curb chain

I enjoy making chains once in a while. This is 1mm wire. The links are formed around a 3mm round mandrel. soldered together then I used a 1.5 mmm round mandrel to form an oval shape. Each link is twisted 90 degrees. Taken directly out my new chain book.

beach glass earrings

I have finally used some of my beach glass.

I wanted the matt glass to contrast with the shiny metal.

I am interested to see how long the metal stays shiny.

Play date

Today Penny and I got together to play.We set aside everything else and just made stuff it was great. I love having someone to bounce ideas off of.

fused glass pendant

Penny and I took time out from our schedules on Friday to go on a fused glass course - just for fun. It was great. I got lazy towards the end and never glued the top piece of glass down. So it shifted a bit in the kiln making my hole skew and the top and bottom piece not line up. It doesnt look too bad though and is definately wearable.

Now all I need is a kiln - I want to play more!!!

hollow copper ring

This is a prototype for a silver ring I want to make. I never had a template so I had to make my own So I made this test in copper first. Copper solder is not my favourite thing to work with - it makes so much mess and and and.... but here is my first hollow ring with a resin.

etched copper earrings

With these earrings I drew the basic shape with a scribe and my oval stencil.
I then made the form a little more 3 dimensional using dapping punches.

I got a recipe for a copper etching solution from Jewelry artist network forum (thanks Tammy)which I used to etch the inner pattern. I used candle wax as a resist. I melted the wax in a tuna tin then dipped the whole piece into the melted wax. I then used a toothpick to remove the wax where I wanted my pattern. The resist seemed to work well. Although I noticed that the acid was starting to get under the wax at the edges when I removed my pieces.

Earring Bonanza

I havent posted for a while.

We went away for christmas and new year . I wasnt all that motivated in January so I only have a few pairs of earrings to show.

Here is a picture of my birthday/ christmas present. needless to say I have been melting scrap metal and turning it into plate then texturing it then melting it down again and starting the whole process over - not very productive I know, but I was having fun. because I can. I still need to get a stand for it but the g clamps are working in the meantime.

This is a pair of shell earrings I found the shells at St Lucia (SA)Unfortunately I broke the second shell in half when I was trying to set it. So I havent finished them.The shells are set with a bezzle. the front of the earring is the backplate with a hole pierced out of it. As seen in the top earring. The shape of the shell made it a challenge to make these simple earrings, as the sides of the bezzle needed to slope from 2.5mm to about 1mm. With the bottom earring you are looking at the broken unfinished earring from the back

These are a pair of domed, dinged and drilled earrings.

I cut the circles - with a saw (I dont have a disc cutter.)

Domed them . Then put the domes into pitch and textured them with my dapping punch. I then drilled a few holes and tried unsuccesfully to add a few balls. Then I soldered them to a backplate and added a post.

Because I now have a rolling mill I thought I had better use some of my textured metal. So these werent that technical to make but I really enjoyed the process. I used "tutu" netting to get this texture.

Finally I bought a mixed bag of stones (all tiny) from bid or buy.

I know I need to practice some of the stonesetting skills I learnt in July.

So I gypsy set these 2 turquoise stones. This was a challenge because both stones were very unevenly cut. They took a while but I got there in the end