I was contacted by a lovely person who wanted a ring made for her partner.
She came to visit me, and after checking out my collection of gemstones chose this piece of moss agate, which she felt would really suit her tall Nordic girlfriend.
I was so pleased with the way this ring turned out – it was a pleasure to create it!
Some years ago, my gorgeous husband came home from a work trip to Hong Kong with this beautiful piece of jade for me. Yes, I love him!
I created an elaborate design for the stone, and built that during my goldsmithing classes. Part of the component creation included making some chenier – which is hollow tubing, to go through the middle of the jade, which was cut in a donut shape. That was fun!
At the end of the day decided I didn’t like what I had made, so removed a good portion of the framework and left a simpler way to wear the jade. Sometimes, you have to modify your original idea to make the piece work!
One of my gorgeous clients, who has a great collection of Silver Forge rings, asked if I could create her a ring with this piece of agatised fossil coral from my gemstone collection.
This stone is enormous, and I was happy to accept the challenge!
It is the longest stone I’ve set so far, and I think it turned out very nicely.
Thanks, lovely Charmaine! 🙂
It was my lovely mother-in-law’s birthday, and I wanted to make her something nice!
This bangle is simple, and was fun to make, and great for every day wear.
Perhaps I’ll make myself one!
At The Goldsmith’s School where I did my training, after learning to set a stone, I was taught how to create a hollow ball or sphere.
There is some danger involved – once you have cut out two circles, domed them to be exactly half of the diameter that you require, you solder the two halves together, and because there is a hollow space in the middle of the ball that you are closing, the risk is that the ball explodes as you are soldering it. This hasn’t happened to me, but I always wear my protective glasses just in case!
This ring was not born from my own idea, as I borrowed the concept from a beautiful piece I bought years ago from a jeweller who had a stand at the Brunswick Street Markets – I have seen this notion replicated in many places however, and it is a simple smithing concept. I try not to look at other people’s work these days, as I would hate to accidentally plagiarise someone’s original creation! There is nothing new under the sun they say, but I like ideas to grow organically inside my own imagination. And I do have plenty of them!
Earlier in the year I had a weekend away with some of my closest high school friends ~ some of whom I had not seen for thirty years! We felt just as in tune and had just as much fun as we did way back at school, and I feel totally fortunate to have such beautiful people in my life.
I wanted to create us all a memento of our weekend, and the girls chose forget-me-nots – so apt!
I loved making these – I love all the recipients, too. Happy days!
I have a lovely sister, who has two lovely girls – my twin nieces.
I made this pendant for my sister’s birthday this year.
I saw two little girls with their heads together, reading or doing something crafty – although they could be dancing, or kissing. I love all three of those girls, super-much!
Continuing my flashbacks to the first pieces I ever made, the next step I took at The Goldsmith’s School was to learn to set a stone. A round or oval shaped cabochon is the simplest to set (no corners to contend with!) and I chose one of my favourites, peridot.
I have written about the stone setting process previously here and here – and as you can probably tell, it is one of my favourite ways to create!
I’ve gotten faster and better at setting stones of course, but these earrings have stood the test of time – although I would design the ear hooks differently another time! I still love peridot, too – it and garnet are some of the few gemstones that are not treated in any way.
I created this puddingstone and sterling silver ring for one of my super-lovely clients.
Gorgeous! The lovely stone was from my gemstone collection.
Puddingstone is an agate, and this one comes from Agate Creek right here in Queensland. You can read more about puddingstone here on my blog.
It’s always lovely to create for people you love, so when my bestie asked me to make her daughter a set of stacking rings as a sixteenth birthday present, I was stoked!
The stones come from my embarrassingly extensive gemstone collection.
If you’d like a set (or just one!) of your own, let me know – I’d love to make you some.