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.

 

Stunning - matching silver pendant and earrings

STERLING SILVER: Just finished these off today in the studio.

I had been thinking about working in silver but it's just so expensive if you make a mistake! However, I bit the bullet & decided to make a few test pieces in sterling silver as they look so pretty.

PENDANT: I used the drill with a burr to make the shiny surface and then created the negative space with the jeweller's saw and added leaves with a stamp just on the one side for a summer scene and left the other side as a winter scene with snowflakes.

EARRINGS: As these are much smaller, I just used the winter scene design on these.





Summer Tree with leaves

Winter side on the reverse with snowflakes


 

   Matching pendant and earrings

 

    Earrings to match

Copper Bangles

During the last week I have been experimenting with different ideas for making bangles out of copper and sterling silver. 

1.  COPPER:  This bangle is 2 inches wide and 6 inches long. The bangle has been stamped with stars and then a separate section has been soldered to the centre which is a plain copper section from which triangles have been cut out. It fits the wrist well and is easily adjustable to put on and take off.

         

2. COPPER:  This 2nd bangle is a simple one. It's much narrower than the other one - 3/4 inch wide and 6 inches long. The hearts are  hand cut from sterling silver hence the slight difference in the shapes. It is also easily adjustable for wearing.

 

 

 

3. STERLING SILVER: This is a fairly simple idea for a bangle. It's designed to that it's adjustable so that it widens for putting on and reduces once it's on the wrist.



SUPERVISOR:  Of course, things wouldn't
be the same without the studio supervisor,
Mr Tigger! He quietly keeps me company whilst I'm working.