Step By Step Chainmaille Rings

For the first couple of years of my chainmaille creating, I purchased pre made rings. I've been cutting my own rings now for a while so I thought I'd post a few pictures of how I coil & cut the rings from wire.

I love coiling the wire around the mandrel in an old hand drill - The drill belonged to my late Dad- in-Law and I always think of him when I'm coiling wire. He was such a great person and a talented handyman so I love that I'm able to use one of his old tools. My set up is attached to the meals area table with a small vice and I cut the rings on the kitchen bench. One day I hope to have a dedicated space to do all this..........

Perth Etsy Meet Up

Yesterday, some of the people that have Etsy shops here in Perth got together for a meet up. We had a lovely afternoon, with "show & tell", lots of chat about our work, and we threw around ideas for promoting ourselves & Etsy.

A great afternoon and lovely to meet everyone.

I've now updated my list of links in my sidebar to add their Etsy Shops - please visit them - there's some awesome talent here in Little Old Perth.

I didn't take my camera but luckily others thought of it - check out Amanda's blog for some photos.

Spring is sprung - well nearly......

Over at the Beading forum in the metal & wirework section we are having a pendant swap. The theme was "Spring".
I decided to try metal etching again but my attempts didn't work out on my first try, so I abandoned that project.
My second try was this pendant ...my thinking was "Spring Showers" and I remembered the kid's poem we used to chant, but after finishing it I was told the mailing address of my swap partner and she lives in North Queensland. Well somehow I think that this pendant is not appropriate ... I figure they would be happy with rain up there - not sure if they're in drought or not but thought I'd better err on the side of caution....The pendant would probably be better of staying here in Perth where we've had a week of torrential rain. I wish it would go away so I can get some washing dry!
Luckily I've been able to rework my first attempt and will post a pic. of that once the swaps complete.