Cinnamon Jewellery

My recent break a few weeks ago gave me the chance to make a few new pairs of earrings and a couple of new bangle designs. I didn't go for anything too tricky with the earrings - I really wanted to use up some of my etched and patterned silver and copper and some of the {way too} many cabs I have at the moment! I also made a couple of pairs of enamel earrings. The above pair are made from copper sheet etched with a nail varnish resist to create a drop pattern. I used some half-drilled pearls that I sanded on the bottom to make them level then set them in fine silver bezels. I also made some copper and carnelian earrings using some more etched copper. I made both pairs with a stud fitting just for a change too.  I also experimented with a wooden background as I fancied a change from the usual slate I use but I'm not sure about it and will probably go back to slate next time. I do like the weathered wood look for a background but finding ...

One of the joys I've found with making bangles is the infinite variety of designs you can make. I use a lot of copper for bangles and up to fairly recently most of my designs have been made from round wire that I've hammered. It wasn't until I had a custom request for a "bark" texture bangle in sterling {think flattened shape with hammered line marks} that I made my first flat bangle. Having a flat surface gives you more options for design so I decided to try some etched patterns on the flat style bangles. I started with lengths of the round copper wire which I annealed to soften it then rolled it through the rolling mill until it was flat enough for what I wanted to do. I then annealed the flattened wire and straightened it on a steel block before cutting it to size and filing the ends flat The bangles ready for soldering. After soldering the bangles, cleaning up and shaping them the next step was to apply the resis...

You may or may not be aware that Amazon have branched out into their own handmade department. Yes, Amazon is slowly taking over the world and their newest venture is Handmade at Amazon . Previously handmade items were available on Amazon but they were lumped in with everything else but now if your items have been approved they have a new home in Handmade. Above is a screen shot of my shop on Handmade. The screen shot only captured the top half of the page but I like the way it looks. I'm trying my copper and bronze bangles on there to start with and only have eight listed so far. I'm planning on listing some more soon .... It's been a bit of a bumpy ride getting to the point where I'm ready with my shop and items. Never again will I grumble about Etsy and the tweaks they make! Using Etsy as a seller is a breeze compared to Amazon! Amazon is clunky to list on in some ways - no copy function, no paragraphs in descriptions and strictly no using html ...

So, it's been a while. My last blog post was the end of August. I decided to take a few weeks off in September to just have a break and to get over the "bangle-burnout" I was suffering from. July and August were very busy in my shops for bangles especially and everything else {ironing mostly} was just not getting done... plus I just felt like a break.  I had a long list of things I had to do during my break which included doing some decorating, make new stock, make some new silver bangles for hallmarking, do the ironing {!}, tidy kitchen cupboards, clean my shed and varnish my jewellery bench, register on Amazon Handmade, update my website and mourn my sweet cat Tuppence. Hang on! That last bit wasn't part of the plan but sadly old age caught up with her and she was put to sleep on Sept 2nd. So I spent a couple of days feeling sad and missing a cat who had become my constant companion for the last few years. She liked to sit on my knee when I was at ...