Cinnamon Jewellery

I first came across these cool Tucker Tool dies in a Soham Harrison video on YouTube a while ago and immediately loved the decorative balls you could make with them. Then I realized you could only get them from the US and they were a bit hard to get hold of. Monsterslayer.com  seemed to be permanently out of stock and another site I found that stocked them didn't reply to my email asking if they posted to the UK.....so I sort of forgot about it for a while. Then I noticed Monsterslayer.com did have them back in stock and in a moment of over-indulgence ordered one knowing full well the postage was going to be quite high and that I'd have import VAT plus Parcel Force's stupidly high {even higher than Royal Mail's} handling charge on top. So it worked out to be a pretty expensive bit of metal. You may have noticed the scratches on the plate in the photo......it didn't arrive like that - they were caused by me and a ball burr. But more of that later. I ...

The week before last I spent a few days in lovely Northumberland. I have relatives who live in Ashington {about 18 miles from Newcastle} and although I wish we didn't live at opposite ends of the country it is nice to be able to visit such a beautiful part of the UK to see them. One of the places I wanted to visit was Seaham in neighbouring County Durham, as it's a beach that's known for its sea glass. It's about half an hour from Ashington and the first thing we saw when we arrived was a beautiful steel sculpture of a WW1 soldier called Tommy on the seafront. It's by Ray Lonsdale and shows the soldier reflecting on the sheer horror of World W ar One shortly after peace is declared . The detail and texture is stunning and the rust coloured patina reminds me of the Angel of The North. It was originally meant to be a temporary installation but the residents of Seaham raised money so they could keep it there permanently. So.......the seaglass. W...

I was on holiday last week but just before I went away to the land of beautiful sandy beaches and castles - Northumberland in other words - I had another step-by-step torch enamel project in issue 81 of Making Jewellery! The magazine came out on May 28 and this time the theme for our projects was "tropical". I decided to go for a colourful combination of orange and seafoam opaque enamel colours and make a hoop style earring with turquoise jasper bead decoration on the earwires. As we have to provide three pieces I also made another pair of earrings with turquoise jasper dangles and a pendant with {you've guessed it!} turquoise jasper bead links. I've done a few projects for magazines now but I still get a little thrill every time I see one of my projects finished and published! Copyright © 2015 Cinnamon Jewellery. All rights reserved.