Holiday jewellery making

Hello! I have been away for a few days staying with my daughter in Essex. It's been a busy week after my 3 day metal clay course but such fun and beats working. Today we went to Mersea, renowned for its oysters. I have taken some photos and will write a post re that, hopefully next week, as it was such a great place and their oysters are out of this world.The sun shone and we even walked on the beach collecting shells...bliss!

Today though I am finally getting round to telling you about my holiday jewellery makes. First of all I know you wanted to see what I made with my alabaster beads in this post which I bought in Volterra. I bought 5 beads, 4 for 2 pairs of earring and one to make a new charm for my holiday bracelet.

So here are the earrings.




 I used pretty silver plated bead caps, together with some Swarovski bicones, sterling silver daisy spacer beads and finished them off with some sterling silver ear wires. They are a great neutral colour to wear and look good during the day or for an evening outfit.











I also have a holiday charm bracelet I made a few years back using bronze links I bought and put together. I like using bronze and copper in my jewellery making, bronze also looks good on summer skin.
Here is my existing bracelet.

There are charms on here I bought in Sicily, Italy and Rhodes and also a couple of summery beads I added bead caps to and wire wrapped.

Here is one of the alabaster beads. I added copper bead caps and wired it up with bronze wire.

I also bought a fun enameled lucky chili pepper in San Gimignano and a silver charm from the Cathedral in Sienna.








I added all these to my bracelet...

And this is how my bracelet looks now, it's filling up isn't it?

So I can now hear you asking what happened to the other 2 alabaster beads. Well, when I  made up the 2nd pair of earrings, which I was going to sell in my Etsy shop I was disappointed to find after making them that one of the beads has a very slightly misaligned hole. I know a lot of people would not even mention or notice it, but my quality control is very strict and I do not feel I could sell it. Instead I have made up a very different pair of earrings for my shop, take a peep here. I have been working on a commission and made up these at the same time with some lovely one of a kind floral glass lampwork beads.

Now there is a happy ending to this as I decided I will instead offer these earrings as a giveaway  for my 1st Bloggerversary which is coming up on 26th July. I will be in Paris at the time but I will schedule it to post that day.
Anyone who enters a comment on that post will be put into my draw. So put the date in your diary.
I am sure you now want to see them.....

They are almost identical to mine but these have 3 sterling silver daisy spacers if you look closely!

 In the meantime I will be back with hopefully a couple of posts before I go to Paris, yes I must definitely share my metal clay work too. Must dash, off to dancing now...it's the quick step and boy is it quick!
Have a lovely weekend everyone and thanks as always for visiting me here. It's always lovely to have your visits and read your kind comments.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Variations on a theme

I enjoy taking commissions for my jewellery making and often they evolve from something I have already made and sold. At my friend Karen's jewellery party last autumn I put out a set of one of a kind glass beads I bought from a talented lampworker I regularly buy from. They were this set below. Sometimes I do this, rather than make up a finished necklace, as people have different ideas as to finished pieces. Buyers then get their exact piece of unique jewellery.

They were very pretty lentil beads with blue murrini pieces in and some flashes of silver mirror glass.

 At the party a lady admired the necklace shown below, which had already been sold.

 I knew I only had 1 more of the spider agate coin beads at home so I could only re make a similar necklace with one bead as the  focal. She was quite happy for me to make this as she really loved the bold rock quartz shards I had used. The necklace re made is shown below.

She also wanted a matching bracelet. I explained that I did only have the one coin bead left. I tend to buy lots of "one off" unique beads at bead fairs and once I have sold them I do not (and usually cannot ) replace them.
She decided that she would like to have a bracelet made using the same chunky rock crystal and she then spotted the loose glass lampwork lentils on the table. It was decided I would use 3 of these in a bracelet.

This (on the right) is what I came up with and she was delighted with it.

Now whilst I was working on this commission the dangerous situation arose that my daughter came to stay and of course was interested in my work in progress.
She loved this bracelet and I heard enough ooh and aah hints to realise that a similar necklace and bracelet would be a very welcome addition to her Christmas stocking. 

So I got busy making and came up with this chunky necklace...








and this matching bracelet below.....

Now the story does not stop there as whilst I was making my daughter's jewellery I had my own open house and a lady there spotted my WIP and asked if she could have the same glass lentil beads but with black onyx. Now this did create a slight problem as by now I had also run out of the original lentil glass lampwork beads. Luckily I was able to contact the maker who was able to make up a few more....they were not identical (they never can be and that is the beauty of one of a kind glass lampwork beads) but just as pretty.

So  I was able to make a final necklace which was totally the design of my buyer. She wanted just very simple small black onyx beads with the lampwork.

And here is the very final necklace. This is a close up...you can see the lentils are slightly different but still very beautiful. It is so interesting to see how different  it looks to the rock crystal versions.













And here is the necklace full length.

I do find it so fascinating to see how projects just branch out one from another. What started with just glass beads on string became no less that 4 very different items of jewellery.

Real variations on a theme!

I hope you are enjoying some of this glorious spring weather which has arrived. Despite chilly nights the sun is warming up. Today is no exception, the cloud is breaking up and the sun is being to glimmer through into my garden...bliss! It makes me even more grateful of my life here when I see the events in Japan at the moment. My thoughts are with the Japanese people and I hope they can start to recover from this terrible tragedy soon and start to rebuild their shattered lives.......

Back on a brighter note no doubt my Billy will be out and about in the garden  later, he sends everyone a purr. He is also looking forward to getting back out in the sunshine too....

Bye for now,

Jane x