A Light-Bulb Moment

I have come down with a snuffly cold. Boo! Lots of hot tea and paracetamol....

But seeing a new piece finally come together always brightens the mood! Often when making new designs in jewellery, there are many twists and turns upon the road for me. I find it is not an exact science and the road can bend sharply off to one side and take you somewhere totally unexpected.

I think it's the experimental nature of jewellery-making that keeps me coming back again and again, thinking "what next"? How can I solve this? How can I improve it? There are just so many things to think of.

In some ways, you can't ever go wrong, (humour me) :D) Bit of Edison's how-not-to-invent-a-light-bulb thinking going on here! You learn as much by your failures as you do by your successes.

Here is the finished item - a ring I started making sometime ago, which was just a plain cast. I then realised that a stone could be set ontop and could look very nice. So I made a bezel (setting) and soldered it on, but all the stones I have didn't fit. I'd always intended for it to be a cabochon garnet but then the one I bought recently has gone missing!

So this week, I emptied the entire contents of my jewellery cupboard (no easy task!) and finally found a pearl that fits perfectly. I never intended for this ring to take a pearl. But as you work through the options available, sometimes in desperation or frustration or even a light-bulb moment, we can find an even better end-point than we ever dreamt was possible at the start.

Enough philosophising! To keep me earthed during the day, (keep going with the electricity-theme of this post pleeease!) I listened to Kiss FM. What, I hear you cry? I know, 35 years old and still getting a kick out of dance music! Obviously I still have some growing up to do ;)

I kept hearing this song by Rhianna "The Only Girl in the World". It's a masterpiece, great chord changes and it has some real Euro-house anthemic bars to it. Just love it! Takes me right back to when I was 19, this sort of music was all the rage! Get me to the dancefloor now!

A rainbow... which almost finished at our house!

On Sunday, I took my daughter to a birthday party for one of her friends. She had the time of her life, playing all sorts of old-fashioned party-games and eating a lot of cake and sweets. So the park that we passed as we walked home seemed like a natural detour, to let her run off all her sugar-fuelled energy.

The sun was shining brightly, but quite low on one side of the sky and it cast a greeny-golden autumn light over everything. Always an optimist when it comes to the weather (have you noticed how frequently the forecasters get it wrong) I ignored the other side of the sky which was a dark greyish charcoal colour. Definitely the colour of rain. Serious rain! Surely it would pass us by?

In the end it didn't, but what a wonderful thing that turned out to be. The rainbow sadly stopped a road or so away from our house. Ah well... there's always next week's lottery!

And one more! Just because I've never photographed a rainbow before and it was all quite exciting!

Messing around with thorns.... eek! Careful!

We have a very vigorous old English tea rose growing in our front garden. It's at least 50 years old, quite possibly more as it is tacked to the wall with old Victorian pins. When we came to view the house, before we owned it, it was blooming beautifully, covering the entire bottom wall of the front of the house. After seeing this amazing rose bush, I knew it was the house for us! (Sadly the rest of the house wasn't quite so spectacular.... but isn't that what husbands and paint brushes are for?)

After pruning it recently, I looked at the cut branches and realised I could snap the thorns off. I layed them out and noticed that they point in a certain direction and eventually I was able to make a circle....

What do you think?

I'm just about to start building it up with wax, so that it can be cast at a later date... When the thorns dried out they became very thin, so I think I need a little extra strength in there which the wax should be able to provide. Could make an interesting pair of earrings or perhaps a necklace, if I can get it to work.

Just love experimenting!

Wishing you all a good day or good evening. xx

New Shoes! Even more fun when they are for someone else...

I have just ordered some shoes for my little girl. Oh, I wish I was 2 years old again! They make such beautiful shoes for little ones these days. When I was small it was always brown and black leather. I remember once I had a pair of black patent shoes for a brief period and I LOVED them, but then I grew out of them and it was back to dull leather ones again... sigh! These ones even have little butterflies on them and a trail of stitching between them. And just look at that pearlised patent leather! Ah, little girl heaven!

Sometimes it's the journey, not the end itself that matters

I've had a busy day today, the little girl was in nursery for a few hours so I was able to really get into work. I love it when you don't see time going by and suddenly realise it's time to stop for lunch. I think it's called going with the flow. That feeling is terrific and it means I'm loving what I'm doing.

Here is one of the pieces I finished off today - a dog tag sterling silver necklace with an abstract repeating Fleur De Lis pattern. You can find it here. I first started experimenting with this pattern in 2006 and finally I think I've found how I want to use it.

I also finished off my ruched silver flower a few days ago. I have been wearing it non-stop and really do love it! I even found I was wearing it in bed the other night.....accidentally!

Another project completed today - the dog tag necklace with stars on.

Right it's late, time to quickly play the piano before bedtime. I'm am playing  Michael Nyman's "The Piano" currently, I've learnt about 3 pages of 6 in total. It's an interesting piece, lots of time changes but at least in the key of C, thank heavens. Bonne nuit dear world, wishing you a good night's sleep.

Is it a plane? Is it a bird? Is it an alien?

Erm.... well it looks like an alien, I agree but it is in fact a sterling silver flower, cast from jeweller's wax which I have just soldered two little jump rings to, so that I can attach a chain and it can begin its life as a necklace.

I have a small burn on the back of my hand which happened, not, dear Reader, during the soldering process, but as I was putting the torch away. I moved a jar out of the way, forgetting that it was still around 500 degrees centigrade. and it briefly touched my hand. Fortunately, I have a retired doctor for a Dad, who taught me to put a tiny smear of cortisone cream on any minor burn after running it in cold water for a few minutes.

The satisfaction of getting these jump rings on is more giving me more of a glow than my burn is right now :) !

My new anenome plants

I got these from Morrisons a month ago and suddenly they've started to do really well. I love anenomes, except for the fact that they are the last really lovely flowers before autumn well and truly kicks in. I'm not a great fan of winter, ever since I travelled for 6 months in Asia in 1999, when I got used to it always being warm and sunny.

But these flowers are a real tonic and put me in a good mood every time I leave the house and see them nodding their pretty heads my way :D)

Happy Autumn Days!