Sterling Silver and Pearl Earrings

This pretty drop earrings are made from sterling silver with a pearl situated at the opening which sits on a sterling silver headpin.

Sterling Silver Bangle

I have also been busy making this pretty sterling silver bangle with a lapis lazuli blue cabachon. It is set centrally in a little flower design on wire work which leads to a solid sterling silver bangle at the back. The bangle exends to fit over the hand and contracts to fit the wrist snuggly.

Sterllng Silver Pendant

This week I have made a sterling silver chain and pendant to wear with a jumper or something similar as it is a longer length chain. The pendant is an attractive design & sits between sterling silver pretty beads on the chain.

MATCHING EARRINGS - SUNFLOWER DESIGNS

I made these earrings from sterling silver to match my sunflower pendant design in my last blog post. 

SPECIAL COMMISSION:  a customer asked me to design a pendant for her sister's 60th birthday. She said she had been looking for something special for the occasion in silver but could not find what she wanted. She told me her sister loves sunflowers. Well - she had definitely come to the right person there then!

IDEAS: I asked her for some general jewellery pictures of what she did like and some photos of items she didn't like and asked her to explain why she liked them or didn't like them. Working around her preferences & dislikes, I designed the pendant from the last blog and these earrings to match the pendant.

FASTENING: As the lady is 60 yrs of age I thought she might have difficulty in fastening a chain as even I find chains fiddly when you can't see what you are doing. Therefore, I decided to use this idea below which makes it much easier to fasten and unlikely to come apart accidently.

BELOW: This is the sunflower on the pendant. It is relatively heavy being solid and made from sterling silver but this is advantageous as its weight makes it sit centrally on the chain between the 2 side twiddly decorations and it doesn't slide around easily as the person moves.

  

Below: the twiddly chain decorations of my own design idea.

BRIEF:  I was fortunate to have a completely open brief with which to work & only the sunflower as the constant - a designer's dream! I am not exactly short of personal photographs of my favourite flower too - the sunflower! I adore sunflowers at all stages of the day & am intrigued by the way they follow the sun. Using my own photos & ideas, I created a few different designs and started to work, making alterations as I went along. These were the result of many hours of patient work in the studio.

 

The final result below ready for posting:

Latest commission - sunflower pendant in sterling silver

I have been asked to make a sunflower pendant for a lady's 60th birthday present. I designed the pendant & chain myself and hope her sister who has commissioned me to do this, likes them as she hasn't replied to my e-mail questions.

The pendant is made from sterling silver. I cut the shapes out by hand with a jeweller's saw and carefully soldered the pieces together so the petals were sitting correctly in-between each other. I was in two minds whether to add a stalk and a leaf. 

The chain was a conundrum. I started out with various ideas like a French rope but after making what seemed like hundreds of jump rings, I decided to do something completely different and designed this as I went along. I wanted something that would complement the pendant and help it to sit correctly on the neck. Its made from sterling silver as well as the findings I made. I was in two minds about the curly bit but felt it added interest without deferring the eye from the pendant.

Etched copper bangles & earrings

I have been experimenting with etching copper using ferric chloride. Great fun and bright yellow marks on a few things but I am now more informed about the process! I have made some bangles with the designs I made
and also some earrings too.

   

Sterling Silver Ring with tiger's eye semi-precious stone

I have recently made this sterling silver ring with a tigers eye cabachon. It's a size S/T so for the larger finger but can obviously be made any size from scratch. It's all sterling silver apart from the semi-precious stone.