My lovely friend Kylie, from Raw Toys, arranged for her birthday present this year to be one of my drusy pieces! I feel very honoured.
Kylie thought my usual rings might be a bit too chunky for her because she has small hands, so asked would I be able to make her a ring a bit smaller than my usual style. Of course I was totally happy to oblige! I sourced her a special lovely small green piece of drusy.
Kylie is really happy with the way this ring turned out (she even blogged a little bit about that 🙂 ), and that makes me feel happy, too. I love being able to make one of a kind pieces for lovely people!
Thank you so much, Kylie! And for any lovers of beautiful wooden toys and puzzles, head over to Kylie’s MadeIt Shop or her Raw Toys blog and see her gorgeous work. It’s well worth a visit.
The humble hammer. I used to think a hammer was just a hammer, right? But no! There are many different sorts of hammers, with many different purposes. I have a small collection, and I use at least one with just about every piece that I create.
First up, the claw hammer. Great for hammering in and pulling out nails in the carpentry world. I use mine for heavy hammering, such as stamping pieces with my maker’s mark and 925 stamp, or hitting the ends of my doming punches.
Next, my jeweller’s bench hammer. This baby has a flat face and a cross pein. (The pein is the ‘other’ end of the hammer). Great for such things as using with my bench block to harden earring hooks, and with my mandrels to straighten and stretch rings. The pein end is useful for things like curving silver in my swage block for rings like this cuff ring. (Don’t worry, posts on all those other weird tools will be along sooner or later! 🙂 )
Thirdly, my wooden mallet. Great for shaping silver without making it thinner – rounding a ring on my mandrel without making it larger, for instance. (Has not been used as a judge’s gavel -yet!!)
Finally, my favourite hammer, my chasing hammer. This baby is great for setting gemstones, using my engraving ball and a setting punch. (Yep, more on those at a later date, too!!) The handle thins dramatically towards the head of the hammer, making it very whippy and easy on the wrist, which is a nice thing when it can take up to an hour’s hammering to set a stone.
There are lots more jewellery hammers, used for various things like forming, planishing, rivetting etc. These four are the tip of the iceberg.. but they are all I need at the moment for all of my creations. A simple everyday tool, the hammer; but indispensable in the jeweller’s studio!
Who can believe a whole year has gone by since I opened my little shop? Not me! I’ve been having such a great time – it is blissful to create silver jewellery; and to bring joy to others with my creations is an absolutely wonderful thing, and is the icing on this delicious cake.
As well as creating pieces for my lovely bespoke customers, and to stock my online shop, (and making the occasional piece for myself!) I am proud to have supported a number of worthy causes this year. I believe that helping the world in whatever small way we can is just plain good karma. Do you have a cause that is special to you? I’d love to know about it! Let me know in the comments below.
To say a big “THANK YOU!” to all you lovely people for your ongoing support, I am offering 20% off everything in The Silver Forge Shop until 27 May. Do have a little browse, won’t you!
As part of the celebrations, I am also giving away two pairs of earrings to two lucky winners. If you have a browse through the earring section of my shop, come back here and make a comment letting me know which are your favourite pair to the value of $30, you’ll be entered in the draw at the end of the week. If you’ve liked my Facebook Page as well, you’ll get a second entry!
A great big thank you for all of your kind words, Blog comments, Etsy treasuries, Facebook likes, re-Tweets, Newsletter clicks, Pinterest repins, purchases, worthy cause donations, and all the other forms of love and support you’ve shown over the last year! Happy days to you all. xx
A huge thank you to everyone who entered the earring giveaway. Thank you all so much for your good wishes, and your good taste! The winners were announced here.
Keith contacted me via my website as there are two very special girls who have a birthday coming up – soon to be one year old twins. Keith wanted two butterfly pendants made for them.
Keith plans to have their names engraved on one of the butterfly wings.
There are many pieces of equipment that are essential to the creative silversmithing process, and one that gets used in practically every piece is the jeweller’s saw. From cutting through fine chain links, to carving out an entire pendant, the saw is a very useful piece of equipment!
One of the first things I learned when I started smithing was how to saw – first straight lines, then curves, then around corners. There is an art to sawing! Jeweller’s saw blades come in many sizes, the tooth count varying depending on the job you need to do.
Saw blades are replaced when they become blunt or more often when they break – which happens all the time. Inserting the blade correctly, holding the saw upright, not applying pressure and letting the blade do the work will all help. “Doh! Another one!” is still a frequent cry around the workshop though!
Saws can also be used for piercing. First a small hole is drilled, the saw blade is fed through the hole, and then tightened into the saw.
I have two saws, my old faithful that I’ve had from day one and my newer Green Lion Studios saw, which has a deeper frame and can be used for larger cuts. I have different sizes of sawblades in each one, and they are both some of my favourite tools!
Don’t forget, if you’re in Brisbane on Friday 3 May (today or tomorrow, depending on when you’re reading this!!), head over between 4.00 and 7.00pm to the Twilight Market being held by the Creche & Kindergarten Northside Family Day Care Educators Association at ‘The Community Place’ on Teevan Street, Stafford. As there are three children in our Northside Family Day Care community who are hearing impared, the market is being held to raise funds for Hear and Say. One of these children goes to Carmen’s Family Day Care with my son, so this is close to our hearts!
The aim of Hear and Say is to help deaf children to hear, listen and speak so they can attend a regular school, have wider career choices and can more fully participate in the hearing community. Hear and Say interfaces state-of-the-art hearing technology (digital hearing aids and implantable technology such as cochlear implants) with the Auditory-Verbal Therapy approach.
I am setting up a Silver Forge stall at the twilight market, and will be donating 10% of all sales made during the market to this very worthy cause. There will be food stalls, art and craft, a playground, face painting and much more. Come and have sausage sizzle for dinner, let the kids race around, and be home in time for bedtime and a nice cup of tea! Make sure you stop by the stall and say hello – I’d love to see you there!
A lovely customer contacted me from Florida recently. She was about to purchase a pendant from The Silver Forge shop, and wanted to make sure she was getting the right one. I was happy to help!
Agate was apparently one of the stones in the breastplate of decision constructed at the God of Israel’s instruction for the priest to wear (Exodus 28:15 – the Holy Bible). It is felt that the agate in the breastplate was likely a sky blue variety.
My customer said of an agate pendant she already has “I wear the pendant to remind me of being grounded in my faith in my Lord and as a symbol of Him as my rock. It is my symbol of a shield guarding my heart.”
I offered some options which I felt might be right for her, and she decided to go with this lovely electric blue stone, which I custom made into this pendant. I was glad to be able to give my support in her quest for spiritual strength and peace!
I came across this divine piece of Cherry Creek Jasper a while ago, and just finished making it into a ring for myself.
The design was partly inspired by my dear friend and classmate, Jane. She makes beautiful rings, and her shanks are often very squared off at the ends.
I love the very organic nature of the stone. Jasper is so hugely versatile!
What a pleasure it was to be interviewed recently by Kylie for a ‘Made-It Monday – Seller Interview’ feature on her blog. Kylie creates the most amazing Raw Toys – I really recommend checking them out if you have a little person (and even if you don’t!). My son spends hours playing with his beautiful rainbow (which you can see below in Kylie’s blog header), and I keep one of Kylie’s little wooden tree puzzles on the windowsill by my desk – it makes me smile each time I see it! My nieces are the proud owners of two of Kylie’s little fairy doors, which I believe are helping some flowers grow in their garden as we speak. Kylie’s toys are natural, well made, whimsical, and most importantly of all, stimulate the imaginations of our little ones beautifully.
Below is the interview in full – please do check it out over on the Raw Toys Blog as well, won’t you!
I love Made It. It’s a user friendly platform for me to sell my toys and it doubles as one of my favourite places to shop. Topping off the awesomeness of Made It is it’s lively, supportive and inspirational community of sellers. I’ve invited some of these talented folk to tell us a bit about what they do and share the story behind their favourite creation.
Out of all the people I’ve connected with on this creative small business pathway, Ruthie from The Silver Forge has to be one of my favourites! Ruthie is a brilliant artist whose work I absolutely adore and you won’t find many people more lovely. I’m sure you’ll love reading about what is involved in Ruthie’s work and viewing her incredible jewellery. A lovely giveaway is on offer too – enjoy!
My name is Ruthie, and I live in sunny Brisbane. I am a silversmith.
My shop, The Silver Forge, opened in May 2012. I have been smithing for over five years and last year, completed intensive vocational certification at a local dedicated goldsmith’s school. I feel very lucky, as I love what I do!!
My favourite item in my shop at the moment is this teal green drusy agate and sterling silver ring. (Available for purchase here).
I fell in love with drusy agate a few years ago when I found a gorgeous piece I used to create a ring.
The term “drusy” comes from the word “druse”, which is a rock surface covered with tiny crystals, like those found inside geodes. Drusy crystals take hundreds or even thousands of years to form – molten rock begins to cool with trapped gases inside. The gases create gaps in the rock. As ground water carrying dissolved silica is forced into these porous areas, tiny crystals form, creating sparking clusters. Amazing!!
Since then, I have collected a range of gorgeous drusy cabochons that I love to create gorgeous big chunky rings and pendants with. Because the stones are so full of beauty and colour, I like to keep my designs simple and elegant, letting the crystal speak for itself. I have a number of pieces in my shop.
I also offer people the option of choosing their own stone from my collection on my website.
This particular ring was created using sterling silver sheet. Firstly, I shaped the bezel (which is the part of the ring surrounding and holding the gemstone) using half round pliers, then I soldered that to the backing plate using a propane gas soldering torch. (Whoo hoo, flame!!!) I cut out around the bezel plate with my jeweller’s saw, then bent the ring shank (the part of the ring that goes around your finger) and soldered that to the bezel assembly.
Then, after some filing and emerying, I set the stone into the ring using my setting ball and my gorgeous setting hammer. Finally I gave the piece its final texture – a high polish this time! The whole process is a fairly industrial, noisy, fiery, tool-wielding experience, which sometimes seems at odds with something so delicate and refined!You can find The Silver Forge at:
A big thank you to Kylie for choosing to interview me for her gorgeous blog!
Ruthie has a fantastic newsletter that you can subscribe to either on the Silver Forge website or Facebook page. Just by subscribing, you enter the draw for a monthly giveaway – very exciting! Ruthie is offering a very special giveaway to one Raw Toys readers.. a custom made pair of Czech glass earrings! I have a gorgeous pair of these in green – they are just divine. Here is an example of the style:
Visit Ruthie’s shop and have a look at the earrings there. Pop back here and leave a comment to tell Ruthie your favourite bead and which shape takes your fancy. A winner will be randomly chosen on Friday evening.
Huge thanks to you for sharing your work here, Ruthie, I’m very honoured to have you!
Rusty, the artisan behind the beautiful ‘Vance’ guitars, commissioned me to create a ring for his daughter’s birthday.
He chose the stone from my collection, then sent me a copy of a chart on which he’d measured the size of a ring from her ‘little gripper’. (Hehe, ‘little gripper’ made me laugh when Rusty send that to me!)
It was such a pleasure to set this beautiful stone for someone lovely to wear.
This is one of Rusty’s guitars: exquisite workmanship, and (apparently, from all who tell me) totally awesome to play. If you’re interested in owning one of these beauties, let me know, and I’ll put you in touch with him!
Vance Custom Guitars
Thanks so much for the honour, Rusty. I really appreciate it!
