Enchanting Day

I had the joy of attending a wonderfully fun wedding recently. And to top that, I had the honour of working with the bride to create jewellery for her and her gorgeous bridesmaids.

Here are some photos, and please bear with me, as there are quite a few.

l-r: Bracelet, Earrings, Necklace & Headband/Tiara.

Those were the bride's, and were a combination of freshwater pearls, swarovski crystals, sterling silver and some silver plated & silver coloured findings.

Here's the bride:

Next, the bridesmaid jewellery:

Come fly away

This is one of my latest pieces. A commission piece that I was given the concept of (aka: a dove in pieces strung together with jump rings), and I designed it, cut it out and strung it all together. I have to say that my tumbler and steel shot is my new best friend when it comes to making my own jumprings. It was effortless to make them hard and shiny.

The dove is titanium with a cloudy surface texture, and all findings (chain, rings and clasp) are sterling silver. The feather at the end of the chain is titanium with feathery texture engraved on.

So this is why I was breathing titanium dust recently. :)

Titanium Snot

According to Wikipedia, the correct term is 'nasal mucus'. Strangely, snot sound so much more user friendly. Nasal mucus sounds like something one needs to approach a specialist about.

For me, the long weekend offered me three whole days of uninterrupted garage time. Alone in the tiny workspace of a cluttered double garage (it sounds big but honestly, desk & floor space is a precious commodity in there) I was able to practice soldering on a series of "Blossom Rings" in between working on puzzle pieces of titanium.

Titanium is a great metal. It's light, it can take a hammering far longer than silver before work hardening, and it goes rainbow colours when you heat it.

It's also tough. Which is great in many ways - I can use a thinner sheet for a project without worrying it will bend. But it also means that I go through two dozen saw blades in one day, and my drill bit dulls extra fast. And you can't solder it if you mess up and cut through something you weren't supposed to.

All this equates to me needing gutsy rotary tool bits to make a dent on the surface to get the texture I want. And I have to be at it for quite some time with the Dremel in one hand and the thumbnail sized bit of titanium heating up like the surface of Mercury in the other. Which is why frequent breaks of soldering practice were essential. I went from burning my fingertips to singeing my nostril hairs. Good times.

A result of all this grinding of edges and surface texturing (which looks so awesome, btw, that I want to cry with joy), is fine particles of titanium dust. Couple that with a less than perfect dust mask, and I was enjoying the unique experience of gunky black nasal mucus for several hours after I left the garage.

Lord of a Ring

Sterling Silver Ring with Pink Gold 'blossom' feature.

September 2008

Sometimes I have these grand ideas for new projects that I plan out on paper and in my head, but after the saw blades bite into the metal and I stand back and look at what I've sawn, soldered and smacked with a hammer, I'm left wondering where I went wrong.

Not so today. Granted, the execution of this idea was not well thought out.... it was a general sort of "maybe if I..... and then I could...." I knew what I wanted in my head, and had attempted to sketch it, but in the end, it's often experimenting with the materials that will tell you the best way to get from Vague Vision A to Actual Reality B.

It's so satisfying when it just works. No dramas about things not fitting, or the silver melting into a pool of metal before the solder even heats. It just all came together and the few minor hitches were easily solved.

The Extra Awesome Bonus is that I now have a pretty new ring.

an auspicious something

In a world of mass produced consumerist greed, I attempt to convince random strangers that my handmade jewellery is not only elegant and aesthetically pleasing, but good for the environment and good for the soul.

1. No private vehicles are involved in my jewellery whilst my pieces are in my possesion. I walk/public transport to my suppliers. I walk to Australia Post to have the items posted across the world. No Cars, trucks or private jets!
2. I recycle where possible. Packaging, display materials, tools, icecream containers... etc.
3. No Child Labour, or Sweat Shop Labour went into any of my pendants. They are 100% made by a thirty year old woman who still lives at home.
4. They are really shiny
5. They are my own designs. Not that I'm going to claim that NO ONE ON EARTH EVER could have come up with a similar thing. But I didn't copy them from anyone. I allow room for the 'great minds think alike factor'.
6. They're mini-sculptures. Sort of like if Henry Moore wanted to get into wearable art, and went small scale with silver.

But when all is said and done, mostly I just want a rational excuse to keep making things from materials that are costed per gram. If people buy my work, then that's a pretty good reason to keep going with this expensive passion of mine. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.