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!