Creative Cities Blog Feature

I am currently featured on Rosie and the Boys, a blog by Rosie about creative crafts. Rosie is a papercut artist, professional florist and independant designer/maker who writes about her life and her creative interests. The blog is really interesting and varied and includes a section called "creative cities", where a different town/city and it's handmade community is featured for a week which is where my jewellery business came in. Rose decided to feature Eastbourne in East Sussex and found my shop on Etsy. She sent me some questions and you can read my answers in her latest post - Jewel of the South - An Interview With Cinnamon Jewellery.

Eastbourne and it's crafting community is being featured all week so if you are interested check back to Rosie's blog every day this week!

Wire Wrapped Hoop Earrings in Silver and Copper

Circles are a definite theme in my life. It started when I was old enough to grab a crayon and scribble on a neighbour's wall. My Mum said they always knew when it was me because the circles gave me away. I still love circles and sometimes have to tell myself to NOT make another pair of disc earrings! Hoops are also a favourite and something I come back to often. I finished three pairs of hoop earrings this week, one pair in silver and two in copper.

I started with soldered hoops made with 2mm copper and silver wire and teamed them with some wire wrapping. I love coils of wire especially when it's oxidized and the contrast of dark and polished areas of metal really shows up.

 I normally like to make at least one pair in copper as it's useful for working out how much wire I'm going to need and I always find copper is easier than silver. I don't really know why other than maybe as it's much cheaper I'm not afraid to make a mistake ( I think that probably is the reason!) I actually made two pairs in copper. This pair has 4mm green grass turquoise beads added to the earwires for a bit of colour. The second copper pair has unakite beads threaded onto the earwires which is a beautiful coloured stone - a mix of olive green and brick red and looks fab with oxidized copper.

I then made a silver pair because you just have to..... I added some turquoise jasper beads to the earwires which is a favourite coloured stone of mine. It's a bright sea-green turquoise colour and as I've had the beads for so long I can't remember where I bought them but I think it was maybe Lima Beads.

I really enjoyed making these earrings. I started out making wirework jewellery several years ago with a bit of basic wire wrapping before I moved onto more metalwork type stuff so it was nice to do something relatively easy.

I went a bit coil-tastic this week and have also made a silver and copper bangle both with soldered coil decorations. I love the addition of coils to bangles and I'm planning to make myself three silver coil bangles as a belated birthday treat to myself. 

As soon as I have photographed the copper version of the coil bangle (Tuesday is looking good weather-wise) I will write a post about them 

♥

Etched Copper Pendants with Enamel and Turquoise

I recently finished two copper pendants that had been waiting on the sidelines for quite a time while I finished some other orders. I'd managed to cut them out and file and sand the edges then some findings orders arrived and they were return to the "to do" pile. But at last earlier this week I managed to finish them!

I used a mendhi style stamp I got from Hobbycraft for a £1 with Stayz On ink to stamp the design onto the copper then etched for about an hour. I love these type of detailed designs. My ferric chloride was on it's last legs and took longer than usual - it would normally take about 40-45 mins to get the light etched look that I prefer.
*Tip!* If you're planning to use stamps for etching I've found the fine line designs work and look better than the thicker line ones.
I then sawed around the edge of the design, filed and sanded and made the bails. Strangely enough I have never made a bail like this before. I've made hidden bails and p shaped ones but not the type that solders to both sides of the pendant. I really like the look of it with this type of pendant and you can decorate them anyway you want by hammering, stamping or etching. I soldered the bail on first then the silver ball and the bezel last.

I'd made the pink enamel "cabochon" a while ago and hadn't got round to using it for anything else and the colour looked ok with the oxidized copper so at last it was given a home. I made turquoise version too. I say "turquoise" but the cab isn't real turquoise but some kind of stabilized (what does that mean?) or composite material dyed to look like turquoise. It still looks nice though :D

Making this type of bail has given me ideas for extending the front section to form part of the design on a pendant, maybe using contrasting metals or textures. Definitely an idea for my sketch book for a later date.

I'm currently working on some more enamel pendants with pierced out heart designs that I really enjoyed doing which obviously means someone has taken over my brain. I used to absolutely hate sawing metal and now I actually look forward to doing it. Whoever has taken over my sawing brain still breaks blades though..............