New Copper Bangles - Flowers, Beads, Twists And Linked Designs!

My recent holiday gave me a chance to come up with a few new copper bangle designs. They are a good seller in my Etsy shop and website so I figure expanding the range makes good sense.

I started by making an intertwined set using 2.6mm round copper wire. It's very simple to link the bangles - it just consists of an extra step once you've soldered, shaped and textured them. Two of the bangles need to be cut open again at the solder join and one of them linked with the remaining soldered bangle and the other bangle linked through the first two before they are soldered closed again and finished. I made the bangles slightly bigger than normal to allow for the space taken up by the bangles being linked. I then had a bit of a brain freeze moment about it all and thought they were still going to be too small but opening them out fully and measuring the inside diameter reassured me they were the right size {does that make sense? I hope so!}

Next I made a set using some lovely etched lampwork glass beads made by Su Bagley of Pixel Pyro Lampwork on Folksy. She made the beads with a larger hole than normal so they would fit on thicker copper wire. I made a set of three bangles with a hammered and line texture with one of the bangles having two of the etched lampwork beads threaded onto it before being soldered closed. 

The beads are in four lovely colours.

Next are two sets of poppy bangles - one with a copper poppy and one with a sterling silver poppy. I enjoyed making these even thought the soldering was a bit tricky to begin with {things moved!} However, now I know to make sure the flower has good contact with the bangle before I start soldering.

The poppy is formed then a balled piece of copper/sterling silver wire is threaded through the centre and the flower wire wrapped onto the bangle. I then added another wrap of wire on the other side. It's all soldered in place and the ends of the wire smoothed for comfortable wearing. 

I am slightly biased but these are my favourite of all the bangles I've made so far ♥♥♥

The last new design is a set of three with one bangle with a single twist. Deceptively easy to make by folding the wire into a U shape, flattening the top section of the U with a hammer or rolling mill then annealing and pulling the ends in opposite directions. Then just cut to length and make as normal. 

I think that's enough bangletastic-ness for now!

'Til next time......

My First Torch Enamel Project In Making Jewellery Magazine!

Issue 71 of Making Jewellery magazine comes out today {21st Aug} featuring lots of fab projects including my first torch enamel project for a magazine. I've done several wirework step-by-steps for Bead magazine in the past but never anything involving enamel so it was a treat to do it.

I was emailed by Sian the editior of Making Jewellery a few months ago asking if I'd like to contribute a project. I said yes {of course!} then immediately wondered if I was going to be asked to make a wirework piece. I don't make much wirework jewellery these days so was really pleased to be told I could do a project using torch enamelling as they hadn't had any torch enamelling projects in the magazine before.  

After finding out the theme for the issue was going to be "autumn" I decided to go for a copper leaf enamelled in a blend of lovely autumn-ish colours and made a pendant as the main piece and a pair of earrings and bangle charm as the two "extras".

That isn't a photograph of me by the way! {I think it's Abby Clancy, I was busy that day.....}

I took some photos of the pieces I made before sending them off to the magazine to be photographed and made a collage......... because I like making collages :D

I was pleased to see Kristen, a fellow jewellery maker whose blog K S Jewellery Designs I follow, also has a project in this issue! She went with the leaf theme too and made a very pretty silver and bead wirework necklace and pendant.

It's nice to be in good company!

Enamel Experimenting And Gold!!

This week I have mostly been playing with enamel. 

I've been wanting to try using wire to create "cells" along the lines of cloisonne but nowhere near as exact {or skilled}.... no, I went for a slightly more rustic approach and used 16g {1.2mm} copper wire which I formed into jump rings then placed onto the partly fired second layer of opaque enamel and fired until the rings were fused into the enamel.

I pickled the copper rings beforehand to make sure they were nice and clean before placing on the enamel. I wanted them to stand a bit proud as I was then going to fill them with wet enamel.

I filled the rings with wet enamel then let the enamel dry naturally before firing.

They worked ok. There was some firescale on the surface of the enamel that pinged off the copper wire as it cooled but I think that adds to the rustic style. Next time I might try a thinner gauge wire but I do like the texture it gives the enamel in my first attempts.

I also spent some time teaching my friend Nicki how to torch enamel. She enjoyed herself and a few hours later went home with these pretties.

••• Gold!! •••

No, I haven't gone all Spandau Ballet on you, I'm referring to the simple gold studs I made recently after an order for gold ball earwires didn't go quite as planned. A customer asked if I could make her some gold ball earwires and I said yes of course I can and ordered the 9ct yellow gold wire. When I started to ball up the wire I discovered that it doesn't like balling up very much and quite a bit of it just shrivelled and turned black. I managed to get three out of the ordered five pairs of earwires made which my customer was happy with and then refunded the difference for the missing two pairs. 

Which left me with lots of mangled looking gold wire and a slightly annoyed feeling because I was quite a lot out of pocket..........until my brain clicked into gear and I remembered I have a rolling mill! Meaning I can melt the gold wire and put it through the rolling mill to make a small piece of gold sheet that I can then do things with!

So that's what I did and after adding a leaf vein texture to the gold sheet I made three pairs of simple studs.....

The studs have sterling silver posts and scrolls as I wasn't going to go as far as buy gold versions and gold solder. I'm very much still a silver girl at heart ♥ 

I still have a tiny amount of gold left so watch out for a silver pendant with a small gold ball somewhere about its person coming soon{ish}!

New Etched Copper Findings

I decided to put my shops on holiday last Saturday for two weeks which obviously means I'm on holiday too! It's nice to have a break from made to order findings and bangles and just have time to potter and to relax and think about all the stuff I need to do without having anything that must to be done by a certain date for posting.

I do have lots of things I want to do jewellery and shops/website wise and I am slowly getting round to them. I'm also spending some time doing another thing I enjoy - buying things online! I saw some Ball mason jars on Etsy and just had to have one of them. They were looking so nice as vases, candle containers and painted in pastel colours then sanded for a vintage look that I completely bought into the "I need one but I don't really know why, they're just glass jars...but they're so pretty!" reasoning..... After lots of searching {all part of the fun} I found a UK site called Uberstar.com where you can buy the mason jars in singles for £4.99. And so I bought three of the blue version...........

Photo: Uberstar.com

I haven't filled them with an artistic arrangement of wild flowers/stuck a tealight in them or painted them with eggshell paint yet. They are just sitting in my shed, but looking very sweet as they do it, waiting for me to have a "I know what I can do with them!" moment.....

•••••

Apart from internet shopping I did also get some copper etching done. I was out of etched copper findings in my Etsy shop so I spent a pretty sweaty afternoon in the shed getting annoyed because my black Stazon ink had dried up and the brown one I had was too wet. I left it uncovered in the sun for a while and it's fine now. The results of my labour in a shed that felt like a sauna it was so hot are in the photo at the top. I used a swirly detailed Indian style stamp on most of the shapes and a leaf design on some copper oval shapes I had which I love the look of :D

Medium and small size etched copper discs

Small leaf shapes with the same Indian pattern stamp design

Handmade copper washers with slightly off centre holes {still good for dangling though!} with the same Indian style design

And my favourites - the leaf stamp design on copper ovals. 

It was nice to get that job done. I have some new earrings designs in the making including some gold {yes gold!} stud earrings and I'm going to do some experimenting with enamelling too.

'Til next time.....