Leaf Evolution

More leaf work . . . pendants, and some earrings, including some stylised ideas I've been playing around with . . .

Rings on your fingers?

I've kept the very first scroll ring I made just for me . . . but I've listed a couple of the others on Folksy . . .

Rings for my fingers . . .

With thoughts turning to colder weather and swirls of frost and ice promising an appearance soon, I've been playing around with ideas for rings these past couple of weeks.



I'm not great at sizing rings, tending to let them find by themselves which finger they want to fit, often because I've made them primarily for myself in the past and I'm pretty laid-back about such things.



And this particular style of ring does lend itself to reaching a size all on its own, depending on the curl created and where the ends meet. Part of the fun in making them is letting them form almost naturally, using the natural curve the silver wire possesses.



I'm doing a craft fair this weekend and so will take some of these along, see what people say. Sizing is more than a matter of whether a ring fits or not, feels comfortable and looks right, it's more than any measurement (large knuckles, anyone?); so it may make more sense to let any potential owner of a ring find out by trying it on, whether it does or doesn't 'work'.

Frightened of silver?

A couple of years back I carefully crafted a cobweb in silver. It took a long time but it worked. I then carefully began to craft a second web. It became a small partially melted mass and I'd not returned to the idea since.

Until last week when, wondering if my soldering skills had increased sufficiently to avoid meltdown, I decided to take some wire, a small torch, a couple of spare hours and a lot of patience and I made this . . .







Update - The cobweb is for sale now at my Folksy shop.

More leaves

The addiction continues . . .

I've listed a few leaf pieces in my shop and thought I'd post a few photos here of one of them, a bracelet I made, when it was still a work in progress and not all shiny and and polished and waiting to be worn . . .


I didn't take any shots as the leaves were being formed *sigh* but I did remember to take a few snaps when I was making the clasp up . . .





The leaves have all been created, along with the toggle clasp and connecting rings . . .

Making all those individual pieces one coherent whole . . .

Finished . . .

Return to leaving

My mild addiction to leaves has resurfaced.

I've spent some considerable time this last week or so patiently soldering, filing, polishing, creating pieces of shining autumn.



Okay, autumn isn't quite here yet, or rather, parts of it are (the leaves are starting to fall, even if the changing colours aren't widespread), and different parts of the country experience the turn at different times. Plus, the sun has shone hotly a couple of times, prompting butterflies and bees to fly again. And I still saw swallows when I looked to the blue sky yesterday . . .

But the feel of autumn is in the air. And leaves, which it seems we can overlook with greater ease in summer and winter, are all the more apparent in spring, when they reemerge bright green, and now, in autumn, when they turn to jewel colours and fall around us.




I've experimented with different sizes of leaves, from smaller, and sometimes slightly more abstract forms, at just over 2 cm long . . .




to the longer length, at 4 cm, where creating the veins and texture is easier with a little more silver to work with.




Earrings are proving tricky as one of the things I've always liked about the leaves I create, their individuality, means forming a matching pair is, so far, a slightly frustrating task.



Hmm . . .

Finished articles coming very soon . . .

And the winner is . . .

Using the random generator (and trying to ignore the fact I made what I shall call a beginner's mistake by leaving a comment on my own competition *blushes*) I am excited to announce that the number '2' came out and the second commenter was . . .

Laura Cameron!

Laura, I've sent you an email asking for your address so your prize can wend its way to you.

Many thanks to everyone who entered and a big thanks for all the feedback - it's been fascinating to read and invaluable to take on board.

50 Followers! And a giveaway . . .

To celebrate having reached the magic number of fifty loyal and trusty followers, I've decided to do a Giveaway.

So if you quite like the look of this pair of heart earrings, carefully crafted by me, wrapped in tissue paper and a organza bag and sent though the post to the lucky winner . . . then here's what to do . . .

To enter the giveaway please leave me a comment, letting me know which of the photos of the earrings you think best shows them, and why. And if you fancy a look at my shop and telling me which your favourite item is (and why, if you like), then I'd love to know.

Closing date is - 14th September 2009

I'll chose the winner randomly from all the entrants.

Many thanks for looking, and reading, and good luck!

Wedding silver

A family member got married last weekend and I made up a couple of napkin rings for her and her other half. I used .9mm sterling silver sheet, 20cm long and 1cm wide.

I took a few photos of work in progress - from the metal I bought (already cut to size - I'm no fool) . . .



. . . to how the rings (or, as they still were then, strips of silver) looked after planishing . . .





And then I truly discovered how tricky planished silver is to photograph. The camera I was using seemed confused by the throw of light from the differently angled silver. It may have had something to do with my lack of photography skills as well . . .



After the silver was planished, I then polished it as, once formed into shape, it would be difficult, time-consuming and no doubt ultimately unsatisfying to try and do any major polishing then. I decided on leaving the underside of the rings with a matt finish, and leaving the planishing marks on the top side as the play of light on those is always wonderful to see. Plus, a totally smooth and shiny finish easily shows daily wear and those tiny scratches that seem to come from nowhere . . .



And, given the curving design of the rings, the combination of the two textures (the silky grey of the inside (which is sometimes on the outside), and the bounce and glint of the outside (which is sometimes on the inside)) seemed to make the most sense.



After hallmarking, I bent the rings up around a steel mandrel by hand and hide mallet, getting them as identical to each other as I could, and then spent a fair amount of time making them fit nicely against the table surface without any wobbles.



Then a final swish with some magic polishing cream someone lent me, and they were done.

Floral linking . . .

The fantastic Haptree and Me has taken my 'advice' (ahem) and created a wonderful Folksy Mini Treasury on the theme of flowers. Well, it is still summer . . . so the calendar says . . .

Do check out Haptree's great blog and very helpful photography hints.

Geen silver no longer

I rather gingerly tumble polished the green-silver-gold bracelet yesterday, just for half an hour, and not only has it restored the shine (as expected) but it's also removed the green . . .



Hmm . . .

Green silver?

And I don't mean ecologically sound.

I've heard about jewellery turning your skin green, never meant to be an indicator of high quality metal, but I've not come across jewellery itself turning green before.

This is what's happened to a bracelet I made a couple of years ago.



I've given it a bit of a clean up with a silver-polish impregnated cloth but the greenish tinge still remains. Next I'm going to do some more heavy-duty cleaning which will at least clean up some of the oxidisation.

The core of the bracelet is silver wire, with finer silver wire wrapped around it, and the ends are 9ct gold hollow beads. All I can think is the solder used to fix the beads and the finer wire to the main bracelet was low quality and this has caused the green to appear.

Any other ideas anyone?

Saturday Folksy Listing Frenzy

Well, okay, it's only seven items but it seemed to take an age, as I sat in front of the computer with a tape measure and a clutch of necklaces and bracelets and a big, big mug of coffee.

Here's some photos (yes, taken on my old camera), but not of the big mug of coffee . . .











Click on the pic to go to the item in my shop if you fancy seeing more photos.

Emergency camera blog post!

Okay. I've been trying to figure out just which camera to buy for ages. I can't do it. I've started to dream about it. This can't be good.

So I'm seeking help and advice.

This is the camera I'm looking at right now, a Panasonic Lumix DMC LZ10. It's not massively expensive but my budget is a maximum of £150 so that's a good thing.

This is what I want.
A good macro for taking jewellery photos.
A nifty movie clip facility with as much quality as possible 'cos I've not got a video camera.
At least a 4x optical zoom, although I'd rather have 5x.
Uses SD cards 'cos I've got loads of them . . .

I'm unsure about AA versus the lithium-ion batteries. I've got some decent rechargable AAs that are quite new, but I don't want to go insisting on them if a better camera takes the lithium-ions.

Ooo, it's all so difficult.

I'm hoping to do a photography course later in the year so I don't want anything too basic in terms of settings that can be altered.

So, please, any guidance would be most gratefully received!

Something for . . . me : Rings part 1

I decided to combine a little soldering practice with making myself a couple of rings . . .





I think this a common crafter's affliction, whether you sell your work or not, may be to make things that always end up belonging to other people. I almost start to feel guilty about making things for myself, that the time and material cost would be better off going towards something that will perhaps sell or be a gift.

But I've collected a few small items for myself over the years, things I can't part with because I love them so much, or things I just stand no chance of replicating.

Sorting through my scraps box the other day I found some mangled and twisted pieces of silver sheet that looked as if they just might form rings . . .

Unfortunately I have yet to persuade myself to part with the money to buy a ring forming mandrel. So whilst I've been able to push the thinner ring, in the first photo, into some kind of wearable shape, the much thicker ring is still unwieldy and maintaining its decidedly oblong form that I had to persuade it into to solder it in the first place.

Tune in some time around the middle of September to see what they look like when they're finished . . .

In the meantime I'm working on finishing a necklace for, yes, me. The reason being is it's pretty much a prototype and I've been working on it an age and so this way I can give it a trial run and never have to part with it . . . photos up here as soon as it's finished.

Shhhh...the sound of the sea on a Sunday...