Cinnamon Jewellery

A couple of weeks ago I made these earrings...  I love this retro-style groovy shape so decided I'd make a bangle using the same sort of shapes. Here's how I did it together with the moments of enlightenment I had along the way :D I started with a 20cm long piece of copper which would be stretched when it was put through the rolling mill so would end up plenty long enough for a medium bangle.{Or so I thought....} I continued with the strange fetish I have for spending a fair amount of time with a scalpel and masking tape in order to get the thin strips I needed for the stripe texture. I rolled the metal through the rolling mill and removed the tape to reveal the stripes. The next stage was to mark the points where I was going to cut into the sides of the copper and then use the saw to do just that. I also had to decide where I was going to put the solder join - in the middle of a section or at the point where it narrows. That was my #1 moment...

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 ...

I've been wanting to try anticlastic forming for such a long time now and I've had some of the tools I need to do it for over a year {oops!} Anyway I finally got round to it a couple of weeks ago. {The simplest definition of an anticlastic form is something that curves in opposite ways in two directions. Think of the shape of a saddle where the part that fits the horse curves in one direction and the part you sit on curves in another direction.} Just after Christmas I treated myself to a Durston bangle forming die set... It came with a mallet too but more about that later. Having this spurred me on to having a go so I cut a strip of copper, soldered it and formed it into a round shape. I marked the solder join with a Sharpie as a starting point reference and drew guide lines around the bangle to help guide the mallet strikes. The die set is very easy to use. You secure the steel bar in a vice then slide the die onto the bar. I threaded a broken burr into the...