I'm Back :)

We're back from our Far North Queensland 4 Wheel Drive Adventure. It was full of fabulous sights, scenery and people - but more on that later.

I've waited to blog this as it was a gift for my daughter, but now her Birthday has come and gone I can blog away and not ruin any surprises!

In June, my friend Jane & I enrolled for a two day workshop at Fremantle Arts Centre, one of my favourite learning places. We were fortunate enough to be taught how to make Sterling Silver Spoons by the marvellous George Lucas, a renowned and very well respected Silversmith here in Western Australia.

Here's the results of my class efforts.

 

The spoon was made in 3 parts, the top was sawn from sheet, shaped and hammered. The middle was from thick square wire and the bowl also sawn from sheet and domed to shape.
That was the easy bit - the fitting it all together and soldering was a bit trickier.  A bit of precision sawing was involved in getting that top bit to fit the mid section but we all got it in the end under George's watchful eye.
Fortunately George had a jig he'd made which we used to hold the bowl and the handle together when we came to soldering those parts together.  Jane was clever and soldered her spoon together without the jig - smart move really because if we ever want to replicate it at home we'll all be jigless and have to do that!

I made the little custom gift box because next to making jewellery I love messing around with wrapping and papercraft.
Hopefully, one day the spoon will get handed further down in the family as a little heirloom  - in the meantime,  I was pretty chuffed when my daughter (who'd seen it after day 1's class when it was in 3 pieces and not cleaned up in any way) on receiving the finished spoon said "Mum, you can't see the joins!"  WooHoo!

Pin It

Some earrings finished!

Hey, I actually made something! 6 pairs of Sterling Earrings :) 

These are heading down to Behind The Monkey.

Pin It

Just 4 kids

My husband won a holiday! We were pretty excited. I had visions of sipping cocktails around a pool with the palm trees rustling in the gentle breeze.
Those thoughts soon turned to "How the hell am I going to get up off an airmattress every morning with my dodgy knee" LOL - the holiday we won was a "Tag a long" 4 wheel drive camping adventure holiday.

No matter :) we are off to Far North Queensland in July to discover Cape York Peninsular and will venture as far as the most northern point of the Australian mainland. It's something I think we wouldn't have ventured out to do alone, travelling over rough roads and tracks in this remote area, so this type of tour and travelling in a convoy is an opportunity too good to miss.

The tour organisers have an agenda other than making holidays happen, they raise money for Aussie Kids..... and along the way during the tour they present cheques from their fundraising efforts to the communities in the local areas.
As part of this trip we'll be involved in the fundraising efforts too, so I'm kicking off my fundraising by making jewellery to sell so I can donate the proceeds.
I've just listed this little Sterling Silver Crossed Heart Pendant in my Made it shop. I'm donating the materials, listing fees, time, etc etc, so that 100% of the purchase price can be donated to the Just 4 Kids Childrens Charity. 

Hope it sells quickly so I can make some more - I've got the bucket below to fill with money!

Buy the necklace here within Australia....or here If outside of Australia

 More about the charity 

Where we're going...

Pin It

Irregular Pendant

I've been meaning to make a silver version of the chunky copper pendant from my last post and I finally had a chance to do it.
This time I've used Sterling Silver Wire and it's on a smaller scale - The largest link is around 5cm x 3.5cm at it's widest points. (2 inches x 1 1.2 inches) Still, thats a pretty decent size for a silver pendant.

I like that you can rotate the shapes around in the jump ring bail to give it a different look. The top pic shows it in a uniform order then underneath it's pictured in a more haphazard arrangement.

 

My current quest is to create from the supplies I already have rather than buy in more materials. I've plenty of this Sterling Wire, so I can see some more of these coming on, maybe even earrings too!


Pin It

Class countdown!

The Tafe year is nearly over for my course. I have mixed feelings - I'm looking forward to spending the time at home creating instead but really will miss the classes. And then there's the motivation issue when I'm at home - there's so many distractions: housework, shopping, washing, ironing and cooking.
I'm not saying I do them but the need to do them definately distracts me from the task of creating ;) Not to mention the biggest distraction of all - The Internet!!!
Anyway, we had a great day in class yesterday. A classmate is working on a new range and the teacher gave us all a lesson/demo in how to make a rubber mould. Jane was then able to use the mould and use the wax injector to reproduce her design in wax.

I took about 20 grams of scrap sterling in to class and melted it into an ingot then spent far too long (but I love doing it) rolling it down on the mill and then drawing it down into .8mm wire which I'll being using for earring hooks.

Another classmate Carolyn generously bought in some copper pipe for me to use for future trinket boxes. The teacher took us down to the metal workshop and we had it sliced on the cold metal bandsaw (at least I think that's what it was).
It took the metal workshop teacher a few minutes to do and will definately save me an hour, probably more of sawing. I'm always pleasantly amazed at the resources available at Tafe.

I also rolled down my ingot from last term a little more. I've decided I'll leave it now at about 1.5mm thick until I have a definate project in mind for the silver.

We also got the course info for next year. There's a possibility that we may be able to enrol in the Advanced Diploma as part time students and just do a few of the units. There's about 5 of us from this course interested in doing more.  Love to be able to do that if it fits in with all the other commitments I have, like family and the day job!

Now that the formal class projects are out of the way I have to plan what I want to do in class next to make the most of my last 3 classes............. 












Pin It

Pickle Break out!

The other day I made up some pickle with a mix of vinegar & salt in a little container. I had a copper piece to pickle and I didn't want to use the same solution that I use for my silver jewellery.

I used the satay stick to stir the solution and the plastic forks to get my jewellery piece in and out and when I'd finished I just rested them across the container and walked away. Today I walked past and noticed this rather disturbing but none the less pretty scene.

Little did I know the pickle had aspirations to be a science experiment and would use these implements to transform and attempt an escape  :)

PS: for non  jewellery makers -  I'm not talking about the yummy crunchy green things we eat  but a solution to remove fire scale after soldering! Pin It

Texture Time!

I took some jewellery down to the shop last week. I had Mother's Day in mind when I made these. I'd been playing with my rolling mill and loved the effect that glass paper made on the silver. Very glitzy I thought, and I added a simple freshwater pearl to most of the designs, because, well.... Mums like pearls :)

The first corrugated design made me think of crinkle cut potato chips, not in real life but I couldn't help noticing it when I was resizing the photo. Maybe it's because I'm obsessing with food right now as I've cut out junk food and every time I walk past the pantry I see the chips in there calling out for me to eat them! No doubt about it - I'm tempted :(




Pin It

Productive Few Days

It's been pretty hot and humid here but I did manage to drag myself out into the shed and do some soldering. I finished another one of the cast twigs that I made at my casting class a few weeks back. I made it into another necklace but this time I've laid it out vertically instead of horizontally like my first twig necklace.



Also, played with a heavy gauge wire to make these swirl earrings. No soldering involved - just forming, hammering & polishing.



I have to be a little considerate these days with my hammering. Our house is surrounded on 3 sides by houses that have babies. I shut my self in the spare room and close the doors, hoping it's not too loud for the neighbours! I haven't had any complaints so far! Pin It

Turning a negative into a positive!

First I pierced (hand sawed) a rabbit design from a sterling disc to make this pendant:



Then I soldered the little cut out rabbit onto another Sterling disc to make a second pendant here:



The negative space in the first pendant makes the rabbit look slightly fatter than the actual cut out on the second, that's because I domed the first pendant which enlarged the space. Pin It

Where's the day gone........

Day off today and this morning I felt a sudden urge to get creative. Anything to avoid doing the house work and washing!
I've had it in the back of my mind to make a ring for myself and simply never got around to it so today it happened!

It wasn't all smooth sailing though - the silver got the dreaded fire scale when I soldered it which meant lots of extra filing and sanding - for a pretty simple design I've spent the best part of the day on it! It's not perfect but I'm not going to point out the other faults - can't see 'em when I'm wearing it anyway, so I'm happy with the day's efforts. Pin It

Not a bad afternoon's work

Well the Australian Rules Football Grand Final was on this afternoon.

I'm only vaguely interested in footy but I did watch it while I made some jewellery. Nothing like multi-tasking. I was happy with the afternoon's result.

Here's a brand new design I created using rubber rings with Sterling Silver ....

Pin It

Another 3D tri-metal pendant

I had so much fun making the rectangle 3D pendant the other day, that I made another one. This time in a circle shape which I die cut... a little faster than the hand sawing. I used a silver bead instead of the pearl this time. I've got this one up in my Etsy Shop.


Pin It

Year of Jewellery Week 21

Well I'm behind on the YOJ, but well, never mind!

Used one of my newer tools again for Week 21's offerings. I'm really addicted to tools ;)
I got an Industrial tube wringer and it corrugates thin metal sheet. It wasn't designed for that but some bright spark started using it for metal instead of toothpaste tubes. Who'd 'av thought it?! I already posted the silver earrings at the front on the YOJ blog but I've made the copper one's since then. I had lots of fun with this and hope to do some more.

These pieces are going into a new shop opening locally in a couple of weeks called "Behind the Monkey". For local Perthites keep an eye out for it in Beaufort Street - it will feature some of the work of local artisans. Very cool...... Pin It

YOJ - Week 20 Bow Necklace

Not on theme again this week and I'm late as well. I had a play with the jewellery saw again this week. I really enjoy cutting out shapes from sheet metal and this week I went with a ribbon bow.
This is Mark 2. With the first one, I soldered a tube on the back and was going hang it on neoprene as I like the effect of the unseen bails. Unfortunately the soldering annealed the brass and made it too soft. Then when I was polishing it up I bent it. I managed to bend it back with out it being noticable but decided to work harden it with my rawhide mallet on the bench block to prevent it happening again.
What a pain! The tube on the back was getting in the way so I had it half off and half on the bench block. Then the edge of the bench block left a nice mark in the metal. That's when I gave up on that one and decided to start again!
This time round I took the easy way out suspended it from chain through a hole either side of the bow.
I'm pretty over ribbons and bows at the moment though ;) Pin It

Van Gogh Earring - YOJ Week 19

Well I've been busy making jewellery this week but not on theme. I'm still messing around with the Japanese weave chainmaille. I decided to have a go with some stainless steel rings I bought ages ago.
Stainless Steel is a whole different ball game from sterling. It is tough! My pliers kept slipping, my wrists ached, and generally, I decided it is not going to be my material of choice. So back in the drawer all those Stainless Steel jumprings go....
The result from my efforts was one earring, and no it's not going to get a mate. I may convert it into a pendant one of these days though. Pin It

Fishin' YOJ Week 17

Back to chainmaille for this weeks piece of jewellery. Although my fish hasn't been caught - he's just swimming past the net. The Bracelet is Sterling & Copper Euro 4 in 1 weave with the fish charm wired on, as are the Freshwater pearl studs. Pin It