of lovely autumn-ish colours and made a pendant as the main piece and a pair of earrings and bangle charm as the two "extras...

This week I have mostly been playing with enamel.  I've been wanting to try using wire to create "cells" along the lines of cloisonne but nowhere near as exact {or skilled}.... no, I went for a slightly more rustic approach and used 16g {1.2mm} copper wire which I formed into jump rings then placed onto the partly fired second layer of opaque enamel and fired until the rings were fused into the enamel. I pickled the copper rings beforehand to make sure they were nice and clean before placing on the enamel. I wanted them to stand a bit proud as I was then going to fill them with wet enamel. I filled the rings with wet enamel then let the enamel dry naturally before firing. They worked ok. There was some firescale on the surface of the enamel that pinged off the copper wire as it cooled but I think that adds to the rustic style. Next time I might try a thinner gauge wire but I do like the texture it gives the enamel in my first attempts. I a...

I decided to put my shops on holiday last Saturday for two weeks which obviously means I'm on holiday too! It's nice to have a break from made to order findings and bangles and just have time to potter and to relax and think about all the stuff I need to do without having anything that must to be done by a certain date for posting. I do have lots of things I want to do jewellery and shops/website wise and I am slowly getting round to them. I'm also spending some time doing another thing I enjoy - buying things online! I saw some Ball mason jars on Etsy and just had to have one of them. They were looking so nice as vases, candle containers and painted in pastel colours then sanded for a vintage look that I completely bought into the "I need one but I don't really know why, they're just glass jars...but they're so pretty!" reasoning..... After lots of searching {all part of the fun} I found a UK site called Uberstar.com  where you can buy the mas...