Cinnamon Jewellery

It's that time of year again and I've been MIA for the last couple of weeks as far as writing blog posts is concerned. After a slow start {and a little bit of complaining to friends on my part} my Etsy shop and website got really busy with lots of bangle orders and quite a lot of earring and findings sales too. It's great but I'm always a bit relieved when it's over and I can put my shops on holiday. I already have lots of ideas for new jewellery for next year and despite enjoying the break I'm already  feeling some metalwork withdrawal symptoms so I'm not sure how long I will be able to stay out of my jewellery shed! Wishing everyone who reads and comments on my blog a very Merry Christmas!  The fact that you are reading my jewellery ramblings is very much appreciated :D Copyright © 2015 Cinnamon Jewellery. All rights reserved.

This is the pendant I made as a commission recently. It was a slightly different request from the custom work I've done before in that the buyer wanted me to use one of her own cabochons. She also wanted the pendant with a shiny silver finish. If you read this blog regularly you'll know that I don't normally do shiny. One reason is just that I prefer the oxidized look especially with patterned silver. The other reason is getting a smooth shiny finish on plain silver is difficult!   When the piece features a textured silver top layer and quite a few balls it's even more difficult to get a good polish on it. Getting into the crevices even with radial polishers was tricky as they caught the edge of the top textured layer and would have worn the pattern away if I hadn't stopped. But, after a lot of finishing work I did get a decent finish on it and I'm happy to say the buyer was very happy with it and it arrived in time for her birthday which was nice :D ...

It's a bit of a colour explosion on my blog this week - courtesy of enamels and the wonderful world of plants. I've been flexing my sawing arm and produced these frame/moroccan style shapes from copper sheet which I then enamelled in a blast of green and turquoise opaque and transparent enamels. I also cut some {much simpler} drop shapes that I enamelled in a mix of foxglove purple, mauve and bitter green. The last two colours are recent purchases and I love them!  A couple of days ago I used my phone camera to take some quick snaps of my "garden" which is a really a small back yard {now even smaller thanks to my jewellery shed} which has a few pots in it. The plants are looking nice at the moment so I thought I'd capture them then play around with the photos on Fotor ...... Beautiful nasturtium leaves - no flowers {or blackfly} yet but I do love their shape and the pattern of the veins. Pretty pink geranium flowers An o...

I've been playing with my enamel colours again and creating my own "blends". It's fun sitting at the table with my different colours and mixing them up to make new ones. Enamels don't really mix to make new colours but you can achieve some really pretty speckly effects. Using the same colour groups work better than mixing colours opposite each other on the colour wheel. I found this out when I mixed some purple and lavender enamels with a bright green hoping I'd get a nice purple/green mix but it just looked grey when it was fired. If you looked closely you could see the individual colours but the overall effect was dull but luckily the beauty of enamelling is you can fix it with another layer (within reason!) What I have learned with mixing colours is if it looks dull in the pot it will still look dull when it's fired........... :D The hoops above are enamelled in a mix of different greens with some transparent turquoise layered on top on the bott...

After a few weeks of concentrating on metalwork making hollow form pendants and earrings I needed a burst of colour so out came the enamel powders and some pretty pre-cut copper flower blanks. Yes I could saw out the flowers myself but I didn't :D I felt like mixing up the colours a bit by sifting a mixture of opaque enamels together and firing at the same time. Previously I would only do one colour and fire it then add another colour, fire, then another colour but mixing the second layer of enamel colours saves time and doesn't do any harm. Mixing two different enamel powders won't result in a new colour as such, eg. mixing red and yellow won't produce orange but a speckled blend of red and yellow. Mixing similar shades is good as the different coloured speckles aren't as obvious so the end colour looks more solid. It gives you more options. The earrings above are a base layer of seafoam then another layer of seafoam mixed with lichen and pea which produced...

                                                                                                                              Thank you to Nancy of  A Little Etsy Love for featuring my  Etsy shop on the blog yesterday And remember it's still 10% off everything in my shop til end of Dec 2012!        

Next Tuesday night (25th Sept) I will be starting a 25 week silver jewellery class! I found out about it last year a couple of months too late but this year miraculously remembered about it in time and enrolled a few weeks ago. It was quite expensive but covers all those lovely techniques I either can't teach myself/am too scared to try myself or just really need an expert to show how to do it properly. I know it definitely covers etching (yay!), soldering, stone setting, enamelling and ring making. Some of it I will know how to do but a lot I won't so I'm really looking forward to getting started. Slightly nervous too but once I've got over the "which building is it/who are all these strange people/where's the toilet" stage I know I'll be fine :D  Finally got round to photographing a few pairs of earrings today - I was in one of those let's get organised and do the things that actually need doing and not spend all day experimenting with ...

A disc "thing" that is. The last few pairs of earrings I've made all feature discs in copper or enamel, with or without beads and with a central "dot". I'm always looking for ways to attach "things" to other "things" when I make jewellery - I think it makes things more interesting. You can do it with rivets, soldering (still learning!) or with wire. I fancied trying it with wire which is probably the easiest of the three and came up with these designs... copper and green impression jasper enamel and copper enamel and sterling silver I'm planning on making more of these with enamelled flowers instead of discs because I think they're quite sweet :D • • Fold Forming • • I felt like a bit of metal bashing the other day so decided on some very basic fold forming - annealing metal to soften it then creating a bend which you then flatten with a mallet or hammer, anneal again and open up to reveal a "fold" across the...

I thought I'd try something different. I don't normally make stud earrings but browsing Cookson Gold a while ago I spotted their sterling silver stud earring fittings and suddenly thought " I could make some tiny cute enamel discs and attach the fittings and voila! Stud earrings!" So I did and here's the results....... A bit fiddly, the smallest size are 8mm, but fun to make and there's more colours on the way! Currently being listed in my Folksy  and Etsy  shops. 10mm turquoise 8mm lavender 10mm Raspberry 8mm mint group photo!

After a few teething problems yesterday trying to access the newly relaunched  Folksy site - I had to install Firefox due to problems with IE8 closing the page, I managed, about an hour later, (wasn't impressed!) to get to see my new improved shop. I do like the new look but think it's appalling that there were so many bugs on relaunch day............ Anyway, it was nice to see a pair of my enamel earrings in the Featured Items section on the front page, which takes up the entire front page now! Here's the rest of the lovely items chosen for the page :