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!

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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...

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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!


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When good rings go bad.....

I like to make rings but getting the sizing right seems to be a hit & miss affair most of the time. Occasionally I manage to finish one that actually fits me!
When I started this one, the three wires were to form the ring shape and pass over each other at the top in the same way as when you first link your fingers if you're going to pray.........Did you just try that?
That idea came to an abrupt halt when I was joining the wires at the base of the ring and the solder ran all along the seam lines and joined the wires together at the point where they should have been separate and intersecting. Darn!
After playing with the pliers I formed the ends into little scroll shapes instead and salvaged my disaster.
The ring reminds me of a water spout but I'll call it my "fountain" ring 'because that sounds so much more elegant. And it fits me - Yay! 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 :(




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Branching out......

In casting class I've had the most success with my twigs that I turned into little bird necklaces.

Last week instead of the single twig, I cast a twig with multiple little branches. I was really happy with how it turned out and I've made it into another necklace. I've attached it to a long chain which just slips over my head with no clasp. I've resisted the temptation to add a bird or other forest creatures -I did contemplate a squirrel, but decided the tree shape was impressive enough on its own.
Soldering the rings on for the chain was a pain that's taken the best part of the morning and I did a bit of a dodgy job on it, but undeterred I'm going to try casting another "tree" at next week's class and incorporate the jump rings into the casting. Hopefully that will work better :)

I don't always cast twigs though. I've also got a little aeroplane and a dinosaur head which turned out well enough to make into something......watch this space.........

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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

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 ....

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YOJ - Weeks 25 & 26

Playing catch up on the Year Of Jewellery this week. Top pair of earrings is Sterling Corrugated Squares. I really love making this stuff - it's so much fun and has been getting a good reaction and happily a few sales down at my sister's shop.

Bottom pair are a simple die cut brass pair teamed with black rubber and black rivets. 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

Mixed Metal

Well I haven't done much creating since the crafts shows but I had a sudden urge to do something and I'd just got some sheet copper so I thought I'd have a play.
I've cut out squares of about 3cm, gently given them a light hammered finish, very slightly domed them and suspended them from Sterling soldered hammered rings with a bit of chain.
These are nice and chunky - not for the faint hearted! Pin It