A Splash Of Colour And Some Twirly Studs

I've been playing with my enamel colours again and creating my own "blends". It's fun sitting at the table with my different colours and mixing them up to make new ones. Enamels don't really mix to make new colours but you can achieve some really pretty speckly effects. Using the same colour groups work better than mixing colours opposite each other on the colour wheel. I found this out when I mixed some purple and lavender enamels with a bright green hoping I'd get a nice purple/green mix but it just looked grey when it was fired. If you looked closely you could see the individual colours but the overall effect was dull but luckily the beauty of enamelling is you can fix it with another layer (within reason!) What I have learned with mixing colours is if it looks dull in the pot it will still look dull when it's fired........... :D

The hoops above are enamelled in a mix of different greens with some transparent turquoise layered on top on the bottom section.

These were originally a really dull orangey-grey (one of my not so great mixes) so I revived them with some more opaque and transparent oranges and a sprinkling of cream and lighter orange on top. They make me think of marmalade.

This pair were victims of the purple/lavender/green horror mix so I brightened them up with more green opaques and a budgerigar green transparent. I love the effect sprinkling opaque enamel on top of transparent gives you, it reminds me of lichen.

I finished off a few simple stud earrings in copper and silver this week too. I used thin strips of metal and coiled them with round nose pliers like you would make a spiral to form cute twirls. I soldered the ends then after sanding one side flat I soldered them to a base, tidied them up then added posts and oxidized them.

The copper pair remind me of chelsea buns!

Spots, Studs, Etching and Hoops - New Earrings

I've been pretty busy recently with findings orders and copper bangle orders - some of them from my website which is slowly picking up buyers thank goodness (patience is a virtue!) So now they're done and I've got a bit of time I thought I'd better get some earrings made for my shops.

I decided I like the spotty look you get with nail varnish and etching so I went for some spotty silver and copper studs first ..........

Then I used some more etched copper I've had waiting in the wings until it found it's true vocation in life.....

in other words a couple of pairs of simple, quick to make earrings!

Then I felt all hoop inspired and made a few pairs of silver hoops with added lampwork and ceramic flower beads. I do love a hoop :D

So now that I have a few new items to add to my shops and website over the next week I can relax and get on with the next thing that's running round my brain which is..........enamelled supplies for people to use in their own designs. It will be mainly discs at first in a choice of colours and a couple of sizes. I'd love to include enamelled headpins but when I tried enamelling headpins a long time ago the results were pretty varied with lots of them cracking and bits of enamel falling off sometimes minutes, hours or days after they were made. I've read this is normal for other people too so they won't be featuring in my enamelled findings range as they would be too unpredictable and stress inducing!

So now you know what I will be doing over the next few days!

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.