Cinnamon Jewellery

In my last blog post I wrote about some patterned bronze sheet I'd made using my rolling mill and that I'd then made some new earrings with the results. One of the pairs is made with a leaf vein texture. It's really easy to get a mirror image of the leaf vein texture by sandwiching a skeleton leaf between two sheets of metal which is what I did for these earrings. I then trimmed around the outline of the leaf shape and added a curve to the leaves so they looked a bit more like real leaves.  I used this forming block... I bought this on ebay a while ago and only recently found out it's designed to be a bangle forming block but it can be used to form curves in lots of different shapes. It always makes me think of a child's toy :D It added a nice curve to the leaf shape which is what I was after. I then soldered a jump ring to the top of the earrings and pierced out the centre to form the hanging hole for the earwires. I tidied u...

It's been a bit quiet on the blog front for the past few weeks. I put my Etsy shop and website on holiday just before Christmas so I could have a break, relax and also get cracking with making new jewellery. I did quite a lot of relaxing {and scoffing chocolates, yum!} over Christmas and the New Year and enjoyed catching up with the end of the second season of The Affair, started watching the second season of Fargo {which to me seems so much better than the first} and other stuff I'd stockpiled with Sky+ . I did give my shed a proper clean too - even wiping down shelves which were covered with black dust {nice} and I even washed the windows :D I also got round to making some new jewellery. I felt the need to make some bronze earrings and decided to add some patterns to the sheet bronze with my rolling mill. I used a mix of textured card, leaf skeletons and brass texture sheet that I'd bought and some brass sheet that I'd etched with a stamped designs. ...

It's that time of year again and I've been MIA for the last couple of weeks as far as writing blog posts is concerned. After a slow start {and a little bit of complaining to friends on my part} my Etsy shop and website got really busy with lots of bangle orders and quite a lot of earring and findings sales too. It's great but I'm always a bit relieved when it's over and I can put my shops on holiday. I already have lots of ideas for new jewellery for next year and despite enjoying the break I'm already  feeling some metalwork withdrawal symptoms so I'm not sure how long I will be able to stay out of my jewellery shed! Wishing everyone who reads and comments on my blog a very Merry Christmas!  The fact that you are reading my jewellery ramblings is very much appreciated :D Copyright © 2015 Cinnamon Jewellery. All rights reserved.

So just why is there a bottle of Tabasco on my jewellery bench? Am I a secret Bloody Mary drinker having a crafty snifter everytime I hear a Pearl Jam song on the radio? Unlikely as I hate tomato juice. I do like Pearl Jam though {and vodka}. No it's there because I needed it for a recent custom order. The buyer contacted me asking for something in copper with a heart to fit over a bottle of Tabasco. It was for his {copper I presume} anniversary and his wife likes Tabasco so he wanted to combine the two. I thought that was sweet. I originally had an idea for a decanter style label in copper with a copper chain attached so it could be hung on the bottle but then the buyer sent me this drawing.... .....which made life a lot easier! He did also offer to send me a catering size bottle of Tabasco to work with - his wife really likes Tabasco - but I told him I could work ok with the normal size and set to work. First I cut out a heart shape from textured copper sheet. ...

I've had some time recently to catch up with all those little jobs that tend to be pushed aside when I get busy. One of them is reviewing what jewellery I have for sale and making new stock to fill any gaps. Well one of the gaps I noticed was copper studs - they are fairly low in price so tend to sell quite quickly and I hadn't had much chance to make any new pairs. So I made some more! Studs are a good way of using up small pieces of metal sheet and I have a lot of those, especially etched and embossed copper sheet. I went for a variety of shapes - square, triangle, flower and teardrops. I do love a heart stud and they do sell well but my plastic heart shape template is a bit weird. The point at the top of the heart shape always comes out slightly off centre when I use a felt tip or scribe to mark the heart shape on the metal. I press that part down to stop the pointy bit moving but it nearly always comes out a bit off and can mean a lot of filing to get the two hear...

In my last post  I mentioned that I'd been busy finishing a batch of sterling silver bangles so I could get them sent off to the London Assay Office for hallmarking. Well I did just that and got them back last week. After finishing them {they always come back a bit out of shape and with a couple of scratches when they've been hallmarked} and oxidizing the bangles that needed it, I finally got round to getting them photographed.  I made a few new {to me} designs including this hammered "bark" texture set using flattened 6mm and 4mm round wire. I got busy with the masking tape for this bangle... Creating this texture involved cutting very thin strips of masking tape then sticking them to the flattened silver before rolling it through the rolling mill. The textured areas are where the tape was and the raised smooth sections were the bits without any tape. I like this texture!  I was going to try to achieve the look by wrapping 20g/0.8mm wire aro...