Month: August 2015

I don’t usually do bead work – but what can you do when your Mum hands you a string of beads and asks you to make it into a necklace…?

So that’s what I’ve been doing today.  I’m not sure what the beads are made from – they’re a bit like moss agate – but they are nice and chunky.  I tried using quartz beads between them but found that silver really set them off well.  I used Tuff Cord to string them – I was lucky that the green was an almost exact match.

Even so – it didn’t quite go to plan.  Having completed stringing the beads I decided to play extra safe and solder all the joins for the clasp and jump rings.  I hadn’t counted on that melting the cord.  (Duh… obvious!)  So the second time around I completed all the soldering before stringing the beads.

Anyway, success!

 

 

It’s always a bit unnerving making an initial break into a piece of china.  I admit I feel some guilt – especially when the item is valuable as it is.  This beautiful Coalport Flow Blue Chintz saucer is worth £15… and that’s without the teacup.  To be fair, if it weren’t for the fact that my Mum gave me this piece for the purpose of making some different jewellery I’m not sure I could have done it!

In this photo you can see that I have marked a few of the flower centres for earrings and fortunately the initial break seemed to go to plan.

I use tile nippers a bit like these: Silverline 786548 Tile Nippers – 210 mm and while they are surprisingly accurate when trimming a piece to size I find that the first cut is always rather unpredictable.

On the downside it’s frustrating when the pattern pieces I have selected are exactly where the stand of the saucer is located – this ridge has to be removed and that means a lot of extra time grinding.

It’s a reasonable question.  Why not Claire’s Awesome Jewellery?  Well, the name goes back many years to when I had a gift and gadget website – I just decided to stick with it.  People seem to like it – it’s memorable.  (Or at least I hope it is!)

Admittedly it doesn’t say much about what I do but maybe this is no bad thing.  It means that I’m not restricted to just one kind of jewellery and although I have started by launching the broken china range there is a lot more on the way and all of it quite different.  Not restricting myself means that the website could also showcase the work of other jewellers – or even other crafts.

Who knows where the adventure will lead…