Cinnamon Jewellery

Just over a week ago I was contacted by Frances, the editor of JewelleryMaker  and asked if I would like to blog about one of their recently launched project kits . The kits are for charm bracelets and contain all the components you need to make the bracelet, the only items you need yourself are two pairs of pliers and a good pair of reading glasses if your eyesight is anything like mine! The bracelet kits are available in plated gold, plated silver, plated antique bronze and plated rose gold. There are different charms available too - stars, leaf and heart mix, gemstone dangles and hearts. I chose a rose gold plated bracelet with leaf and heart charms. It's a far cry from the type of jewellery I usually make but I thought it would be fun to do for a change. I sat down in my shed with my two pairs of pliers, glasses and a cup of tea and began. So what's in the box? The box is a square shape with a lift off lid and multi-coloured stripes down the sides. Inside you...

I haven't had much spare time recently so haven't had the chance to make much new stuff but I did get round to altering the etched bronze and malachite earrings I made a few weeks ago. I wrote in this  post about how they didn't hang well. The design means they are a bit bottom heavy and hang at an angle like this.... So I was at a quandry with what to do with them. Do I leave them or do I cut them down and change the way they hang? I couldn't do any more soldering as the stone was set so I decided {eventually} to cut them down and add an earwire to the pierced hole at the top. They now hang evenly but it was a shame to have to alter them although I have come to the conclusion that I'm not keen on the type of earwire I used originally for them. The type that is soldered to the back of the earring then formed into an earwire. The length of the wire and the size of the earrings meant the earwires could easily have been bent {accidently} out of shape....

If you solder as part of your jewellery making then like me you probably have a selection of soldering boards. The good old asbestos-substitute, the honeycomb board and the fibre brick. I've yet to try a charcoal soldering block strangely - I've looked at them a lot but never clicked the buy button as yet.... There's nothing nicer than a brand new, clean, smooth soldering board to use. Well there is, lots of things are nicer, but you know what I mean! My collection of soldering boards Before I tried the honeycomb boards which I tend to use a lot now I would use the asbestos-substitute boards most of the time. After a while you inevitably gets areas of the board covered with excess flux which forms a glass-like layer on the board once it's cooled and if heated a lot will start to eat into the board. Your metal will also stick to any flux you accidently put it on top of during soldering sometimes leaving blobs of flux to clean off in tricky areas. So you a...

It's very satisfying to use your scrap metal and make something you really like with it. I normally save my sterling silver scrap in a pot that I then send off when it's full for recycling in return for a nice amount of cash. But sometimes I like to get out my torch and just melt stuff and I've never done pods before...... Sterling silver and bronze will melt easily and form pebbles, sometimes lovely and round in shape and sometimes a bit more organic and freeform. Regardless of their shape you then have a piece of metal you can do things with. I watched a video by  Janice Berkebile  recently where she made some pod earrings which is what inspired me to play around with some of my scrap silver and bronze. Here are some bronze pebbles that I've hammered to flatten them slightly before putting them through the rolling mill {that soldering block looks disgusting doesn't it?!} A bronze pebble about to be squished. Bronze is a harder metal than silv...

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 ...

Continuing my experiments with and learning more about working with bronze, I had a go at etching some bronze sheet last week. It came out really well and behaved very similarly to copper. The only difference was it took slightly longer to etch than copper - about an hour and 45 minutes compared to 30 to 40 minutes with copper. The design stamped on the bronze sheet. The results of the etching after the first rinse.  The etched sheet after removing the ink with nail varnish remover and giving it a scrub with steel wool. So the next step was to make something with the etched bronze sheet!  Heating and pickling bronze results in it being covered with layer of copper. I'm not sure if this occurs due to heat from the torch during annealing/soldering or if it's the result of the bronze going into the pickle {maybe someone will tell me} but the bronze has a definite copper hue after it's taken out of the pickle as you can see in this photo. ...