Cinnamon Jewellery

I wrote a post recently about forming soldering clamps from the Knew Concepts titanium strips I ordered sometime last year. One of the most useful clamps I made was a shape that would help me to solder earring posts onto stud and open hoop earrings... I can position it to hold the post like this for studs.... And like this for soldering posts onto open hoop style earrings.... Previously I was holding the piece of 20g post wire with a pair of tweezers in my right hand and the hoop was held in place using reverse action tweezers in a third hand as it is above. I would hold the torch in my left hand and as the flux heated up and became liquid I would find the post wire would start to move and I'd be forever stopping and trying to get it back in position. The metal for the hoops is only just over 1mm thick in some cases so that also used to make it a bit tricky and swearing would occur quite regularly! Now that I can set it up with the titanium clamp hol...

So having ordered five of the Knew Concepts titanium strips about a year ago {!} I thought it was time I actually did something with them. I've heard great things about how useful they are as soldering aids so why it's taken me so long to get round to it who knows. I think I was worried they would be hard work to bend, saw and shape being titanium and to some extent they are but not beyond most peoples' ability. Warning! This post contains lots of photos. And the tri-colour ink on my printer was running out which is why the print out looks as though it's had a sepia filter added to it :D My camera also developed the white screen of death half way through {and is currently away being repaired} so I had to change to my tablet to carry on with the photographing. I decided to start with the easiest looking "clamp". This one........ I marked two points on the strip where I was going to bend it and using an old pair of flat nose pliers I made my ...

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 ...

My blog was recently featured on two shed retail website blogs. The first was  Waltons  who held a Blog Awards 2017 . My blog was entered in the Best Creative/ Shed Worker Blog category and I came second! I got to vote in that category too and did think about voting for myself {!} then decided not to and voted for another great blog about making beautiful stained glass creations. I got a badge to display in my sidebar and three pairs of gardening gloves as a prize which was very nice. I was also contacted by  What Shed?  who included my blog in their  Creative sheds that are very un-shed like  blog feature. The feature covers sheds that are used for a variety of things including various creative pursuits, a recording studio and a home for a huge wargaming collection. An interesting read as it's amazing what goes on inside those wooden things at the bottom of people's gardens. All this shed stuff made me want to see how much my shed has changed since...