Learning New Stuff

I have been dithering for over a year now about doing some formal stone setting training.  My stone setting is pretty much all self-taught, which mainly means that I set stones in probably the most cack-handed way imaginable! 

So, I've finally booked myself on a diamond setting course at the Whitney Jewellery School in Brigg in May.  Sadly I have to leave to travel there on the same day that the boy returns from 10 days in China, but they were the only dates I could get.  My work has implemented an exciting new holiday policy which appears designed to ensure that no-one can actually take any!

Anyway, very excited about learning new things.  I'll let you know how it goes...

Am Still Baking Genius by the Way

The boy and I decided to make some hot cross buns this weekend.  Yes, actually make them.  From scratch.  Eek!

Inspired by Paul Hollywood (isn't he lovely?), we mixed up all the stuff and did the kneady thing to get our initial lump of dough...

 

 ...then left it near the heater to rise for an hour (the rest of the flat is freezing!)

Mix in fruit and spices, leave to rise for another hour.

Then weigh the dough and divide into equal balls of dough.  Very precise this dough making thing.

 
Leave to rise for ANOTHER hour!  This did end up taking all day to do.  Totally buying them from M&S next year.

Put the crosses on:

And look!  Behold my buns!
 

 All in all, it was a bit of a faff and I'm not sure I'd do it again, but they were very yummy. 

On the Workbench

On the workbench today are more custom skate numbers:

 

They are cut (with REALLY tiny sawblades) from solid silver sheet, then curves are filed on the edges.  After that, I engrave lines to separate the two numbers.  Like so:

Next step, sanding, soldering on the jump ring, more sanding, then polishing.

I’m also doing a custom Khanda pendant at the moment. It’s only little, so quite fiddly, but me and my tiny sawblades do like a challenge!

I’ve just started to file the edges off, so it’s got a fair bit of work to go yet…

Hello!

So, I’ve not posted anything for a while, huh?  Trying to keep up with orders and new custom enquiries sadly leaves very little time to write about them!

But anyway, been designing loads of new stuff recently.  I’ve been trying to carve a teeny tiny 5 claw crown collet from wax, so I can give tiny crowns to my mini-bees, but have finally admitted defeat, as I can’t get all the claws aligned and get it perfectly round at such a tiny size. I’ve sent off my scribblings to a CAD company now to get a quote.  I’ve never used CAD before, as I’ve always felt it kind of “cheating”.  Even though I might have designed the tiny crown, I didn’t technically make it by hand, so it doesn’t feel quite right, but in this case is definitely necessary.  It’s supposed to look like this:

I’ll let you know how it goes…

I’ve also designed some new mini-weather – the moulds are currently with the caster and I should get them back on Thursday – exciting!  There will be more earrings, necklaces, and even some rings!  I know, I know, I hardly ever make rings, but I’m trying to start doing them more.  Because I just make jewellery that I love and want to wear, and I don’t wear rings, it never occurs to me to make them!  These are going to be awesome though.

I’ve also done another custom skate number necklace recently – I’ve been doing quite a few of these recently, but don’t always get time to photograph them before they’re posted out.
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Terrible pictures!  I just did a super-quick white background experiment with bright underlighting, but didn’t have time to set up the other lights, so the exposure is all out of whack.

I’ve also got some more custom work on the bench – more of which soon.

An Earring for a Disney Fan

I was recently asked to make a single earring for a lovely Disney fan.

As the commission was for a boy, I kept it simple and went with plain silver in the iconic Disney Mickey Mouse head silhouette.

Here it is:

I think it turned out really cute!

New Silver Cloud Jewellery

I’d been working on some new shiny weather last year, but have only just found the time to photograph it.

I liked the idea of taking the double cloud design from my large raincloud necklace and translating to a smaller version.

So, we have some new stud earrings:

  

And a new raindrop version (I may have mentioned previously how much I like dangly earrings…)

 

And a delicate little rain cloud necklace:

 

I’ve used sky blue topaz for the raindrops on these, rather than the darker London blue topaz I usually use.

There’s also a little pair of London blue topaz mini cloud drop earrings, which are much less dangly:

 

I’ll have them up for sale on my website in the next couple of months.

New stuff.  Exciting!

New Custom Skate Necklace

I made another custom skate necklace in between Christmas and New Year, with the skater’s number, 333, on it.

Here are the numbers after I’ve cut them out but before the carving on the edges and the engraving has been done:

And the finished necklace:

 

I’m also working on some new ways to customise my little crash helmet necklaces, but it requires a bit of experimentation!