Its that time of year again

The end of the school year has arrived and I needed a present for James' teacher.

She is pregnant and I think hormones have got the better of her - well it must be the hormones because how could anyone not love my son?

So........A small reminder of my talkative lively child.

The chain is fused sterling silver.

and the charm is etched - sterling silver.

Silly drawing done on ,printed and photo copied onto transparency paper.

Set the iron to the silk setting - it mustn't be too hot because you get smudges. Turn it upside down and balance it between 2 bricks. Get a knife and fork ready and put your clean metal on the iron finally place your image upside down on your silver hold the metal down with the fork and gently rub with the back of the knife.

make sure you have transferred the whole image to the metal. Paint nail polish on the back of your silver.

Place the metal into a nitric acid solution (1:4 acid : water). I used a tiny glass bowl.

I put the solution outside on a black table and it warmed up very quickly - it was a hot day.

I used a feather to remove bubbles from the surface of the metal.

Its as easy as that.

My Moms ring - finally!

When I started making jewellery and way before I was ready, my mom asked me to use the stones in a necklace and earring set that my father had given her to make her a ring.So after three years procrastination I have finally made the ring.
Its very shiny and a pain to photograph but here its.

Pink tourmaline ring

I am quite pleased with the way this ring turned out.

The triangles were fused onto the ring shank before I formed it.

Hollow madness

I have the urge to make something hollow.Both the hollow pieces I have started to make in the last month have failed.

The first is a hollow ring I got this far then got a little frustrated when I couldnt fit the outer edge to the inner bit and I ended up flatting it with my hammer.

So I decided to make a pair of hollow earrings.
BUT....................

When I was polishing them one of the stones fell out and I cant find it. I have ordered a few more but I couldnt get the exact size so I might need to make another earring. The top stone is tube set and the bottom stone is flush set.

Still playing with enamel

Thank you everyone for taking time to comment on my blog - I appreciate your comments especially those of you who have way more skill then I do!

Penny and I bought 3 more enamel colours and I made these earrings.



Michaela wanted me to make her a pair of earrings with stars um well stars are not so easy - they look more like starfish. I used orient red - the bumps are clear beads crushed and sprinkled on.

I have been using hairspray as a fixative for the enamel before firing - I have decided that it is not such a good idea as it seems to make my throat close up so I have bought a spray bottle and will be using gum arab and distilled water.

enameled bracelet

This project comes straight out of the latest art jewellery magazine.It is enameled copper.It has black under coat with yellow, red and orange top coat - sifted on (I have no idea where to get liquid enamels from.) The random patterns were scratched out before I fired it. The blobs are broken beads fired into the enamel.I have etched some of the links and left others shiny.I had so much fun playing with colour. It reminded me of my beading days. Like my beaded jewellery this is kind of retro

edited on the 25th to add

I wasnt happy with the the clasp as it is here so I decided to face my fears and combine soldering and enamel. My problem was that I dont have eutectic solder. So I decided to make my own. After searching for a formula in all my books and on the web I decided to wing it and make up my own formula. I thought I would start with an 80:20 ratio and melt that and some hard solder next to eachother on a piece of copper to see which one melted first. It seemed like they melted at the same time so I went with it. I am very happy with the results!

2 pairs of earrings

Michaela was going to a party last week. She asked me to make her some hoop earrings - in a hurry. I dont usually do things in a hurry but I did manage to make these in a couple of hours.

I made these little earrings with 2 stones I got in a bag of stones when I was in London.

I was a bit mad with myself because I damaged the one earring when I was trying to remove it from the jet set after I set it.

I am back

This year hasnt been a good year for me and my jewellery ambitions. I have been focused on my overseas holiday but the holiday has come and gone and now I am back in my studio.

I made this pendant before I went away the bullet is labradorite and the stone in the top is a bluish green tourmaline.

My Melissa chain

It was Vanessa's (my sister) 40th birthday on the 13.I wanted to make her something special. I decided to try a new technique. I have always admired Melissas chain which has just been published in Art Jewelry magazine so that was my obvious choice.

So I made some fine silver wire and a few links I made a small sample to see how it went. I decided that I dont like fine silver - it seems so soft. I got so frustrated with trying to ball the end of the sticks - It wouldnt ball unless I placed a piece of wood behind the work and then everything fused together. Eventually I managed to get it right but the fine silver was so soft that the pin came out anyway. I saw that Melissa pushes the jumpring closed afterwards to lock it in place. So I decided to try fusing both ends of the pins before assembling the bracelet. It worked! Yay. So I switched to sterling silver and balled first and here is my result. Thanks Melissa!

Here is a link to the wall paper of Melissa's chain

http://www.artjewelrymag.com/art/default.aspx?c=a&id=1026

Enamels

I was really lucky to get a few enamels for christmas - and now that the festive season is over and the kids are back at school I have finally got to play with them. It took me a whole weekend to make a sample sheet. and another to make these experimental pieces.All are copper and enamel.

The forms were pressed using my vice, perspex and my husbands slipslops (beach shoes) which I cut up. The stripes on the big one are made using a foldforming technique right out of one of my new books - foldforming by Charles Lewton Brain.