Cinnamon Jewellery

Issue 84 of Making Jewellery magazine came out last week and as a MJ contributor it's my turn to be featured in the Designer Profile section! I had to answer 8 questions asking things such as - What made me take the plunge to start selling my jewellery/What are the challenges of working with enamel and If I wasn't a designer I would be... There's some nice photos of my jewellery too. I look a bit hot and bothered in my photo - for some reason I thought it would be in black and white so didn't worry about editing the rosy cheek thing I had going on before I sent it off :D Copyright © 2015 Cinnamon Jewellery. All rights reserved.

I've had an idea floating around in my head this last week or so to make some enamel earrings using liquid enamel over a black base with an abstract and simple {very!} scratched design.  My previously mixed liquid enamel colours had sat on the shelf for a few months since I last used them and had dried up so I needed to add some distilled water to them and stir like a mad thing to get them mixed and smooth again before I could start. I decided to create a couple of new colours from two existing liquid enamel shades so added some more yellow and green to a boring green colour I had to produce the bright green shade in the middle. I also added more blue and green to another mix to produce the greeny-blue shade on the right. That's the great thing with liquid enamels - you can mix them and create new colours. To begin I enamelled some copper shapes on both sides with an opaque black then applied a layer of liquid enamel. On my first attempt the liquid enamel...

After a frenzy of bangle making recently I had a couple of slow days so I grabbed the chance the make some new stuff. I have a long list of "things to make" but decided to go for a few pairs of hoop earrings with post fitting. I've sold a few pairs recently so they needed replacing. I started with a couple of pairs in silver - a simple hammered pair and a flattened design with embossed pattern... I oxidized both pairs but I think the embossed pair might have looked nicer left shiny... {will do that next time}. They do look lighter in real life than they appear in this photo. I also made a pair of hammered texture hoops in bronze and copper. I'm liking bronze more and more these days. Grappling with the thicker gauges can be a challenge as it's a harder metal than copper but the lovely golden brown tones you get when you oxidize it then clean it up with wire wool are lovely. The more golden brown tones of bronze. The slightly more red tones o...