Cinnamon Jewellery

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 ...

Circles are a definite theme in my life. It started when I was old enough to grab a crayon and scribble on a neighbour's wall. My Mum said they always knew when it was me because the circles gave me away. I still love circles and sometimes have to tell myself to NOT make another pair of disc earrings! Hoops are also a favourite and something I come back to often. I finished three pairs of hoop earrings this week, one pair in silver and two in copper. I started with soldered hoops made with 2mm copper and silver wire and teamed them with some wire wrapping. I love coils of wire especially when it's oxidized and the contrast of dark and polished areas of metal really shows up.  I normally like to make at least one pair in copper as it's useful for working out how much wire I'm going to need and I always find copper is easier than silver. I don't really know why other than maybe as it's much cheaper I'm not afraid to make a mistake ( I think that ...

I've definitely gone a bit hoop crazy in the last few days! I bought some copper washers from eBay a while ago and fancied doing a bit of wirewrapping with them. "Bit" being the operative word - I love the elaborate swirly wirewrapped jewellery people make but I'm not sure I could manage it myself without a lot of swearing :D Rummaging through my bead boxes in search of beads to go with the copper hoops I remembered these strangely shaped pearls I've had for years.....flat on the bottom and rounded on the top, all in pretty pale icy colours - pink, green, gold, blue, peach and a funny peacock greeny-grey which are perfect for wrapping to the copper washers. So I was off! I fancied adding some sterling wire to these for contrast and actually remembered to oxidise it first - I always have trouble getting sterling to oxidise well when it's in contact with copper. Then I thought I'd make some in sterling silver so I cut some...