Happy Christmas!

Wishing you all a very 

Happy Christmas !!!

A snow inspired Silver Snowflake

We've had plenty of snow even though it's almost gone - I think we can count it as a white Christmas this year!

A Snowy Christmas Chocolate Cupcake!

Eat, Drink and be Merry!

Rings and things...

It's a busy time of year. We've had lots of birthdays and scrummy cakes to make, bake and eat! As well as a truck load of Sweets from Halloween to work our way through!

I did find time to make a Rainbow Tiara for a little girl to have fun with at the Dressing Up Box. It's one way of using up all the odd Swarovski Crystal Beads I seem to have accumulated over time. 

Now I'm over the need to Bead and need to create everything from scratch - hence my current obsession with Silversmithing. I've been busy at the Bench experimenting with rings and different kinds of Silver Wire -Square, round, D-Shape....

A friend has asked me to recreate this ring made using Square Wire but in a larger width.

 I have made a start and formed the shape, sawn through it to make a good joint, soldered and pickled it and now starting to file and sand it.

Hopefully it will turn out as nice as the first one although it has been much tougher to form with the wire being thicker! Lots of Annealing going on (heating the Silver with a Torch to soften the metal).

I will be attempting a Bezel Setting next week......

Lots of Silver Rings in My Wordless Wednesday!

(Apart from Captions here is my Wordless Wednesday!)

Hammered Silver Necklace

Plain Silver Bracelet

Work in progress...

Catch up!

After a brief hiatus I am back and ready to be creative once again! It's that time of year when my age turns to another number I'd rather forget about!

Cake from the Boys

I recently visited Kew Gardens (not very far from where I live). I was very impressed by The Temple of the Imagination - or rather the metal flowers adorning it! I would really like this at the bottom of my garden with the addition of some lockable doors so no one could disturb me! 

The Temple of the Imagination (photos  J.Hannah 2010)

The Temple of the Imagination (Kew Gardens)

The Temple of the Imagination (Kew Gardens)

The Temple of the Imagination (Kew Gardens)

These remind me that I have quite a large collection of Silver leaves I made a while ago out of Precious Metal Clay. I still haven't got around to doing anything with them!

Some of my Pure Silver Leaves

  I particularly like anything forged out of metal at the moment as I have been learning how to use a jewellers saw and how to create pierced and cut pieces. I am getting through a lot of blades...it's not easy! One wrong move and PING - snapped!.

My Saw with a surprisingly unbroken Blade (for now) & work in progress

Now in praise of people with real artistic talent! I recently commissioned a Pastel drawing by Artist Sarah James of three dogs from my childhood. It was a gift for my Mother and it was nice to have a picture of all three dogs sitting within the same frame! This never happend in life. Sarah only had the most awful pre-digital photos to work from and did a magnificent job.

More interestingly if you visit Sarah's Blog you can see the process by which an Artist creates a piece of work - from rough sketch through to finishing touches. It's fascinating to see an Artist's "Work in Progress".

The Dogs by Sarah James

Finally - if you have a Twitter account please feel free to click on the Tweet button at the top of this post. It took me ages to figure out how to install it! xxx

Cakes @TheMakeLounge

I finally made it to a Cup Cake Decorating Class at The Make Lounge and enjoyed an expert session in piping and decorating from Cake Maker  Janine Rose.

Cake Making is another pleasure of mine but unfortunately I don't get to do it as often as I'd like - as much as I'd like to eat cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

In the class we learnt how to pipe and make sprinkles. I also made a rose out of marzipan!

Attending a class is a great way to pick up lots of useful tips they don't tell you in books!

I also learnt the many applications of edible glitter! Be warned though - it gets everywhere and sticks to your skin for days!

That was nice! 

We also got Janine's recipe to take home and now I know the secret of getting my cakes nice and flat without having to cut the peaks off! 

(You'll have to go to a class to find out!!!)

A fellow classmate's wonderful creations!

Wordless Wednesday!

Precious Metal Clay

I decided that for father's day I would make my Husband some Cufflinks with our three Son's Fingerprints on. Now fitting three prints onto a small square piece of Precious Metal Clay (PMC) is no easy task! I could only fit partial prints but at least it looks like each Cufflink has been touched in some way by each of our little ones! These cufflinks were also a test of my newly acquired Soldering skills!

I have also been painting Leaves from our garden with PMC Paste and absolutely love the result. After a little experimentation (ok - disasters!!) I did manage to produce a few pieces I really love. I discovered that the best result came from a really thick, well veined Leaf.

This Leaf (above) was an early attempt. It looks ok but is quite sharp at the edges and I probably didn't make it thick enough.

I was really pleased with this one (above). The detail is great and I managed to smooth the edges nicely. It is a perfect replica of the original Leaf - only in Silver!

French Knitting Masterclass with Teri Howes

I have been on a couple of Teri's Courses before to learn how to Crochet with Wire - so when I heard Teri was doing a French Knitting Class I was in!

(Photo  above Courtesy of Teri Howes)

My only previous experience of French Knitting was one of those Child's Learn to Knit (with Wool) Kits many years ago now! 


But even if you haven't had any experience at all this class is fine for a complete beginner.

The class covered all aspects of French-Knitting with Pure Silver for the purpose of jewellery making!

We learnt how to use the wooden spool and a Crochet Hook to work the stitches. It only took a few rows to get the hang of the technique.

We were then confident enough to add beads to our knit - this was achieved by placing them in the middle of the spool or by threading them onto our wire and working them in.

The shape of the knit can also be manipulated by stretching it as with Viking Weave.

Below is my finished Bracelet!

Get in touch with Teri Howes if you are interested in any of her classes.

Better still - if you pop along to one of the Cockpit Arts Open Studios  this summer, you can meet Teri in person along with lots of other Designer-Makers and get to see behind the scenes. 

You can also buy stuff directly from the designers themselves!!

Competition Winner!

Congratulations

to 

Tina Gilmore! 

Your name was first out of the hat.

 Thank you to everyone else who entered. I really appreciate your visit to my blog! 

I have been fiddling about with the layout of my blog. I managed to add a third column after consulting several tutorials. Finally after numerous failures and much frustration I found one that worked for me at Simple Blogger Tutorials. I have also picked up useful tips from Craft Blog Uk. So if you are looking to improve the look of your own blog please check out these sites.

It's a slow process for me though - I am not educated in the mysterious language of HTML! I'll just have to keep picking away at it until I get the result I was looking for!

Bold as Brass Competition

Well the Viking Weave Bracelet in Brass is finally finished and I thought I would have a giveaway!

If you would like to win the above Bracelet then just leave a comment below and I'll enter you into the draw - closing date Tuesday 11th May. The only qualification is that you are a follower of my blog - so if you're not already please click the Follow button now! x

I'm a big fan of Moo Cards and was excited to receive a new batch of Mini Cards to go with my Viking Weave Jewellery:

I chose one image for my cards but you can have up to a 100 different ones I think!

I look forward to reading your comments!

Experimenting with Brass

I was hoping to bring you my Cup Cake decorating exploits in this post but unfortunately the Volcanic Ash Cloud has thrown a spanner in the works and I never made it to the class!
Well all the Easter Chocolate is nearly gone. I was lucky enough to receive some beautiful handmade eggs from Fortnum's (I have a great Hubby!!). This little number on the left was one of three in dark, white and milk chocolate. At the time of taking this photo only the milk one remained intact enough to pose for a photo!

Turning to Jewellery - I got hold of some natural Brass Wire and have started to experiment with some Viking Weave. I am loving the colour. Still working it on the stick so watch this space to see how it turns out.

My latest piece is this Pure Silver Necklace and Bracelet set. I am hoping to progress to incorporating some beads and other embellishments to the weave at some point. For the moment I'm loving the simplicity and elegance of the plain weave.






The weather has been beautiful this week! I think I feel a competition coming on!

Wait and see!