Cinnamon Jewellery

Several months ago I swore off using texture cards with my rolling mill after some pretty unimpressive results with copper and silver sheet. The last lot of patterns I bought were from a different supplier than usual and left me feeling that using the cards wasn't a good idea anymore - the imprinted patterns were so faint.  Then a friend told me that Tracey from Rolling Mill Resource  on Etsy had a GoFundMe page as she needed to raise funds for a new laser cutter machine. In return for pledging a certain amount of money she was offering double the value in texture cards - so $50 would buy you $100 worth of texture cards. Ooh, very tempting, especially as she was promising lots of fab new designs. So I gave in to temptation and paid $50 {about £35} then waited a few weeks until Tracey had her new laser cutter and had listed her new designs. I then spend ages choosing my designs.  And here they are...  Aren't they lovely? I chose a lot of the smaller c...

Last week I have been mostly making.... hoop earrings with post fitting. Strangely I've never made this type of hoop before but it is a style I like to wear myself so I thought it was about time I made some! I've made the hoops in sterling silver, copper and bronze using wire from 2.6mm {10g} up to 3.5mm {7g} and sterling silver earring posts with the pad. I use the posts with the pad attached as I find it easier to solder them to other things that way. The posts sit nicely in a hole in my honeycomb soldering board then I can position the end of the hoop using a third hand on top of the pad part for soldering. I then trim, file and sand the ends to remove any of the pad part that overhangs the end of the hoop. I do have some of the sterling posts without the pad which I have used before but being a bit shaky of hand at times I'm going to need to practice a bit more before using them on the hoops. Bronze wire hoops with swirly texture pattern. Apart from ...

One of my New Year things was to start using up my rather large collection of cabs, including some cab shaped pearl beads I've had for years. So I made a start with these copper earrings. I rolled the copper through my rolling mill with a textured card to give it a lovely swirly pattern and combined the copper with pale pink pearl beads and a fine silver ball. The balls were a total pig to solder on as they kept wriggling around and refusing to solder on the flat side. I have no idea why they were doing this but after a bit of a battle I did get them soldered down in the end! The second pair I made used part of some really lovely sterling silver bracelet toggle fasteners. I remember buying these on ebay several years ago after ebay sent me a voucher. I can't remember why they sent me a voucher other than I was a seller on there at the time. Anyway I bought the flower toggle fasteners as I used to make strung bracelets at the time but never used them all so when I had ...

I managed to catch up with myself last week after a couple of biggish findings orders recently that kept me busy for two whole days and made a few pairs of earrings. I used some copper and silver I'd etched and ventured into wire work territory that I don't do a lot of these days. Just simple bead loops but it was fun getting my beads out again and choosing colours and the quickness of making them was a nice change! I bought these czech glass beads a while ago from Lima Beads  and I love the colours. They have a large selection of czech beads but I couldn't see the kiwi green colour anymore sadly. I also used some of the sterling silver sheet I'd etched using nail art stamps . The etched designs are small so I was a bit restricted and kept it pretty simple..... The shape of this pair with the garnet cabochons reminds me of little handbags (kind of). It's the first pair I've made with garnets and I love the colour combination with the oxid...

I wanted to do a bit more bezel setting to improve how long it takes me to do. I am getting quicker at it, really! I sometimes "waste" time cleaning/ filing/sanding bezels up then change my mind about what I'm going to do with them and realize I will have to sand them again after another lot of soldering. Oh well :D I thought I'd try decorating one of the bezels by stamping. I wasn't sure if it would work as the bezel wire is pretty thin at 0.3mm so I stamped fairly lightly. I didn't want to risk stamping too heavily and the bezel splitting and I also left a gap where the join was going to be. I think it worked ok with these simple turquoise cabochon earrings . I stamped in the gap I'd left after soldering but not directly over the solder join. I think the stamped effect looks "right" with the turquoise. I'm currently practicing making hollow form pendants in copper and will move onto silver in the next couple of days. I love t...

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...

Look out for issue 45 of Bead magazine which was out on 13 March. Bead has a new look this issue and is full of Spring inspiration! There's quite a lot of floral action going on including a step-by-step project for my copper wirework earrings with ceramic flower beads.  I love those beads!  Seeing the photos has reminded me to dig out the rest of those ceramic flower beads and do something else with them. I bought a mix of colours including lilac, pink and yellow. I'd like to thread them onto copper or silver hoops then solder the hoops closed. I "think" the ceramic beads will stand up to the heat of the torch ok. Some strategically placed pliers would act as a heat sink and easy solder would make it a quick in and out job so I may well have a go soon. Here's the colourful front cover of Bead magazine - it's so bright you can't help but be cheered up by it :D

I thought I'd put my newly-learned bezel setting skills to the test and start making earrings with stones. It's a technique I've been itching to learn for a long time but I'll be honest the prospect of making a "proper" start on bezel set jewellery did daunt me a bit. There's so much that can go wrong - melting your bezel, the cab not fitting, getting to the point where everything is finished and you "just" have to set the stone and then you go and scratch it beyond repair with your bezel pusher......I've done that once (so far!) I have a bezel roller and a bezel pusher and a burnisher and all three of them have the potential to ruin all your hard work in a second by scratching the stone! I've now started using a peg I took apart and filed and sanded to round the top edge to set my stones. They're not the most ergonomic design being a bit short to hold but they work fine and don't scratch metal or stones if I slip. I...