Cactus

Ok, now for some silliness.
Another use for my glass eyes... Couldn't resist sticking them into an overgrown cactus I found on the shelf...

Bracelet a Month March - Rainbow Sea Glass

So I did manage to catch up by making three bracelets this month. It's quite addictive really, but very time consuming.
Here is my very first sea glass bracelet. Natural English sea glass from the North East coast of the UK. I had to buy many batches of the stuff to get all the colours I wanted...

Rainbow sea glass set in silver

Rainbow sea glass set in silver

Bracelet a Month February

I have been doing a bit of this and a bit of that this last week - pottery shards, enamel, sea glass...I think the common element is colour - and that I need to make jewellery that is colourful. Not that I don't love plain metal... But if I wear jewellery - it is to add some colour to my mostly black outfits :-)

Anyway - I did the catching up on my challenge - to make a bracelet each month in 2013. The February bracelet is pottery shards in red and blue:

Here is the bracelet with the shards that were left over - I don't find many pieces with colour on them, and even fewer that have more than one colour.  The loose shard at the 6 o'clock  is Delftware, over 300 years old, and in the bracelet itself I have used a couple of those as well.  I don't really know the dates of any of the other pieces...

Enamel Again....

Being slightly afraid of my kiln, I have neglected it for a while. I do love enamelling however, so once again, I had to overcome my fear and turn it on. I wanted to try and make enamel stud earrings out of my recycled silver dots. So here are my first three pairs: opaque lavender blue, transparent turquoise and transparent blue.

They are about 5mm in diameter, simple and cute.

March Bracelet WIP - Wearability

Friends who know me will know that is a subject I am very opinionated about. I look at loads and loads of pictures of jewellery, online and in books. Some of the pieces, although beautiful - will just not hang well when worn, or will be very uncomfortable or even dangerous!
I have nothing against art jewellery, and a lot of it is very beautiful and interesting, but I believe jewellery that is meant to be worn should be comfortable - even to the point that you should forget you have it on.

This makes life slightly more difficult for the jewellery designer, as some wonderful and aesthetically pleasing ideas just don't work the first time you try them. And they need to be reworked. I spend a lot of time trying to make sure that my earrings are not too heavy and won't get caught in your hair or irritate your neck, and that necklaces hang well, don't twist, etc'. I'm sure that there have been times I haven't got it right - but it is something that is always on my mind.

Yesterday I was working on my March bracelet, and when I had finished all he metalwork - I tried it on and realized there was a problem - it twisted! It's a slightly different design than the tried and tested one I use for my pottery shard bracelets - as it will feature sea glass, and I wanted to try something new.

So now I am in the process of un-soldering the links and re-soldering them in a different configuration to try and correct the problem.

This was the first type of connection I made - with jump rings between two bezels. This made quite a big gap between the bezels, and the links started twisting...

I am now changing the links to look like this - eliminating the extra jump ring and making the gaps smaller and less likely to twist on the wrist. I will probably also have to add and extra bezel to make up the length.

I hope it works because it's taking ages!

The four links on the left have been fixed, only five (or six) to go...

Frozen Flowers

Spring is trying very hard to arrive. This morning I noticed the spring flowers in my garden, covered in a layer of heavy frost... Sadly, the primroses didn't make it.

Frozen Yellow Crocus

Frozen Purple Crocus

Very Cold Grape Hyacinth

January Bracelet - Quatrefoil Pattern

Since deciding to use up my entire collection of quatrefoil shards for this bracelet, I have been delighted to discover that quatrefoils are a symbol of good luck! So this will be my 'good luck' bracelet for my 'Bracelet a Month' challenge - for the month of January. Only a couple of months late...

I'm now working on the February bracelet - I cut the pieces for it this morning!

Quatrefoil Bracelet - Pottery shards and silver

Bracelet a Month - Challenge - WIP

Inspired by the various groups on Flickr that do different challenges such as Ring a Day or Brooch a Month - I have decided to do one for myself - Bracelet a Month.

It's already March, and I am a couple of months behind, so today I cut the pieces for the January bracelet, which I hope to finish in the next few days...

The pattern I have chosen is a blue and white quatrefoil. I absolutely love this, and have made some earrings with it in the past. This bracelet has now used up ALL my collection of quatrefoil shards, which I had collected over the past couple of years. No more hoarding!

As usual - I love the variations of a similar pattern in slightly different ways, and I think most of these pieces were hand painted.

quatrefoil pottery shards bracelet - wip

If anyone wants to join me and have me add your bracelets to my posts - welcome - just leave me a comment!!!

Here are the earrings which were made while ago.

quatrefoil pattern shards

quatrefoil pattern earrings made from above shards