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 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.

This week I have mostly been playing with enamel.  I've been wanting to try using wire to create "cells" along the lines of cloisonne but nowhere near as exact {or skilled}.... no, I went for a slightly more rustic approach and used 16g {1.2mm} copper wire which I formed into jump rings then placed onto the partly fired second layer of opaque enamel and fired until the rings were fused into the enamel. I pickled the copper rings beforehand to make sure they were nice and clean before placing on the enamel. I wanted them to stand a bit proud as I was then going to fill them with wet enamel. I filled the rings with wet enamel then let the enamel dry naturally before firing. They worked ok. There was some firescale on the surface of the enamel that pinged off the copper wire as it cooled but I think that adds to the rustic style. Next time I might try a thinner gauge wire but I do like the texture it gives the enamel in my first attempts. I a...

I posted recently about some enamel earrings I made recently and how I was going to make some more small enamelled stud earrings. My first attempt at them a while ago was a bit fraught as it involved using enamel solder and enamelling the back over the soldered on post. I hadn't done much soldering at that point so was a bit, well, scared really! It worked ok then and it worked ok a few days ago when I made the little group above. I thought I'd take a family portrait before they were separated! Pea green topped with lichen and robin's egg blue  I could make life easy for myself and just enamel the front like a lot of the enamelled studs you see on Etsy, I could but then I'd be waiting for the cracks to appear in the enamel which they have a habit of doing on thin gauges of metal without any counter enamel. I know this because I tried it :D They are "easy" to do really, just a bit fiddly with being pretty small at 7.5mm. The orang...

I've been concentrating on bezel setting and soldering a lot recently so have been working mainly with metals of the silver and copper hue. So a bit like when your body tells you you need chocolate (all the time in my case) I got out the enamels recently to feed my craving for colour. Enamels used to scare me when I first started using them and I was ultra careful about not contaminating them so as not to discover those little black specks and tiny pieces of wire wool that you never see until after you've fired something. I'm still careful but maybe a bit more relaxed these days. I recently had a problem with some transparent enamel I'd washed several months ago. I used it over opaque and it cracked. Not straight away because enamel likes to lull you into a false sense of security sometimes. No, one piece cracked a few hours after it was fired and the other a couple of days after. I reckoned it was because the washed enamel had been hanging around for a while and...

It was a lovely surprise earlier when I went to sign into my  Folksy shop  to see my red enamel poppy earrings as part of the current Featured items on the homepage! There's some really lovely stuff on there at the moment with a red theme. Definitely worth a look!

I posted recently about experimenting with fold forming and enamelling - creating a definite division in the surface of the metal then enamelling both sides a different colour as seen in these disc earrings below Well I've been playing around with the idea again and made two more pairs this time leaving one side of the fold bare copper. I used transparent enamels over opaque - you can achieve some lovely colours that way.  A bit fiddly but that's all part of the fun :D Raspberry transparent over ivory Turquoise transparent over lichen green with a sprinkle of seafoam

As every enamellist no doubt knows enamelling can be very unpredictable! You never know for certain that something is going to turn out the way you hope. Most times it does but sometimes....well..... it doesn't. I've not had time to do any enamelling lately so last night thought I'd make a start on a couple of pairs of simple flat disc earrings - one opaque and one transparent with opaque on top. The counter enamelling (enamelling the back) went fine and after pickling and cleaning the pair to be enamelled with transparent enamel I made a start on the first layer this morning. No problem there .........until I picked up the first disc from the trivet and put it down to cool and it didn't lie flat! Looking at the back I could see this huge carbuncle had developed when I was firing the front - something that's never happened before. You sometimes get the odd bump or pit appear due to contamination but when it's on the back it doesn't matter too much.......

I've just made this lovely Collection on Artfire featuring handmade enamelled jewellery - my new obsession! Enamored By Enamel Curated By: cinnamonjewel... ArtFire.com Handmade Jewelry