The Jewelled Web - December 2013

It's been a busy, busy month in the-run-up-to-Christmas, and I know that once it's done it will then be like a huge intake of breath before the new year (with or without big celebrations) begins, and it'll feel as if the pressure is let off, just a little, tiny bit...perhaps.

I'm doing an early web round-up this month, it seems a little easier to do it now when I've got time, rather than just schedule it to post later on - and it means I can combine it with a wish for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ;)


~Jewellery~

Great looking guide to setting a stone in a bezel - lots of lots of detail in this tutorial.

Working with copper and silver - hints and tips galore.

A good advert for investing in a disc cutter on this blog post...

More bezel info...

This fishing rod ring (at the top) is just so, so beautiful, both in design and execution.

Simple but effective wire-wrap earrings.

Beautiful gems and a gratuitously sweet photo of a puppy.

Q and A about opening a bricks and mortar gallery.

Cuttlefish casting. Love the use of something so organic to create something so beautiful.

Stunning buttons made from polymer clay and transfer paper.

Made from one piece of copper - inspiring and beautiful.

Jewellery from concrete? I love these.



~Other things~

I have never been organised enough, so far, to do this type of beautiful but simple gift wrapping, but I wish I was...Instead it's just a case of double-wrapping in whatever flimsy, reindeer covered 10 metre wrap the local supermarket has left by the time I get to the aisle...

Free printable, and editable, calendar.

Tiny, Christmassy-spiced cookies.

Stunning leaf bunting.

Love this blog - wise words, great photos, and wonderful Folksy Fridays.

Download, print, and organise the whole next year... well, that's my plan anyway.

Something else to download, print and fill in...

A truly wonderful Christmas tree - but too late for me to build for this Christmas.

Something else that's too late for this year, a sweet gift for those separated by the miles

A nice and brief post about images on the net - what can you use without upsetting anyone?

This is sad and beautiful. And this is amazing and transient.

How to make your photos better by using the scary manual button on the camera.

Inspiring feature about making a living from selling crafts online.

If you come across any fallen branches from the gales currently sweeping the UK, then consider browsing this collection of what to do with wood to make it into, well, anything and everything.

You can't have enough lip gloss - tutorial on how to make your own.




Hope your year has been good, your Christmas is wonderful, and 2014 is even better for you - thanks for reading :)

Shopping and silver on the radio

How busy is this December? And just how slow is the internet on a December evening? I have a feeling that come dusk, everyone goes on the net and hunts furiously for Christmas gifts for several hours, pausing only to sleep, go to the shops, and then repeat the same routine...

I went out yesterday to the shops, literally fought my way across a Tesco Extra (or was it an Express? I'm never sure which is which) to find one small item, fought my way back again to the self-serve tills to the strains of Jona Lewie's Stop the Cavalry, queued, noticed a monitor informing anyone who cared to look that the same self-serve tills had experienced slightly over 1,600 customers that day so far (it was around 1.30pm), paid for my solitary item, and legged it, breathing gulps of fresh cool (okay, cold) air as I left the place.

Every year I say I'll Christmas shop in June, every year I don't quite manage that...ahem.

But my main reason for this post (no, I'm not just using up bandwidth to state the obvious, that the shops are busy in December) is I caught the end of an interesting show about silver and silversmithing on the radio today, and thought it worth sharing the details as it's on iplayer, but only for a week.

Hope you enjoy a listen, and hope your Christmas shopping is going, well, easily...!

(no photo - the net is too slow!!)

The Jewelled Web - November 2013

Another month, and ever, ever closer to Christmas...that kind of sums up how I'm feeling right now, and also slightly freaked out at how few weeks are left on the calendar until the new year. As ever, I'm wondering just where the time has gone...

I started off this month with a productive, and early, Christmas shop extravaganza, but am ending it in my usual manner of casting around anxiously, and trying to guess if I've enough wrapping paper for the presents I've not yet bought...

At least the web is a place of shopping and making opportunities so this month's roundup may well reflect that...

For a start, how about these sweet hand-crafted necklaces as stocking gifts?

I suspect if I bought this fox ring, I'd only end up keeping it for myself...

Great tutorial for using up old eggshells and making jewellery. Seriously.

Another polymer clay tutorial; a method for adding a photo to clay.

Five gold rings...
1) Dramatic and dazzling
2) Reticulated and beautiful
3) Indulgent and stunning
4) Simple and delicate
5) Five gold rings...

Love this idea for recycling old silver spoons.

Beautiful necklace, and a tutorial that shows you how to (half) create it.

Simple yet striking gold earrings.

A new shop to rival Folksy and Etsy?

If you do craft fairs then you might find this post about jewellery displays inspiring

How to sell more on Etsy (but much of it applies to any selling platform)


~A few non-jewellery bits and pieces~

These vases are gorgeous and inventive but not something you want to rush making for Christmas, given you need to use a rather scary electric saw...

I must knit more... this hat should inspire me, along  with the cold temperatures...

Fantastic, and free, way to make your own calendar (using any version of photoshop) for the new year... which isn't that far away *gulp*

Looking to get away from it all over the holidays?

From cereal box to art journal.

These photos are nearly as good as actually going to Norway...

Amazing calendar, especially if you love owls - you chose your favouites, then download and print the resulting PDF. Wonderful.

Lots of free collage sheets.

Wonderful list of blogging resources, like a little gold mine of blog goodies.

Unless you're super-fast it may be a little late to make your own advent calendar but, ah well, always next year...

Beautiful image, beautiful poem, beautifully matched.

I'm thinking this could be the most helpful post ever if you've had someone to stay and they left a unattractive mug ring on your chest of drawers... ahem...


Hope the run up to Christmas isn't too hectic, and you get some moments to just enjoy the time of year, the winter season, and whomever you love that you are fortunate enough to be near to.

Jewellery Book Wish List - Christmas 2013

Around this time last year I drew up a wishlist of jewellery books I'd love to look through, learn from, and generally indulge my reading head in. Looking back through the list, I see I managed a paltry two out of six in terms of this goal. Not great really. But rather than rehash the remnants of that old list, I've come up with a whole new set of books I'd love to find in my Christmas stocking...

I have a hankering to set stones again. I've done it on occasion in the past and loved how relatively fast it can be to gain amazing results, but I could do with some practice and a few refresher pointers. I  have a small selection of beautiful gems I would love to be able to wear, so Stonesetting for Contemporary Jewellery Makers by Melissa Hunt could help me out very much indeed.

I've read a little about Polymer Clay Master Class, on the web, how innovating and exciting it sounds, and would love to look, and learn from its pages. I treated myself to a pasta maker with some birthday money earlier this year, and not to make pasta with, but as yet it's still sitting in its box...this book could change that.

I love to solder. Yes, it always makes me slightly nervous, the naked flame, the heat, and the need to be ever so careful and then some. I keep a fire extinguisher near at all time. But I still love the alchemy of it, it and The Art of Soldering for Jewellery Makers by Wing Mun Devenney, would no doubt allow me to increase my skills and enjoy it that little bit more... (and I did get this for Christmas!)

Copper intrigues me but I have found it, at times, challenging to work with after spending so long soldering, piercing and hammering a totally different metal like silver. A book like this one, Contemporary Copper Jewelry by Sharilyn Miller, may either give me some hints, inspire me, or hopefully both.

Hot Connections Jewelry: The Complete Sourcebook of Soldering Techniques by Jennifer Chin, would sit very nicely with both the book above on soldering, and a book I already own on cold connections...

The breadth of this book, Silversmithing for Jewelry Makers by Elizabeth Bone holds a great deal of promise. It looks like it may well cover everything, a review of old skills and an insight into new ones, and that kind of book is pretty wonderful to discover...







Do let me know what's on your book Christmas list, and if you have any of the ones listed here. I'd love to learn more about them.

PS. This post contains affiliate links to Amazon. This means that if you click through to the book in question on one of those links, and then buy it, Amazon will credit me a small amount of money, from their profits! that I will then spend on buying silver wire. It won't cost you anything. I signed up to their affiliate program a while ago but the last time I used any of their links on this blog was around this time last year when I did my last Christmas book list...I suspect I'm not going to make my fortune this way...

Busy, busy, busy

It's been a quiet month online for me so far... life has a habit of getting in the way and I've also been creating some jewellery for a special occasion that still needs to be mostly kept under wraps for now. I've also been experiencing the joys of the cold season; and by 'cold' I don't really mean only the weather...

Anyway, here's a photo of just one tiny (unpickled) part of what I've been making in my workshop.

It's been a very intense period of solder, flux, and a lot of butane gas, but I'm looking forward to sharing photos of the finished item(s) very soon.