Silver rings

I have always loved rings - they are probably my favourite type of jewellery. That's probably why the first thing I ever made was a ring. I love the possibilities with rings, and how they are perfect for showing off pretty stones.

I made this simple ring to practice stone setting - my first attempt at a bezel setting (I made this before the camera charm). Choosing a square cut amethyst for a first go wasn't the easiest, but it turned out ok. I left the band with a brushed matte finish, but polished the bezel cup and the edges of the ring band to a high shine for contrast.

Once I had the basics sorted, I moved on to something a little more difficult. This ring (which I name the 'pebble ring') is inspired by the pebbley beach near where I grew up. The uneven but smooth rounded pebbles and bits of sea glass which my sister and I used to collect as kids. I made each 'pebble' separately by melting bits of silver and used blue-green chalcedony reminiscent of both the sea and those little bits of sea glass. I collected all the silver pebbles together around a bezel and soldered the whole thing together.

This one is just for me to wear - I love it's irregularity and the colour of the stone. I have a couple of other ring designs in my sketchbook, just waiting to be made - along with a whole little pile of pretty stones that I can't stop myself buying off Etsy. Lots of work ahead!

Camera and dragonfly pendants

Since setting up my workbench in April / May, I've managed to make a few things at home. These were two of the first things I made - a camera pendant / charm and a dragonfly pendant. I've been obsessed with camera things since getting into photography about 5 years ago and I've always wanted a cute camera necklace - so I made my own! It's set with a blue-green chalcedony cabochon as the lens.

The dragonfly was inspired by the season and the summer weather aproaching. The silver wings have been textured with hammers.

I also bought a new dremel last month, which has actually enabled me to polish things now. It's a pretty cool tool, except I still haven't worked out all the different accessories - but it's opened up a whole new range a possibilities. I choose the dremel over a barrelling machine (although I want both) to give me the flexibility of using it with drills, burrs, etc - but now I'm drooling over a magnetic polisher instead of a tumbler, which I only discovered on saturday - as it polishes delicate pieces in about 15 minutes flat. My tool wishlist is growing longer every day...!

Holts Academy review - Beginners Stone Setting course

This is probably a bit overdue - but I should probably write about the Beginners Stone Setting course I attended at Holts Academy in mid-May. I've been putting this off slightly, because it's not exactly going to be a positive review - but I tried googling reviews before I signed up, and couldn't find anything - so maybe this will help one or two people out there *shrug*.

Overall, I was pretty disappointed with the course - it was really badly organised and didn't really meet any of my expectations - so in the end I actually only attended the first day, because I didn't think it was worth following through to the second day.


Full review after the jump....