While I was creating the lovely Margaret Ingles her coherent wave pendant, she decided that she would love to have one each for her two daughters, too!
I was happy to create this pair of pendants to match Margaret’s.
Margaret is such a lovely person, it was a joy and a pleasure to work with her! Thanks, Margaret, you’re a treasure!
My best friend asked me to create a tree of life pendant for her lovely sister for her birthday.
To me, the brown of the smoky quartz (also known as cairngorm) represents the earth, and the red of the almandine garnet represents the fruit of the tree.
I wanted this tree to have a different, softer feel that the tree of life ring I made. So glad to hear the lovely El likes it!
I received a request to make a pendant with an Australian theme for a wee Irish girl. I designed this little gumleaf pendant for her.
I didn’t want to be too typically Australian, and liked the subtlety of the gumleaves and gumnuts.
The initial idea for the leaf construction came from a good friend and ex-classmate. Thanks, Fiona!
I made one of these silver sphere pendants for my mother-in-law for Christmas. In the rush, I didn’t have time to photograph it.
Providentially, it was accidentally lost, and she asked if I could make another one!
It is hollow inside. I love the soft finish.
I’m thinking of adding these to the shop – let me know if you’re interested!
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! 🙂
As part of the goldmithing course I did in 2012 I attended a weekend casting workshop. We did some lost wax casting (more on that later), and also some cuttlefish casting. Yes, really using cuttlefish! Or more correctly, their little (or not so little) cuttlebones. I hasten to add no actual cuttlefish were harmed in the making of this jewellery – their life expectancy is around one to two years, they die soon after mating, and you can quite often find their cuttlebones washed up on the beach.
The procedure for cuttlefish casting is to cut the ends off the cuttlebone and cut it in half. Grind down the two surfaces until they are flush. Carve a funnel in one end of the two halves, and carve your design just below that. Bind the sides together to form a mould, smelt your silver and pour it in!
I cuttlefish-cast the bottoms of these two pieces, then set bezels with bails attached into the cast pieces to create pendants. One is set with malachite, the other with paua shell.
I had to hand these pieces in as part of my final presentation, and then they were sold from my online shop.
Pharaoh Cuttlefish
Cuttlefish are members of the cephalopod family, like ocotpus, squid and nautilus. They emit a brown ink to help them evade predators. This ink, known as sepia, was once prized as a dye. Cuttlefish have green blood, due to haemocyanin, which carries oxygen and contains copper, unlike humans who have iron-containing haemoglobin filled red blood. Cuttlefish have beaks. Cuttlefish have chromatophoric cells, which enable them to change the colour of their skin instantaneously. Aren’t they wonderful! And coincidentally in keeping with my (unplanned) marine themed year!!! Thanks, little guys!!
The second thing I ever made was a pendant, using a banded agate cabochon. I learned (belately!) one of the very important lessons goldsmithing teaches you, which is not to cut corners; near enough is NOT good enough. I made the pendant well, and was pleased with the quality and the way it looked, but when I made the bail, I did not take enough time over it and so was never happy with it. Of course that one element of the piece which was substandard meant that the whole piece was not satisfactory!
I came very close to getting rid of the piece all together, but at the last minute, my husband helped me look at it through fresh eyes, and I realised that all that it needed to be a quality piece was a well-made bail! (Surprise, surprise…) I removed the old one, designed this new spiral one, and now the pendant is in my shop waiting for a new home!
Liam commissioned me to make this green seaglass pendant for his one year anniversary with his lovely girlfriend Gracie.
It’s part of a ‘twelve days of’ series of gifties. What a sweetheart!!
This sterling silver and aquamarine swarovski crystal pendant was made for my auntie, Rosemary.
It was a birthday present, sent across the waves to England!
The first time I ever set a teardrop shaped stone was when I made this garnet and silver pendant for my oldest dearest friend.
My teacher helped with the design, and although one of the stones is not very well set, after four years I’m still pleased with the art deco look of this piece!
