Garnet Gems and Hammered Silver Circles Earrings

I do enjoy making jewellery gifts for people I know. Matching colours and styles and preferences to the individual are some of the best joys of hand-crafting and when the choices you make as a designer work out well then that's a fantastic feeling.

These earrings were made for someone who only wears drop styles and whilst I looked at a few different colours of gemstone, I came back again and again to garnet. These small faceted ones are a deep but bright red and very rich in tone. When I saw them being worn I knew I'd made the right decision. The garnets were set with Wraptite settings, like I used on this necklace recently also.

The hammered circles were from a patch of time a while back when I made a lot of shapes and played around with textures and finishes on them. They looked just right in these earrings and the tiny silver beads, set on wire, finished things off nicely. The recipient seemed genuinely pleased with these - she's worn them nearly constantly since receiving them - so I feel content in feeling content...

Silver, citrine, topaz and toil... the finished jewellery

Recently I showed some photos of the cut gemstone beads I'd bought for a project. Here are some images of the finished jewellery items themselves.

The plan was a to make a necklace for a very special birthday, falling in November, so being able to incorporate birth stones was important. I also wanted to make something wearable so, while it may look delicate, the soldering and strengthening of the silver through hammering means it's pretty strong.







The earrings were less planned and came about as I didn't have enough citrines to use for both items, but this also allowed me to play with the varying sizes of the white topaz gems. I was also able to use one of the little soldered silver designs from the necklace, and echo it in the earrings.



It was a time-consuming and absorbing project, and took a lot of preparation, but the final piecing together of the necklace especially was surprisingly quick. Hope you enjoy seeing the results of the toil!

Citrine and White Topaz - November Birth Stones

Late last year I was busy with a birthday project, and that project allowed me to indulge in buying some beautiful gem stones...

 

When I took them out of the box (wisely unmarked to go through the postal system), I was, as always, struck by how beautiful well cut gemstones are. It was a sunny day and holding the gems up to the window made the light splinter and dance in exquisite colours...it was genuinely wonderful.

The white topaz came in a mix of sizes, graduated from about 3mm to 7mm. They're drilled through the middle and very slightly doughnut-shaped, although that could be more of an optical illusion due to the many facets.



I chose white topaz rather than the more traditional and widespread blue as I was combining the gems for a November birthday, and felt that with the rich yellow of citrine, another November birthstone, they work better for the recipient than blue and yellow.



I only purchased four citrine gems, button shaped and nicely factetted. They're a beautiful rich autumn colour and I think much more than four would have been too many, although another two would have allowed the matching earrings I made to go with the necklace to match that little bit more...

Photos of the finished items will follow soon. Do let me know if any beautiful stones you've used in projects, especially if you have photos to share!

Multimedia here I come...?

In late April 2011 the price of silver hit £940.67 per kilo, double what it had been six months beforehand. When I started making silver jewellery, a little over ten years ago, bullion cost was around £100 a kilo. At the time of typing this, it's just over £600 a kilo (check out up to date prices here). It's amazing to think back to it being so 'cheap' (relatively, of course). Even then, we were still taught to treat silver as the precious commodity it is, saving offcuts to reuse, and even collecting up sweepings, the tiny shavings created when you saw a piece of silver up. But, now, with the price so high, I'm increasingly nervous of it. And, with that nervousness, the joy of experimenting and creating has decreased a little.

I've been making jewellery with other materials for a while now, just as experiments, and I've been thinking about even more things I could try. I can't imagine turning my back on silver completely; I love it too much and know it too well. But, as the cost of pretty much everything increases dramatically, I think it's fair enough to be more careful with how we use many resources.

Copper, polymer clay, semi-precious stones, wood...

So far, I've experimented with copper (see here and here), and polymer clay (see here, here and here), and have always used beads in my jewellery, combined with silver, both glass and semi-precious.

Next on my list is to use the copper clay that I bought last year, expand my experiments with polymer clay, and also look to fabric and thread, (am fascinated by the idea of Kumihimo braiding already), check out wood and stone, do more with beads, of all types, and try approaching jewellery in a more multimedia-orientated way. I was also pretty inspired by this book about paper jewellery. The idea of combining different materials and techniques with still using silver (just perhaps less of it) really appeals to me.

How about you? Has the cost of materials involved in what you make, whatever it is, altered the way you use it and made you start to consider how you can expand on what you know and do, and perhaps try alternative materials? I'd love to hear, not least to get a little more inspiration!

Hope you're having a good weekend. It's amazingly un-snowy where I am...but the rest of the UK seems to be under snow or water. Hope it's okay wherever you are.

Yet more Polymer Clay . . .

Rather than just making round or disc beads, I've now had a go at making pebble beads too, which I love. I'm not sure how authentic many of these pictured here look (some of the colours are a little on the artificial side), apart from the grey ones perhaps, but I've enjoyed creating shapes that look pebbley and a little natural, rather than smooth and uniform.

I think this may well be the last big batch of photos for now. Not sure I can just keep making these beads and posting pictures of them. I must also make something with the beads themselves!

These have all been made from Fimo. I have a lot of Sculpey III but have found this very difficult to soften. I know you can get special softener, although I thought that was for age-hardened clay? Any ideas on how to soften fairly 'youthful', fresh clay? I would love to use it but it really does make my hands hurt! Pathetic, really . . . ;-) All comments gratefully received.

Green leaves . . .

I love fluorite gemstones (both green and purple) and these chips are some of many I've enjoyed using with silver.





Incorportaing these into this bracelet with the little silver leaves just seemed a perfect way to use the beads and I'm really pleased with the outcome (hence the devotion of an entire blog post to the bracelet).

Forays into clay, part two

A few more polymer beads I've created.







I'm going to buy more clay soon, experimenting with different colours and brands. I'm also hoping to get some liquid clay, at some point. But am trying to stay with the basics for now.

Guessing gems

Here's a bit of a guessing game. A few days ago I was fortunate enough to be given a kind of lucky-dip selection of gemstones, chunky ones with holes drilled through, to use as beads.

Quite a few I can identify but some have got me stumped. So if anyone has any ideas, then please feel free to share and discuss! I'd love to be able to definitely put names to the gems.

Picture one.
1. Top left: Fluorite
2. Bottom left: Carnelian
3. Top right: Blue Lace Agate
4. Bottom right: Sodalite

Picture two.
5. Top left: Amethyst
6. Bottom left: Green Moss Agate
7. Top right: Smokey Quartz
8. Bottom right: Carnelian

Picture three.
9. Top left: Moonstone
10. Bottom left: Moonstone
11. Top middle: Moonstone
12. Bottom middle: Amazonite?
13. Top right: Fluorite
14. Bottom right: Citrine

Actually, having listed everything I seem to have been able to identify much less than I'd initially thought I could! All help, even guesses, gratefully received!

Added note - I shall add suggestions of stone names to their numbers as they come in but please feel free to disagree with them, especially my ones!

Another added note - Everything has got a name now. I hope they're the right ones! If you disagree with any, please let me know.

Gems

Migraine day yesterday - and still today - means everything else takes a back seat. But prior to migraine day was find some new gemstones day! So I've got some lovely colours to look at and get inspired by and try and figure out what to do with.

In this sweet little shop I firstly found . . .



. . . which is called red lined agate but looks quite orange, more like the richness of carnelian.

I found this amazonite bead too.



I'm not sure I'll be able to part with that one . . . It's wonderfully chunky, a gorgeous shape and I'm falling in love with the colour.

I bought a few other things, a few more nugget shaped beads but of a good size, that I'm tempted to turn into focal pendants. I used some silver yesterday, before the migraine struck, to create headpins.

Now I just need to find that inspiration.