Cinnamon Jewellery

A few months ago I started having a strange problem. The solder joins on some of my 2mm bronze wire bangles started to split as I was making them. Three out of five of a set I was making split and I had to start them again.  Bearing in mind I sell a lot of bangles and have made hundreds of them without any solder join problems occuring before I was baffled. I also had a few solder join splitting occurances with 3mm bronze wire and 2mm copper wire. One of the joins on the 2mm bronze wire came open literally as I got the bangle out of the pickle pot and others would start to split when I put pressure on the join either by rounding the bangle on the mandrel or by hammering it on the mandrel. I thought about what I was doing differently..... but I wasn't doing anything differently from how I made all my other bangles! I use wire ranging from 1.8mm up to 5mm in copper, bronze and sterling silver. The process is the same - cut the wire, file the ends flat using a mitre jig, b...

Despite the fact that I haven't felt as busy with orders this year as I was last year, I've still struggled with finding the time to make new stuff recently. However I have managed to make a few new things - some silver earrings with cabochons and a couple of new bronze bangle designs. One of the reasons I've made some new designs in bronze bangles is because I can't get hold of the 3.5mm bronze wire I use for my most popular bronze set. The website I buy some of my bronze wire from has been out of stock for a couple of months now, citing technical problems with production according to their supplier. There's also a shortage of 4mm bronze wire {luckily I have some of that stashed away in my shed!} The other reason is.....well, you can never have too much choice when it comes to jewellery :D The first set of bangles is made from 5mm and 3mm bronze wire flattened and textured using leaf skeletons. There's something about flat bangles that pleases me ...

I had a break recently and took the opportunity, once I'd caught up with lots of other things, to make some new stuff. I wrote a post a while ago about making metal wrap beads  in copper with the thought of doing a sterling silver version and that's one of the things I did in my break. I had the idea of having a set of three bangles with three beads on just one of the bangles and the other two plain with a hammered finish. Then I decided it would look a bit more contemporary {to me anyway!} to have just one bead on each of the three bangles. I started with some silver sheet I put through the rolling mill until it was about 0.25mm thick. I used the wrap bead template I made myself...... ...and cut three lengths for the beads. I used the smaller size this time. I made three bangles using 3.25mm copper wire that I textured with a hammer. I then flowed some solder onto the the silver sheet on the side that would later become the inside of the bead. Then I...

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 ...