Hoop-La! My Love Of Hoop Earrings

Last week I have been mostly making.... hoop earrings with post fitting. Strangely I've never made this type of hoop before but it is a style I like to wear myself so I thought it was about time I made some!

I've made the hoops in sterling silver, copper and bronze using wire from 2.6mm {10g} up to 3.5mm {7g} and sterling silver earring posts with the pad. I use the posts with the pad attached as I find it easier to solder them to other things that way. The posts sit nicely in a hole in my honeycomb soldering board then I can position the end of the hoop using a third hand on top of the pad part for soldering. I then trim, file and sand the ends to remove any of the pad part that overhangs the end of the hoop. I do have some of the sterling posts without the pad which I have used before but being a bit shaky of hand at times I'm going to need to practice a bit more before using them on the hoops.

Bronze wire hoops with swirly texture pattern.

Apart from the thing I have about circles {I really like them in other words} the main reason I like making these hoops is the simplicity of them and their sturdiness plus how easy it is to make variations.

I've done various things to the wire such as flattening it and adding a pattern with the rolling mill, using leaf vein textures, adding silver balls and wrapping with sterling wire...

Copper hoops with leaf vein texture and fine silver balls. The round wire was flattened, the texture added then they were formed and the silver balls and posts added.

I used a stripe texture hammer on these copper and silver wire hoops. I think it's the first time I've ever used the texture hammer since I bought it several years ago! I hammered at a 90° angle to the wire which gave it a rectangle-ish almost faceted pattern that I really liked. I always thought the texture hammer was a bit of a waste of space but now I'll no doubt be using it again very soon :D

I also got a bit OCD with some masking tape to make these copper and silver disc hoops.

I flattened the wire then spent a fair amount of time cutting very thin strips of masking tape with a scalpel and ruler which I then very carefully stuck to the flattened wire. I then put it through the rolling mill again and ended up with this block pattern. The very thin strips of masking tape end up wider as they are compressed in the rolling mill and gave the copper a contrasting textured and smooth design.

I like the end result but next time to speed up the process I think I'll try flattening some 20g or 18g copper wire and wrapping that round the hoop wire before putting it through the rolling mill to create a similar pattern.

And I mustn't forget good old sterling silver..... leaf vein texture and ball pein hammer texture versions.

You've probably noticed I like making these hoops...

One problem I encountered as I made them was what to use to shape them if they are too small for my bracelet mandrel and too big for my ring mandrel. I managed with a wooden block and cylinder with a curve the right size for the pair that didn't fit but there is an answer in the form of a hoop mandrel.

Which of course I've just bought....♥

   

Experimenting With Ice Resin

Or should I say more experimenting with Ice Resin! As a continuation to my blog post last week I have been at it again and doing some more interesting things with epoxy resin. 

My first attempts didn't cure properly, possibly because I didn't measure the two parts accurately enough or it might have been because I didn't mix the acrylic paint properly before adding it to the resin. Anyway, my second attempts which were the swirly abstract shapes you can see in the bottom right photo below did cure I'm glad to say. They are now leaning up against my work shed window and look really pretty with the light shining through them :D 

So armed with slightly more but still a fairly small amount of knowledge about resin I tried again on Wednesday. I made a few pairs of copper earrings, one with two little copper bowls soldered to the bottom and two more with pierced out shapes, then added some coloured resin.

In my haste to get going with the resin I didn't make sure the copper was clean so ended up with some copper dust in the bright green resin in the bullet shape earrings top left. I also wasn't very keen on my colour choices for the bullet shape earrings.......

I then mixed some more resin for a pendant and used some pretty pinks and oranges {which I did like!} Please excuse the poor photo but the light was going by the time I took it.

I took some more photos in the slightly better {but not much} light yesterday morning after they'd had several hours in the airing cupboard. I discovered a hair in one of the purple rectangles in the bullet earrings but as I don't like these very much anyway I'm not too bothered! They'll need a couple more days to cure properly then I'll oxidize the copper and add earwires to the other two pairs.

I'm not sure whether to sand the two resin "dots" completely flat in these earrings or leave them. Decisions! You can see my camera reflected in them as I took the photo, it's not another hair :D

I've got to say I am more drawn to the abstract squiggly wire designs and would really like to make earrings using this design. Which means creating a matching pair.... 

I flattened and soldered some more copper wire and rounded it to smooth out any kinks then started playing with my graduated pliers.

I soon discovered the smaller lengths of wire weren't long enough to be able to make anything big enough so I ended up with just one pair of fairly well matched earrings in the making....

These now need to be soldered at the points where the wires touch then filed and sanded flat. Then I'll solder a piece of copper tube to the top for the earwire. I'm really keen to get some more earrings made so I spent some time yesterday afternoon making more lengths of flattened wire - longer this time so I can make a few more pairs today.

Then I'll be able to get the resin and acrylic paints out again and start playing!

The results of all this and the finished earrings should hopefully be posted next week.....

Torch Enamel Earrings - More Poppies!

I do seem to have a bit of a poppy thing going on at the moment. My poppy bangle sets are proving to be quite popular - I had several made to order sets and singles to make last week and I sold the silver poppy studs I made too! 

So to carry on the theme because I like the shape I made a couple of pairs of simple enamel poppy earrings too. They are pretty easy to make once the enamelling is done. The balled sterling wire is threaded through the hole in the centre of the poppy then bent at a right angle before being bent up over itself to form a loop at the back that stops the enamelled poppies from flopping forward when the earrings are worn. The wire is then curved into an ear hook and finished.

I made the poppies in minty green and mauve and another concave disc pair in bitter green...

I was thrilled to see my new order of decals arrive today. The designs look really sweet and a bit clearer than the last lot so I'm hoping to have another go with them tomorrow ♥

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.....

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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.....

Wrap Rings, Twisted Bangles and Fotor

I've had another busy week making rings and bangles for orders {which is great} so sometimes it's nice to just play without having to worry about getting things done for a certain time. I was inspired to make something quick and easy so thought I'd make a couple of no-solder rings seen in One Hour Rings by Helen Driggs. I loved the look of them and the fact they are adjustable {to a point}. They consist of a long triangle shaped piece of metal that is formed around a ring mandrel. I wasn't sure how sturdy they would be but after trying them with 20g/0.8mm sheet I would be quite happy to sell them knowing they will keep their shape well.

They become work-hardened pretty quickly as you shape them on the mandrel and I did need to anneal them in order to finish shaping them properly. I used a leaf vein texture for the first one which has to be one of my favourite textures. The second ring was textured using masking tape. It was a bit of an experiment and involved cutting small rectangles out of the tape with a scalpel before carefully sticking it on to the silver sheet and running it through the rolling mill. I tried a practice piece on copper where I cut the tape on top of the metal but I didn't like the cut marks that showed in the metal so did it the harder way!

The holes in the masking tape form the raised areas and the masking tape itself creates the texture on the rest of the metal. I'll be doing more experimenting with tape very soon as it's an easy way to texture with a rolling mill.

I also had a play with 2mm copper wire which I twisted into a barley twist then soldered to form bangles. The soldering was a bit tricky and it helps when forming the join to make sure you cut each end at the same point in the twist. I'll remember that next time!

•• Fotor ••

Have you seen those photos on Etsy where just one point is in focus and the rest of the image blurred? Or the main item is in colour and the rest of the image in black and white. Yes, so have I and I wanted to know how to do it so I Googled it and up popped lots of links including one for Fotor. It's a nice looking, free to use site that lets you edit, tweak, create photo collages and just play with images to your heart's content. You can then upload them to all the usual social network sites or save them to your computer. It has some of the editing features you find on Instagram but is much better in my opinion.

I had a little play with some of the photos I used above and with a photo of one of my cats.......

This is the Color Splash feature that allows you to choose which part of the image is coloured. You can also change the "background" colour too.

The Scratchy Pencil effect.

This effect is called Tile-Shift which lets you select an area to stay in focus and blurs the rest of the image.

With a frame added and a Moonbeam Lens-Flare on the ring image.

And finally a photo collage! 

What a very cool site. Check it out and play.................

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The Jewellery Shed - My New Workplace!

After what felt like weeks of making phone calls to gardeners, electricians, shed people and cladding people my new jewellery shed is at last up and running! I moved in a couple of weeks ago and after a few rearrangements of various tools and other stuff it now feels "right" and I'm settling in and getting to work nicely.

I previously worked on the dining room table and in the kitchen which was ok but obviously meant I was limited in when I could do certain things like soldering and enamelling. I often wished I had a space of my own but it wasn't until another jewellery maker asked if I was interested in renting space in her studio that I thought seriously about having my own little workspace {I can't bring myself to call it a "studio"- it's a shed} The cost to rent a space in someone else's studio and the restricted access that would mean made me think that I could fit a shed in the backyard if the raised bed was removed...... and so the phone calls to various workmen began....

But at last it's done and as you can probably tell I'm so happy about it!! Despite the Swedish sauna pine cladding vibe. I used to imagine how it would feel when I would at last be able sit in my shed with a cup of tea and the radio on and now I can :D

I decided to sand and stain the bench but it didn't turned out how I imagined! I'd spent a day and a half sanding it and thought I'd got all the varnish off it but I hadn't so there's light and dark areas which really bugged me at first but now I don't notice it anymore.

After a long time spent getting stuff out of cupboards then putting it back again the joy of having a space to leave my soldering stuff is immense! I was in the middle of working on a silver hollow form pendant and finishing some copper hollow form earrings when I took this photo. The bench got slightly untidier when I started soldering!

A small fold away table I use for making findings as the height and space on the jewellery bench isn't right for stuff I need to do at normal table height. It took a while to get used to the height of the jewellery bench and I did get neck ache to begin with but now I've got in the swing of it and it is so much better working at that level.

 I made a simple curtain for the window mainly so I could close it at night to stop any opportunist undesirables having a nosy not because I was aiming for the wendy house look. As you can tell from the hand stitching on the hem I won't be sending my application form for the next series of The Great British Sewing Bee off anytime soon :D

I have shelves!

And I can put a few knick knacks on shelves which I like. The wooden boxes are mostly empty as I now have room to put a lot of stuff elsewhere but I do occasionally like to play a  game called "where did I put those .........?" then spend a few minutes opening and shutting every single little box looking for them {and there's another one of those box storage units underneath the table where the rolling mill is}.

 More wooden boxes with "things" in them and a shelf for some more knickknacks and a plant which I just had to have. How it will fare in there during the winter remains to be seen. I dragged my friend round most of the charity shops in town a while ago looking for interesting things and found the two Hornsea pottery striped mugs for £2.99. A bargain and they satisfied my stripe fetish too!

The silver hollow form pendant I've almost finished. The bench peg isn't attached and doesn't fit tightly in the slot on the bench which means I can remove it when necessary which is a good thing sometimes. When I need it to not move I wedge the nail file you can see in this photo down the side of it :D

And finally a very rare photo of me. I don't like having my photo taken and this one is without makeup and possibly a bit too close for comfort!

I'm still tweaking things in the shed as I find better places to keep things. As I work I can see where it would be better for something to live to make the flow of work smoother. I don't like having to scrabble around in a drawer to find a tool when I'm in the middle of something. If a tool has a hanging hole I'll hang it somewhere! 

I still haven't found a home for my pliers which currently hang on one of the drawer handles to the left of where I sit. I do have one of those plastic pliers holders but don't want to lose space on the bench by using it! I have a small metal drawer cabinet on order from Ikea {in red!} which has handles I think I can hang the pliers from. It's to replace the white plastic drawers on the right of the bench which are ok but make the most awful squeal when you open them if you put something too heavy in them. Plus they're plastic and don't go with the wood vibe I have going on :D

No doubt I'll rearrange things a few more times to get it completely right but for now I love it and am so happy when I'm in there ♥

I've really waffled way too much about all this but I hope you've enjoyed the little tour of my work space.

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