Hearts Aplenty! Valentine's Day Jewellery

With Valentine's Day fast approaching I thought it was time to write my first blog post of 2013. I can't believe my last post was on the 15th of December! I've been busy jewellery-wise recently "doing" hearts. I have a couple of heart templates which I made use of as I'm no artist drawing-wise and earrings tend to have to be matching!
Here's some of the hearts I cut -

I started off using my jewellery saw as that's the proper way to do it but, oh, I don't know, it just takes so damned long to do that I changed to using my Xuron shears with no ill-affect on the metal. I cut straight across at the top of the hearts then used my triangle file to file the "v". After filing and sanding the hearts were ready for the next stage. The hearts at the top were going to be enamelled, the larger etched hearts were to be adorned with a silver ball rivet and the smaller one's textured and dapped and stud posts soldered on.

There's something very satisfying about making studs - their small neatness possibly...... or it could be that they're just easy to make maybe!! I do enjoy making them though.

Another thing I've been doing recently is etching! I love it and now can't stop buying stamps to use with Stayz On ink for etching on copper. I think I'll have to write a post about it soon.

 

These enamel heart pendants and earrings were so difficult to photograph and get a true colour. I think the slate background had a lot to do with it and they would probably look better using a lighter colour for the background. I'll hopefully get round to it when the weather brightens up...sometime in June probably!

These sterling silver hammered and stamped heart studs are my favourites. "One day" I shall maketh myself a pair :D  Everything will be in my Folksy and Etsy shops very soon.

Raspberry Enamel Heart Earrings

It's a fairly bright day today so I thought I'd catch up on some photographing. I managed to get 5 pairs of earrings done and I've just finished editing them including these raspberry pink enamel hearts.

I cut the hearts myself from copper sheet - I don't enjoy sawing metal if I'm honest but I am slowly getting better at it! After filing and sanding the hearts and punching the hanging hole I enamelled the back then enamelled the front with two layer of mauve opaque before adding some transparent raspberry ontop.

I love the effect you get with transparents over opaques. Transparent enamels do need to be washed before using them over opaques to help get rid of some of the "bits" that sometimes contaminate the enamel and leave imperfections in the final result. I've become a bit obssessed when I use my washed transparents and always check them to see if there's any black bits, bits of hair or wire wool in them before using them as once they're fired any bits thats show up cannot be removed - most frustrating!
I'm glad to say these turned out ok : )