Happy New Year of Silversmithing Part 2

After the interest shown in my recent mixed metal earrings post I thought I would share another of my creations that I finished at the end of last term at my Silversmithing class. Do you remember the Peas in the Pod I made for my darling daughter for her birthday in March? This has become one of her favourite pieces of jewellery, she was so thrilled with it.

If you have not seen this piece in detail  have a little read here Well I did promise in that post that I would show you the design process behind making the lovely organic pod. As well as making her the peas in the pod I made myself some silver earrings using the same process of fold forming. It is a fun process involving lots of hammering and lots of annealing and it all starts with 2 rectangles of silver sheet. The same process was used for the pod and the earrings with just a difference which part of the form is hammered.

Each piece starts off life as plain flat 8mm silver sheet. For the earrings I cut 2 smaller rectangles.

I marked the middle of each of these with red marker.

I then placed each sheet into a vice at the level of the marked line

and carefully tapped each piece to fold over using a hide mallet. Once I had a bend in the metal I took it out and continued to tap it flat. Next I cut these flat pieces into a more oval shape using a saw, as shown below.

  Then I started gently tapping just the outside edge of the silver with a flat head hammer, which slowly thins the edge.

As the silver work hardens very quickly when hammering I had to keep annealing (heating to a rosy red using a blow torch) to keep the metal soft and workable.

By just working on the outside edge the metal starts to curve as it thins. Once I was happy with the size I needed to open up the folded metal again. (When I made the pea pod for my daughter's earrings I had to hammer along the folded edge to create a cup rather than a splayed piece).

This was very fiddly indeed!

I had to use a steel ruler to start this off and then got in with my pliers and slowly pulled the piece open. Again I had to keep annealing the piece to keep it workable.

Finally after lots of gentle pulling my earring began to emerge....

I teased...and teased until they were the shape I was happy with.

I made the leaves more shapely by using a good old permanent marker to curve them over.

Next I needed to make some ear wires so that I could put them through my ears. I wanted them as hanging earrings rather than studs.

I soldered a silver wire to the back to the "leaf" and then bent the wire carefully into shape to form the ear wires.

So are you ready for a Ta Dah moment..

well here they are...and as usual they are just so hard to photograph...this time I used the rim of a cup as even my trusty garlic bulb didn't work as a prop.

I hope you get an idea of them, in real life they are fun and very apt for this time of the year....my silver autumn leaves ;0)

 Now I don't "do" Halloween or autumn type cards so my card challenge today will follow another thread instead. I decided it would be in honour of the upcoming Bond movie which is on general release from next week. I am a huge fan of the James Bond Films and have seen nearly every single one at the cinema. The first one was came out 50 years ago so no, I didn't see the very original ones..I'm not that old ;0) I really think that Daniel Craig is up with Sean Connery as the very best Bond. The latest film is Skyfall and is filmed in London, my favourite city in the world. I watched the coverage on TV of the premier earlier this week and loved seeing the stars on the red carpet. We will be off to see it as soon as it is in our local cinema.

 So what would you associate with James Bond ............................................well of course a

" Martini.................................................shaken not stirred"

Meet Martini Nikki, a fab stamp by my great blogging buddy Kerry from Ladybug Crafts Ink. Yes she is sipping her Martini looking nearly as cool as Daniel Craig.
I coloured her with Promarkers and highlighted her with my Prismacolor pencils. My papers are Nitwits. I added some fun embellies including a Tibetan purse charm from my bag charms stash. The cocktail shaker and glass are buttons. The sentiment is Lili of the Valley.
I would like to enter my card into the following challenges;

Ladybug Crafts Ink I need a "P" This is fun challenge where you need to include as many "Ps" as possible. The "P"s in my card are; Promarkers, Prismacolor pencils, Poodle pooch, purse, pink, paper, patchwork pattern on the paper (LOL I think that just that is 3 Ps!!), punched photo corner (and around the sentiment) Phew....that was a few !
Emerald Faeries Challenge Anything Goes
Passion for Promarkers Pets #172
Papercrafting Journey Ribbon or twine
Stamping for the Weekend anything goes



I have just finished making a rather interesting silver chain at my class this week and I promise I will not leave it so long to write up a post for it and share it with you. It is half term next week and after half term we are "knitting" in all sorts of ways with silver wire...that should be fun.

It looks like our cold snap will arrive by tomorrow. We are off to see our daughter and son in law tomorrow and hope to go walking in the New Forest. The colours there are this time of year are stunning. We will need to wrap up warm.  We will no doubt find somewhere to enjoy afternoon tea (and cake of course). Have a lovely  weekend and thanks as always for all your kind visits to Jane's Journal. It's always lovely to see you here.

Keep warm,

Back soon,

Bye for now,

Jane x