Cinnamon Jewellery

I've been making bangles for a few years now but have never thought about making cuffs until recently. Cuffs are very popular especially in copper as some people believe the copper helps with arthritis pain {although there's no scientific proof of this}. I decided to start making a couple of narrow copper cuffs to see how it goes and whether they sell. Copper cuff with hammered bark texture  Copper cuff with leaf vein texture I spent a stupid amount of time trying to work out the sizing of cuffs which isn't as simple as it might seem! I make them to fit the buyer's wrist size not a general 6 inch length piece of metal fits all approach {it doesn't}. After making a couple for myself I finally worked out how to get the sizing right. I haven't had any returns yet so the sizing must be ok....:D Soon after I started listing the cuffs I got a request from a buyer in France who had bought one of my copper poppy bangles .... She asked to return...

Having recently become interested in anticlastic forms I was quite excited to come across a pair of synclastic pliers on ebay. Synclastic is basically the opposite of anticlastic in that it is a shape that curves towards the same side in all directions or if you need a more simple explanation {I do!} think of a ring that has a domed profile - the convex shape of the dome and the curve of the ring both go in the same direction. So I bought a pair of the synclastic pliers. They cost about £36. You can see from the photos they are quite a hefty bit of metal. They consist of a convex side and a domed side. The flat piece of metal sits in the convex curve and the handles are squeezed to press the the two sides together. The domed side pushes the metal down into the gap in the convex side resulting in the metal starting to take on that curve. I decided I'd experiment with a soldered mini bangle to see what the pliers could do... I started ...

Following on from my post last week where I shared how I got on with making my first anticlastic bangle, here are my first anticlastic bangles to be listed in my Etsy shop . I decided to go with a couple of favourite textures of mine for the copper - leaf vein and stripes. The stripe texture is made using thin strips of masking tape. I stick a piece of the tape on my cutting board and using a metal ruler and a scalpel I cut way too many thins strips. I always do too many because I forget about the gaps :D With the help of a pair of tweezers I pick up the strips and stick them to the annealed copper. It's a bit of a slow job but quite therapeutic. Once I've stuck the strips of masking tape onto the metal I trim the bits that hang over the edge. Then the strip of copper is put through the rolling mill. You don't need too much pressure to get a good result. I remove the strips of masking tape either with the tweezers or if I'm in a hurry I use my ...

Yes it really has been a bangle-tastic very busy run up to Christmas in my Etsy shop and website with my copper and silver poppy bangle sets and singles proving to be the most popular choice with my buyers. Every time I checked my emails there would be one or two more bangle orders! I don't know what was going on but it certainly kept me busy for what felt like weeks. I counted up my bangle sales and discovered I'd made 103 bangles between the 1st November and 16th December. That together with made to order findings and earring sales {the earrings already made thankfully} I was starting to feel a little bit frazzled. And I still needed to do some more Christmas shopping and start writing my Christmas cards and do the ironing and lots of other very important stuff..... As it got nearer to the cut off dates for Christmas posting to the US and within the UK I remembered what happened last Christmas with a few buyers wondering where their items were/could I make and se...