Maria, whom I previously created a gorgeous ocean wave jasper ring for, wanted a drusy agate ring too.
I was happy to show her the stones I have available! She chose this divine orange one.
Thanks Maria! I confess I love this piece of drusy so much, I bought a similar stone in the same colour to make a ring just for me!
One of my fellow students, Jane, asked me if I could make her a drusy agate ring.
I feel very honoured that she would want to buy a piece from me!
I was very happy with the way it turned out, and Jane was very pleased too. Thank you, dear Jane!
I came across the most divine pieces pictured in ‘Jewelry Concepts and Technology’ by Oppi Untracht, a fantastic book that I bought recently. I was inspired to research John Paul Miller, the artist who created them.
Miller was born in 1918, and started his career as a painter. Inspired by the creations of a fellow student, he started making silver jewellery of his own. After receiving advice from the director of his school that “we don’t need any more good watercolor painters. Why don’t you concentrate on jewelry?” he turned his full attention to the craft.
Miller rediscovered the lost Roman art of granulation. He immersed himself in enamelling. I love his work, it is so intricate and organic. I can only dream of aspiring to be one hundredth as good as this!!
From the interviews I have read, he seems, at 94, to be a humble and gentle man, who has lived an interesting life – well worth reading more about. Thank you, John Paul Miller, for providing such beautiful, inspirational works to the world!
Carmen commissioned me to make this ring for her daughter for Christmas.
Funnily, I sourced this piece of drusy with Kish in mind, and out of all the stones there were to choose from in my collection, she chose it! 🙂
I just love this stone, and how at the right angle it looks like a kiss.
Thanks for choosing me to make this piece for your lovely girl, Carmen!
It’s hard to know what to give a man who has everything, so I made a silver bookmark with his initials on it.
The brief for our seventh project for the course I’m doing this year was to create a piece using chenier hinge as a feature rather than a function. (Chenier is hollow tubing, in case you weren’t sure!)
I designed this pendant so that it could be worn both horizontally and vertically. The six plates rotate around a centre rod. There were a few challenging moments to my usual sadly limited patience during the construction of this piece. Titanium is an interesting but hard metal to work with.. physically hard rather than mentally! It’s a dull grey colour, and very hard to cut, file and especially drill. The gorgeous colour is achieved by heating very carefully, so it has to be riveted on rather than soldered. I added the titanium mainly because I fell in love with the blue quartz bullet stones!!
Once in a while, my fellow students and I agree, you make something that has many challenging stages in it, and many learning experiences. By the end of the process you are pretty over it – so you pop the piece away for a while, and when eventually you bring it out once more, it usually is much more pleasing than you remember! This is one of these pieces! 🙂
I made this ring for Gracie, my son’s girlfriend, to wear to her Year 12 Formal. She is such a sweetheart, she deserves a whole handful of beautiful rings! This one will have to suffice for now.
She chose the stone, and I set it very simply (as always!) and gave it a high polish.
Thanks for the honour, dear Gracie, and have a fantastic night!! 🙂 xx
Carmen commissioned me to make a pair of earrings for her good friend’s birthday.
Aquamarine is the ancient birthstone for October, and these milky aquamarines are gorgeous specimens in my opinion!
I hope the birthday girl is pleased with them!
I made this drusy agate ring for Leesa. I took it down to her yesterday evening, and she was really thrilled! 
Everyone who saw this stone before I set it coveted it, so definitely a good choice, Leesa!
It’s so lovely when the person for whom you’ve created a piece loves the work you’ve done. Leesa is keen to have another one, this time in gold, so stay tuned!! 🙂
I made this silver cuff ring for Sarah.
I love the simplicity of her choice of finish!
It was great fun to make, with plenty of forging (that’s the hammering kind 🙂 ).