Back to work

Back to work after a week off, we've been in Northumberland and had a lovely time. Everyone I've spoken to, blogs I've been catching up on, e-mails from family and Facebook friends have all been complaining about the rain you had in the Midlands/South of England. Up in the top right hand corner of England, the weather was pretty good. We had a dry week, lots of sunny intervals, the only time it rained was evening on Wednesday up to lunchtime on Thursday, from what everyone says, it was definitely the best place in England to be!

Interested parties can view my holiday snaps on Facebook:

Look at the camera!
and
Holiday in Northumberland 2012

This photograph is of me back to work today melting a shard from a broken Bombay Sapphire gin bottle making beads that will be turned into jewellery very soon.

Happy Beltane!

Arty photos!

I like the perspective I've managed to get on these photographs of my latest beads, I thought I'd share them with my blog readers, both sets are for sale in my Etsy SoozBeads shop!

Comfort blanket finished for Battersea

Here it is finished at last! I got the knitting done fairly quickly at a square or two every evening but I confess the squares sat in my knitting bag for quite a while before I did the sewing up and darning in the ends bit! It's a patchwork of five squares by five which are all about 4 inches. Except for the green squares, each one has a purly paw on it of different sizes and I used five different colours, which made it more interesting to knit. It's folded in half and half again here in my pic. I enjoyed it and may do another.

This is in response to Battersea Dog and Cat's Home appeal to knitters. I'll be posting it out to them tomorrow and hope it helps provide security for a homeless doggie very soon.

Happy Easter to everyone, hope you're enjoying the holiday!

Copper jewellery

Although the price of silver has been gradually dropping back a bit from it's all time high around this time last year, it's still well over £600/kg which is three times the price it used to be back in the good old days when I first started making jewellery for my stall at All Saints Art & Craft Market in Cambridge. I've been working increasingly with copper.

Here's the latest masterpiece which I'm really fond of featuring an equal four armed cross of St Brigit/Brigid handmade by myself in 20 gauge (1.8mm) wire. I've antiqued it using traditional patination methods. I have abandoned all the natural patination methods, they really don't work as effectively as smelly old liver of sulphur. The high points in the copper have been polished out using fine grade sandpaper and then tumble polished and sealed.

Some matching earrings (bracelet will follow)

and here's an orange double stranded bracelet with a handmade charm created using my rolling mill, doming block and the same artificial antiquing technique above.

All are available in my SoozJewels Etsy shop!