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Showing posts from April, 2016

A Recent Custom Order And New Stuff

I was asked by a customer recently if I made copper pendants and if so could I make a spiral pendant for her. My customer wanted the pendant to match the bangles she'd bought from me a few weeks previously. Of course I said yes! There is a distinct lack of pendants in my Etsy shop and on my website at the moment due mainly to lack of time. They are something I enjoy making but always seem to get pushed to the back of the queue when I decide to make new items - I'll always favour earrings if I have the choice. So it was quite nice to make a pendant for a change. My customer wanted a spiral design in copper using the same gauge wire as the bangles with some silver wire coils and twists and a thick black leather necklace to hang it from. I had a bit of a practice with copper wire to get the coils and twists spacing right then made the silver wire version, soldering the coils in place once I'd finished the wrapping. I added a sterling silver bail and oxidized ever

New Tools - Pendant Frosting Wheels

I succumbed recently.  Yes anyone who receives emails from jewellery supply company Cookson Gold will know what I'm talking about - daily promotional emails telling of wonderful sales and discounts that are sometimes really hard to ignore ----- 10% off silver sheet and wire/20% off tools/find all the Easter eggs hidden on the website to discover the code you can use to get 15% off your order....... Most of the time I hit the delete button but sometimes I have to take a quick look on the website just in case...... Which is how I ended up with the flick mops in this photo - or pendant frosting wheel as they are called on Cookson's website . They are used to give metal a satin or matt finish but they could also double up as instruments of torture {must remember that...} You use them with a Foredom/Dremel or other rotary tool but you do need to be able to control the speed as it's recommended you don't go over 6000 rpm when using them otherwise the meta

Making A Coin Ring

I've seen plenty of coin rings for sale online and thought I'd have a go at making one. The first thing I needed to do was find some suitable coins. I'd seen some really pretty examples of rings made with coins that have a decorative border around the edge on the front of the coin so I trawled ebay looking for some like this. I found quite a few and decided to buy a couple of cheap coins I'd use to practice with before buying anything too expensive. I found these... A bronze 20 Reis coin from Portugal, a 2 Franc Swiss coin made of nickel silver and a rather lovely silver one Rupee coin from India. I decided to try out the Portuguese bronze coin first. First I annealed the coin to soften the metal. I needed a hole in the coin so I used dividers to draw a circle in the centre of the coin. The dividers slipped a couple of times but any scratches would disappear once I started stretching the coin so I didn't worry too much about them.