Cinnamon Jewellery

Photo:  Richard Wezensky  on Flickr {Creative Commons} First things first - Happy New Year!! Here's hoping it will be a good one for us all. The title of this post is from a song by Soft Cell from 1981. That was the year I left school and it was one of my favourite songs of that time. It made me think of seeing in the new year and saying farewell to the old. I've been looking back at my posts through 2014 and I think one of the biggest turning points concerning my jewellery making was the decision to put a garden shed in what was already a pretty small backyard and turn it into my workshed or "shed of wonders" as my friend Nicki describes it. This photo was taken shortly after I moved in to the shed in April 2014 when there was sunshine and it was warm enough to leave the door open.....At the moment I'm using an electric radiator in the shed which is ok and does take the chill off but it can get pretty cold in there at times, although a ...

Until recently I've always used jump rings to attach my enamel pendants to a chain. Enamel is great but some of the methods of attaching things to other things commonly used in jewellery, in other words cold connections and soldering can be a bit tricky when combined with it. It is possible to solder and rivet enamel pieces but not without some difficulty. So....I just used handmade jump rings and always felt vaguely dissatisfied with the final look. Then I realized I could use my wirework experience and make my own bails! Why has it taken me so long to think of this? Who knows! I must have been thinking of "other things" (that means chocolate). I made some new pendants last week, two with pierced out detail and finished them with a cold connected wire bail.  Very simple in design - a length of 16g/1.2mm sterling round wire hammered at both ends and a hole drilled in the centre of the flattened areas. Tidy up the ends and bend into a loop then squeeze ...

Photo : Nigel Howe on Flickr Firstly, Happy New Year to everyone!! I hope 2014 proves to be a good year. Like everyone else, the end of the year makes me think about what I've done over the past year and what I want to do in the new year. It's also a time I makes lists. I make lists all the time as they make me feel organized but the start of a new year is the time for lists. I currently have two lists on the go: a "to buy" list...... and a jewellery "to do in 2014" list.... Click on the photos if you really want to see what I've written! I've made a good start on the "to buy" list and I'm now waiting for lots of nice packages to arrive through the post. One thing I have come to realize over the past year is that I have developed a bit of a thing for stamps. My stamp colection now has it's own box to live in. I started buying them to use for etching copper and have also started using them to decorate my j...

photo courtesy of Andy Beal Photography www.govisithawaii.com After what has felt like weeks of making made to order bangles and findings, deleting items sold on one site from the other two sites they are also listed on, packing orders and printing postage labels, walking to the post box, and dealing with queries, the Christmas rush is now over..... or at least it will be when I get one last bangle made and in the post by the end of today. This has been my best Christmas selling-wise so far. My copper and silver bangles have been a big hit so I'm so glad I had a go at making a bangle in jewellery class last year when I didn't know what else to make! Now it's just the pre-Christmas induced twitchiness of "can you tell me when my order will arrive?" type of queries to deal with. I've had three so far and after reassuring the buyers that their item should turn up soon and asking them to be patient (nicely) two have turned up and the other (in Franc...

A couple of weeks ago I was asked by a fellow jewellery maker who regularly buys my handmade findings (you know who you are Lindsay!) if I could make some double ball ended silver wires like the dragonfly kisses made by The Dragonfly Company . I'll be honest I'd not heard of the website or Lynne Senior who sadly died recently, but ordered some fine silver wire and made some. My buyer wanted a particular (ish) length which I got to eventually - knowing how much wire gets eaten up when you form the ball means you can then work out what length to cut the wire  Fine silver is best to use as it forms nice smooth balls compared to the pitted, rustic look you get with sterling silver. They are used by twisting and wrapping into designs inbetween beads and also can be twisted once and dangled from loops if so desired. I might use some myself one day! In the meantime I quickly twisted some copper wires between jade beads to use as an example in my shops Copper...

I am slowly getting into the Christmas spirit this year. Watching Nigel Slater on the TV last night, who has to be my favourite TV chef for his calmness and sheer gorgeousness of what he cooks, I suddenly knew I had to make some Christmas spice biscuits! So I trundled off to Sainsbury's this morning which wasn't half as busy as I thought it would be (just wait for next weekend!) to buy the ingredients and cookie cutters I needed. I had to make do with hearts as the snowflake cutters were all gone. I used Nigel Slater's recipe (see below) and ended up with three baking sheets of biscuits in different heart sizes.  I decorated them with cinnamon icing in a ....let's call it "abstract" fashion with artistic industrial size blobs for added interest....... more is definitely more where I come from :D They taste delicious (I've eaten three so far) and make your house smell beautiful! The Recipe 70g butter 80g light muscovado sugar ...

                                                                                                                              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!        

A new variation on my copper ball headpins - coloured balls! The headpins are made with a torch, pickled, trimmed, oxidised and cleaned up, tumbled and then the fun begins. I painted the ball ends with different coloured patina inks and sealed with a coat of varnish  Multicoloured - like mini balloons on sticks! I found a sponge pan scrubber very useful for sticking the headpins into to let them dry. I think they're really sweet and a great way to add a bit of colour. You could twirl them to make dangling tendrils or make a wrapped loop at the top to make little dangles or just use them as good old headpins! Available in turquoise, green, lilac, pink and mixed colours and currently being added to my Folksy and Etsy shops  .................now i just need to make some for myself :D

After taking up Folksy's offer of their Plus account recently I've decided it makes sense to combine my two Folksy shops and move my handmade findings into my jewellery shop . So..................after spending rather a long time (let's just say it was most of Saturday) copying and pasting descriptions from one shop to another, my new combined jewellery and findings shop is finished. I even relisted a load of jewellery too to get the front page of my shop looking like a jewellery shop again. I'm liking the Plus account very much! As for the tediousness of doing it all I know Folksy are working on speeding up the listing process but dear God! At the same time as listing my findings/waiting for pages to load, I managed to a) edit 25 photos, b) use my Bigshot to cut out a load of mini envelopes and c) fold and glue most of said mini envelopes together.

After a few requests recently I've now started selling sterling silver headpins. Up to now I've only done earwires in sterling thinking the price for headpins would make people think twice but it seems people are prepared to pay a bit extra for something handmade. So I've now added bright and oxidised 2 inch sterling silver ball and hammered headpins in 20g/0.8mm, 22g/0.6mm and 24g/0.5mm. I've now finished adding them to my Folksy , Etsy and eBay shops!