Cinnamon Jewellery

In my last post  I mentioned that I'd been busy finishing a batch of sterling silver bangles so I could get them sent off to the London Assay Office for hallmarking. Well I did just that and got them back last week. After finishing them {they always come back a bit out of shape and with a couple of scratches when they've been hallmarked} and oxidizing the bangles that needed it, I finally got round to getting them photographed.  I made a few new {to me} designs including this hammered "bark" texture set using flattened 6mm and 4mm round wire. I got busy with the masking tape for this bangle... Creating this texture involved cutting very thin strips of masking tape then sticking them to the flattened silver before rolling it through the rolling mill. The textured areas are where the tape was and the raised smooth sections were the bits without any tape. I like this texture!  I was going to try to achieve the look by wrapping 20g/0.8mm wire aro...

My recent holiday gave me a chance to come up with a few new copper bangle designs. They are a good seller in my Etsy shop and website so I figure expanding the range makes good sense. I started by making an intertwined set using 2.6mm round copper wire. It's very simple to link the bangles - it just consists of an extra step once you've soldered, shaped and textured them. Two of the bangles need to be cut open again at the solder join and one of them linked with the remaining soldered bangle and the other bangle linked through the first two before they are soldered closed again and finished. I made the bangles slightly bigger than normal to allow for the space taken up by the bangles being linked. I then had a bit of a brain freeze moment about it all and thought they were still going to be too small but opening them out fully and measuring the inside diameter reassured me they were the right size {does that make sense? I hope so!} Next I made a set using some...

I love making bangles and have so far just made them using copper wire. These, much to my surprise, have proved really popular and I must now be the copper bangle making expert of old Eastbourne town! I had a recent commission for a cuff bangle which was to be a Father of the bride present. The theme of the wedding was amethyst so the customer wanted two small amethyst cabs set at each end of the copper cuff. I used 1.5mm gauge copper sheet for the cuff which I textured with a hammer, shaped then set the 4mm amethyst cabs. Making the bezels was fiddly as the cabs are so small and I did keep my fingers crossed slightly when soldering the bezels to the bangle but it worked out fine and my customer was pleased. I now have plans to use more of the 1.5mm sheet to make more bangles. So of course my mind eventually started wandering and thinking about using sterling silver. I have various gauges of silver wire and did think of using 1.6mm but when I tried it with copper the ban...

I made my first copper bangle at college night class a few months ago as I had some thick gauge copper wire and I wasn't sure what to make so thought a bangle sounded like a good idea. Here's my first attempt... I soldered the coils on at home but before I did that I made a nice lot of noise at college hammering the bangle to give it some texture. Hammering's fine, it's just the noise it makes when you hammer a bangle on a metal bracelet mandrel! I didn't make anymore at college as I thought the hammering noise was probably annoying the others in the class...... I did carry on making more at home though once I'd got my own bracelet mandrel. The ringing noise created by the hammering on the mandrel really grates, drives my cats a bit mad and I'm still waiting for my neighbour to ask if I'm running some sort of foundry or something. I tried putting a sock over the mandrel with the bangle on top of the sock but it didn't make any difference an...

Not usually something that crosses my radar being a committed earring freak, strangely I had a sudden urge a couple of weeks ago to make some bangles . I made the first one at night school as I needed something to do in the last couple of weeks that wouldn't take too long. I enjoyed making it - it was a hammered round bangle made from 2.6mm copper wire which I soldered three coils of thinner wire to.  I soon discovered that soldering the coils onto it meant I couldn't reshape it. I used paste solder for the coils as I thought it would be easier but two attempts and some burnt blobby messes later I went back to sheet solder which worked. In the meantime the bracelet had been bent out of shape slightly plus it needed a good hammering to work harden it as it was a little "bendy" having been well annealed with my soldering attempts! So having learned what not to do - I never got on with paste solder so why I used it I don't know! - I bought a bracelet...