Cinnamon Jewellery

I'm always on the lookout for variations I can give my bangles and I came across some paper wrap beads recently and thought a metal version might work well on a bangle. I've never made paper beads but they start off as a long thin triangle shaped piece of paper that is then wrapped onto a thin rod and glued to create a bead. Here's my attempt at a metal version. It's a bit long-winded and clumsy as I was making it up as I went along! {I've since worked out a much simpler way of doing it too :D} I started with some 24g/0.5mm copper sheet that I rolled through the rolling mill to approx 0.35mm thickness. I cut out three different shapes for the beads and annealed them to soften the metal. Using my fingers and a mallet I started to curl the end of the copper strip around a scrap piece of copper wire. I decided that the end needed to be fixed to the copper wire to make it easier to wrap the rest of the strip tightly around the wire. So I flowe...

Having recently become interested in anticlastic forms I was quite excited to come across a pair of synclastic pliers on ebay. Synclastic is basically the opposite of anticlastic in that it is a shape that curves towards the same side in all directions or if you need a more simple explanation {I do!} think of a ring that has a domed profile - the convex shape of the dome and the curve of the ring both go in the same direction. So I bought a pair of the synclastic pliers. They cost about £36. You can see from the photos they are quite a hefty bit of metal. They consist of a convex side and a domed side. The flat piece of metal sits in the convex curve and the handles are squeezed to press the the two sides together. The domed side pushes the metal down into the gap in the convex side resulting in the metal starting to take on that curve. I decided I'd experiment with a soldered mini bangle to see what the pliers could do... I started ...

I was asked by a customer recently if I made copper pendants and if so could I make a spiral pendant for her. My customer wanted the pendant to match the bangles she'd bought from me a few weeks previously. Of course I said yes! There is a distinct lack of pendants in my Etsy shop and on my website at the moment due mainly to lack of time. They are something I enjoy making but always seem to get pushed to the back of the queue when I decide to make new items - I'll always favour earrings if I have the choice. So it was quite nice to make a pendant for a change. My customer wanted a spiral design in copper using the same gauge wire as the bangles with some silver wire coils and twists and a thick black leather necklace to hang it from. I had a bit of a practice with copper wire to get the coils and twists spacing right then made the silver wire version, soldering the coils in place once I'd finished the wrapping. I added a sterling silver bail and oxidized ever...

I succumbed recently.  Yes anyone who receives emails from jewellery supply company Cookson Gold will know what I'm talking about - daily promotional emails telling of wonderful sales and discounts that are sometimes really hard to ignore ----- 10% off silver sheet and wire/20% off tools/find all the Easter eggs hidden on the website to discover the code you can use to get 15% off your order....... Most of the time I hit the delete button but sometimes I have to take a quick look on the website just in case...... Which is how I ended up with the flick mops in this photo - or pendant frosting wheel as they are called on Cookson's website . They are used to give metal a satin or matt finish but they could also double up as instruments of torture {must remember that...} You use them with a Foredom/Dremel or other rotary tool but you do need to be able to control the speed as it's recommended you don't go over 6000 rpm when using them otherwise the meta...

I've seen plenty of coin rings for sale online and thought I'd have a go at making one. The first thing I needed to do was find some suitable coins. I'd seen some really pretty examples of rings made with coins that have a decorative border around the edge on the front of the coin so I trawled ebay looking for some like this. I found quite a few and decided to buy a couple of cheap coins I'd use to practice with before buying anything too expensive. I found these... A bronze 20 Reis coin from Portugal, a 2 Franc Swiss coin made of nickel silver and a rather lovely silver one Rupee coin from India. I decided to try out the Portuguese bronze coin first. First I annealed the coin to soften the metal. I needed a hole in the coin so I used dividers to draw a circle in the centre of the coin. The dividers slipped a couple of times but any scratches would disappear once I started stretching the coin so I didn't worry too much about them. ...