Wednesday, 23 February 2011

Candy of the rock variety




Oooh, I really enjoy blogging as part of the team of Aspiring metalsmiths, there are lots of interesting titles, but this has to be the best and most self-indulgent! Stones! I don't think I would be making too much of a leap to suggest that most jewellery makers are also shameless stone hussies, once you start along the road of handling precious stones it is a downhill journey. I myself sit upon a growing pile of pretties like a brooding dragon, every now and then one rolls out from under the pile and I set it in silver then go back to admiring the rest!





I have a lot of favourites, mostly they are inspired by colour, but some I love for being what they are. Fossil cabochons are the most exciting to me in this way. That something I only ever saw in museums can be made into gorgeous cabochons makes my jaw drop open and they are just so beautiful too!







A stone I became infatuated with quite early on was chrysocolla. I just love the turquoise blues in the stone, and then there is parrot's wing chrysocolla with splashes of red and yellows, pure heaven! I could not believe before my first chrysocolla arrived in my sweaty little palms that something so bright and beautiful could not be man made. The fact that all of these stones are natural is to me, what helps to make them extra special!





Another stone I love is opal, I am finding new varieties all the time, so many sparkly pretties, the first ring I made for myself was set with a stunning boulder opal, I wear it as much as I can, and when it is safe to do so because I am always distracted by watching how the little rivers of sparkly coloour run all over the stone's surface. I also love fire agate, it looks like lumps of caramel with shining lights of greens, yellows and reds inside almost good enough to eat..yummy!



Of course I couldn't leave purple out of this. Purple is my favourite colour and there are so many wonderful purple stones to choose from. Of course there is amethyst, my favourite being moss amethyst, then there is cacoxenite in amethyst, like little strands of gold running all the way through the cloudy purpleness! Charoite that looks like silk in a stone or tiffany stone which has wonderful patterns and hues. There are loads more, but I just haven't discovered them yet, I am sure!








Last of all are the stones I cannot part with. Some were cut especially for me, some are very rare as well as beautiful and I know I would kick myself for parting with them and some just fascinate me. There aren't very many, not yet, but these I would never let roll out from my hoard.. or maybe I just haven't met the right knight yet! hee hee!
This month the Aspiring metalsmiths are bringing out their stones. For many, collecting stones has become an addiction. Come take a look at their favourites and what makes them so special.

Autumn Bradley www.autumnbradley.blogspot.com
Chrissi Lyn Designs www.chrissilyn.blogspot.com
Jessica @ Abella Blue www.abellablue.blogspot.com
Contemporary Jewelry by Beatriz Fortez www.cjbf.blogspot.com
Silver pearl jewelry and metalworks www.silverpearlmetalworks.wordpress.com
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Sunday, 30 January 2011

Coping with Code!


Woo, been so busy ( but busy is good right?) sorting out my new website. Done it all by myself, no techy man or woman to help out and no web designer on call, just lil ol' luddite me and a few choice and well used swear words!


But it has been worth it and (I think) I have a nice little website up and going now. I am still adding inventory and plan to eventually show all the options available in my made to order ranges and eventually it will be the only online home of my wire wrapped designs as I am letting the Etsy wire wrapped listings expire so that there is only smithed jewellery available there. Etsy has been good to me and I have no intention of leaving it but there is definitely something nice about having an online home that is just about the things I do.


I am going to have a little free competition starting on Feb 14th and will let you know all bout it here as well as through other venues. Make sure you sign up for my newsletter through the website too, there will be more exclusive offers for those on the newsletter list in the not too distant future!
http://www.brightstar-109.co.uk Go on... click it, you know you want to :)


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Monday, 24 January 2011

Casting a Backward Glance










Once a month as part of the Aspiring Metalsmiths team we take up the challenge to blog on a pre-ordained subject. It's fun and rakes around in things we sometimes forget. This week it is 'How we began' our metalsmithing journey.














My story can go back quite a long time to my teens, when a little, local craft store started selling sterling findings and unusual beads to make earrings with. It was a place I could take my pocket money (or left over lunch money) and create earrings I could actually wear, being allergic to the nickel in most costume (careful not to use the 'Junk' word) jewellery.













Sadly, all too soon I got serious about growing up and having a job and a family and no time to myself until two major life moves later I found myself wandering in the market town of Ulverston and chanced upon another stall selling sterling findings and beads. Unfortunately, although I proudly took many bad photographs of my achievements with these slim pickings, none have survived the multiple computer swaps, I do seem to be extremely hard on 'hardware'. I attempted to sell these pieces on Ebay to no avail. But while browsing there I discovered faceted gemstone beads! Oh, wonder of wonders, what a treasure trove to dangle before the eyes of a latent, button hoarding dragon! Of course I could not resist their lure and before long had built up a tidy hoard of sterling and fine silver wire and gemstone beads. I made jewellery for friends and family before advice from my favourite beads seller brought me at last to a place called Flickr and then to Etsy. I met so many wonderful (and patient) freinds both in the UK and further abroad who broadened my horizons, my knowledge and my skills. I watched as some of these most talented designers began to move from wire wrapping, on to smithed jewellery. By now I was creating some very intricate and delicate work and I swore I would never give up wire wrapping to go to the devil of smithed jewellery, no matter the lure!

















To keep the devil at bay and find a more secure way of fastening some pieces I attempted to teach myself to solder jump rings ( only jump rings I told myself, hardly selling my soul!) but alas I could not get the knack and when the solder flowed by some miracle that must have been good wire wrapping vibes in disguise, I could never replicate the happy moment!



















I bought copper wire and experimented with making some fused jewellery, never forgetting my roots, of course, I wrapped the copper in melted silver to make bangles, rings and earrings but never got the hang of soldering.











Finally in a fit of pique I enrolled in a local smithing class, just to learn to solder...and perhaps make rings, you can't properly make rings by wire wrapping (oh the lies I told myself).












Dear friends, I was hooked. I rushed home from my first class, impatient to wait until the following week and made my first stone set ring, a little rough around the edges but still wearable (and I do wear it very often). The rest, as they say, is history, and as if to prove a point that my soul is well and truly sold, lock stock and barrel, my latest piece uses ages old ammonite as its centre piece, making history, literally!










My Fellow Metalsmiths:

http://jewelry-by-silverblueberry.blogspot.com/

http://www.autumnbradley.blogspot.com

http://www.thisartistsjourney.blogspot.com

http://www.sylviaanderson.blogspot.com

http://www.joypeckjoy.blogspot.com/

http://gloria-hemlockhollow.blogspot.com/

http://thefrogspond.wordpress.com

http://allwiredupjewelrydesigns.blogspot.com/

http://formandfunktionaccessories.blogspot.com/

www.thesquarepegnation.blogspot.com


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Monday, 17 January 2011

Coral and Keeping Up



Well, it certainly hasn't been a quiet start to the new year! I began by stumbling on an offer of a new website that was just too good to turn down despite the time it sucks away from creating. I am sooo close to being able to unveil it that I can taste it, but I want to make sure it is just right and these things should not be rushed. I am slowly adding piece by piece of my jewellery to it, when it opens new pieces will be added daily until the whole intinerary is up there. Won't be long now!




I have also signed up the Thing-a-Week (THAW). On Etsy I am very happy to be a member of the Aspiring Metasmiths Team. I try to take part in the monthly challenges set but have definitely been slacking of late, so to try and remedy this I have signed up to THAW. This means I have to create something new every week of the year. This is quite a big ask. I do tend to be busy on custom items and made to order jewellery a lot of the time but I have also been quite a bad girl on the stone front and have quite a collection that need something doing to them. Hopefully THAW will help to reduce that stone pile just a little. First to be used was a gorgeous fossil coral cabochon. I have been thinking about it for ages but it takes me a while to get going and panicking over the THAW deadline last week was just what I needed. What came about is a pendant with an open back to show off as much of this gorgeous stone as possible and a lovely caramelly carnelian to complement the autumnal shades (even though it is nearly spring).




Next week I am working on an ammonite that has been whispering to me for far too long. Wish me luck!




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Wednesday, 29 December 2010

Christmas Burnout and Copper!






It has been a busy year for me and ended (almost) with my most ambitious project yet; to make every member of my family a present for Christmas, this meant three faceted flower pendants for the little girls, four spectrolite pendants for the ladies, a plume agate pendant for an honourary family member, an eagle pin, a Star Wars key-ring, a pierced set of Chinese rabbit cufflinks, an emerald earring and two surfer shell necklets with birthstones..phew! As the run up to the holidays had been busy with preparation for a final show, I had set time aside for these pieces closer to Christmas, unfortunately I hadn't planned for the flu and ended up making all of these over the very short space of time of two days, quite an accomplishment and only four hours sleep, but I did manage it.







As a result I have stayed away from the bench for a few days, but now the time has come to get back into the swing! Before the rush I had just begun to go back to the copper jewellery that started my whole foray into silversmithing. For a few years now, I have been playing quite happily with fusing copper and melting silver to the surface with some very pretty results. I have designed some new pierced pieces to make in this way, which may, also be available in sterling later but for now are staying in copper with silver findings. This is mostly because the cost of silver at the moment makes me blanche a little, but also because the copper is so pretty and deserves to be shown off a little more. So over the next couple of dats I will be extending my new copper birthsign earrings range, pierced pendants with crow and cat designs and some variations of the Twiggies earrings that I am so in love with at the moment. I hope you enjoy, and do not worry, I am still playing with silver and have just ordered (gulp!) some tubing to make hinges with, hopefully I won't be wasting too much of it :)






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Friday, 10 December 2010

Can I do something new?







I have been metalsmithing for over a year now, I feel so lucky because of the space I have at home I can create outside of class hours and I belong to an amazing team of metalsmiths through the online selling venue Etsy from whom I have learned a whole plethora of useful tips and new techniques.






All of these things have helped me to move on in leaps and bounds, I am very proud of the work I am produsing now and I am always keen to try new techniques but somehow, the more I learn, the harder it is to make myself try another new technique. It may be that I see all the wonderful things made by my 'teamies' and worry about my skills measuring up, sometimes it is a lack of the right tools or materials.






The technique I really want to learn next is making hinges. I have seen them used so beautifull in jewellery and with all the two piece pendants I have been making, I am sure it is something that will come in very handy. It is a technique I have thought about doing for a long time and one of the ones where seeing it used beautifully elsewhere makes me a little hesitant to try unless I make a mess of it. I also need to get some supplies in. I have never had much silver tube in stock and for hinges I really need to get some quite small tubes in some different sizes to fit the different size pieces I want to make. The other thing which holds me back a little is that I have seen a lot of two piece pendants made with hinges. What I do has to be different from those, in a way I am sure it will be, I see my style showing through, not all the time but with my one of a kind pieces for sure, and hopefully this will be the case when I use hinges too. I am sure I can come up with loads of excuses, give me enough time and I am equally sure I will actually talk myself out of doing it for a while longer, but with luck, a fair wind and some good sales this weekend at the craft fair I am willing to bite the bullet come January.





I can only say watch this space.. let's see if my first hinged piece makes the grade... what do you think?
Have a look at some of the other members of the Aspiring Metalsmiths as they share about techniques they would like to conquer:
Steph- Stargell designs http://stephstargell.com
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Saturday, 20 February 2010

Things beginning with C...

Well here I am. The first C being me, Claire, and the second being Creating...what I love to do in my not so spare time, squeezed in between and overlapping work and family life.

I have been involved with music and writing in the past and way before that painting and pottery were important to me, and still are if I could find the time, but seeing as time is not always my own, I have chosen jewellery as my creative outpouring and it feels as if it should always have been. So, by way of introduction and because I am not doing too much Creating today due to the Cleaning that is waiting for me, here is a list of other Cs that are to do with me, I hope it gives you a tiny insight into my life and I look forward to a long and happy realtionship with my blog.


In no particular order

Claire
Children
Creating
Cumbria
Collecting
Craft
Composing
Colours
Cats
Cooking
Chocolate
Cacophony
Chaos
Chickens
Calm
Camera
Car
Care
Cheese
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Celebration
Change
Chatty
Coast
Commissions

And lots of other words beginning with other letter, but you get what I mean... speak soon X
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