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Jewellery

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jewellery or jewelry is small decorative items worn for personal adornment, such as brooches, rings, necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. Jewellery may be attached to the body or the clothes, and the term is restricted to durable ornaments, excluding flowers for example. For many centuries metal, often combined with gemstones, has been the normal material for jewellery, but other materials such as shells and other plant materials may be used. It is one of the oldest type of archaeological artefact – with 100,000-year-old beads made from Nassarius shells thought to be the oldest known jewellery. The basic forms of jewellery vary between cultures but are often extremely long-lived; in Western cultures the most common forms of jewellery listed above have persisted since ancient times, while other forms such as adornments for the nose or ankle, important in other cultues, are much less common.

These is so very much I could say about jewellery, from how much I love Roman designs and carved gems to my most favorite designed of all times ever, Rene Lalique. But instead of ratling on forever I just though I would tell you how i got into jewellery making and then show you some pretty pics....

I gave up my job as a supervisor in a pharmacy to raise my daughter full time in 2010. I soon found that I then needed a hobby something that was not baby centered and that would keep me busy at nap times and in the evenings, I have always loved making things and while browsing the net I stumbled across a blog called how to jewellery, I fell in love with some of the designs, and from then on I was hooked! I then found more stunning blogs and amazing designers and decided to start my own blog as a way of documenting my makes and conecting with other creatives, so here I am four years later still enjoying making jewellery and still learning.

Yesterday I got my package back from the Assay office so I thought I would share some of my new pieces....

Titanium Druzy necklace set in sterling silver, with a sparkly chain.

Moogin lampwork cab (my favorite artist for lampwork cabs) set to form a clasp, byzantine bracelet.

Lampwork murrini headpin by the amazing Jen Cameron of Glass Addictions (I completly LOVE these) set in a sterling silver ring.

Have a fab day wonderful people x

The Challenge of Music

3rd Annual Challenge of Music :: Personal Playlists

You wont be surprised to know that I enjoy joining in with Jewellery challenges, and I love Erin's  Challenge Of Music hops but this one has a theme especially close to my heart!

For many years I worked in a care home, caring for adults with Alzheimer's and I have seen first hand the wonderful effect music can have, How quickly a room full of sleeping, unresponsive people can change into younger versions of themselves, as if they have been transported through time to a happier place, where they can remember all the words to a song when only moments before they could not tell you what year it is. The effects music has on these people is truly amazing!

So onto the challenge, My first thought was to do what ever song was top of the charts when I was born, but...

Olivia Newton-John - Physical

This was doing nothing to inspire me! So another big year in my life, possibly the biggest is 1999 specifically 6th December 1999, the day my oldest daughter was born, and by luck the song was much more to my taste....

Santana Feat. Rob Thomas - Smooth

A bit about the song...

(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

"Smooth" is a collaboration between Latin rock band Santana and Rob Thomas of the rock group Matchbox Twenty. The song was written by Thomas and Itaal Shur, sung by Thomas, produced by Matt Serletic and won three Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. It was also the final number-one Hot 100 hit of the 1990s.

I do love this song. After watching it I had so many ideas, I could do some thing with a spanish/boho feel but then I put a bit more thought into the piece, I wanted to be inspired by the music but I also wanted my piece to some how relate to/remind me of my daughter so I listened to the song a few more times and the I listed some of the words that stood out to me, and the part I was most drawn to was....

And It's just like the ocean under the moon 

Well, thats the same as the emotion that I get from you

You got the kind of loving that can be so smooth, yeah.

I really like this part and it lead to me making this....

very smooth (just like my daughter)

It has the most beautiful little sparkles that look like glitter/stars in a dark night sky 

and an amazing blue flash, just like the ocean, So it turned out bold, bright and beautiful just like my daughter! 

Now after I made this I found out that I had made a little mistake (as only I could) and had come up with the tunes that were number one in America rather then number one in the UK but that is very me (rather ditsy) and I'm fine with that (the UK number ones were not that great)!

Thank you Erin for hosting such a fab blog hop, and inspiring me to make a piece that I will treasure forever. I do hope you pop along over to Erin's beautiful blog and see what the other wonderful people have made and have an amazing day x

Better luck soldering

I had all but given up on soldering, the bother of getting it all set up, the flux bubbling up and knocking all my pieces all over the place, the imposable task of trying to cut the solder into tiny pieces with out losing them then getting the solder to stay where I wanted it, all an awful lot of hassle for about a 50% success rate!!!

I had wanted to give solder paste a try but at £30+ a tube, to give some thing a try, when lets face it I could be buying beads with that money, so beads I brought! But then my supplier decided to start selling smaller tubes for about £10 so I though now its worth a try, and success!

It is so much easier to use....

I finally found the courage to make this ring

The cab is so beautiful, it is by Becky Fairclough of Chameleon Designs

Now I am hopeing that I can come up with a few designs that are a bit more artistic/challenging (I think I may need to start practicing my cutting skills)!

Have a great day, and keep trying new things!