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!
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 custom made Charmaine a ring a while back. She fell in love with drusy agate gemstones, and asked me to make her a second ring.
She chose an orange drusy this time, and it’s gorgeous!!
It’s so lovely to create beautiful things for nice people. Thanks, Charmaine!! 🙂
I remember when I first learned of the existence of colour swatch books that held what seemed to be every colour in the universe. What a revelation! How exciting to flip through, and so much browsing and dreaming and marvelling to be done! (And who knew there were five trillion shades of white?) Pantone brought you all the colour you could ever need.
Then, they brought out bone china coffee mugs in vibrant colours, each one representing a chip from the Pantone colour chart. I coveted one, but who could choose which colour to have!
Pantone Mug -Mushy Pea
Recently, I’ve become aware that Pantone release a fashion colour pallette each season. OOOOOHHHHH!!!
This is the Spring 2013 collection. OK, so this is a northern hemisphere-centric range, and I live in Australia where it is already spring, but I think there’s something here for everyone!
I think I’ve got most of these gorgeous colours just about covered in my gemstone stash, just waiting to be picked out and set in some gorgeous big ring or pendant. I’m glad to see I’m on the right fashion track!
I love colour!!
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
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!! 🙂
This ocean wave jasper and sterling silver ring was created for Maria.
What a gorgeous stone!
In keeping with the nautical theme I seem to have going, a diving bell a la Jules Verne is another piece that I made. Ok, so it’s not really a diving bell. But close one eye and it could be!!
I created this pendant for the goldsmithing training course that I am presently undertaking. The brief was fairly simple – make something incorporating a hollow ball! Great fun.
The first project for the goldsmithing course I am doing this year was to design a piece incorporating a bearing seat setting method (a ledge put inside the bezel wall for the stone to sit on), and one or more 12mm or larger stones in either a ring or pendant, with texture. I fell in love with these carnelian cabochons, and had to use them in my piece! Carnelians can be quite brown, but these orange ones are just delicious! I’ve got my eye out for some spessartite garnet cabs which can also be that lovely glowing tangerine colour.
It was a great fun project, both the designing and the making of it! With each project, we have to come up with the concept, do a tech drawing of it, do an art drawing of it, and of course create it. So much fun!
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!
