Wednesday, June 04, 2008

New Jewellery

I borrowed a book from a friend called "Woven Wire Jewelry" by Linda L. Chandler and Christine R Ritchey - excellent projects with step by step pics . They use sterling silver wire but artistic wire is fine for practicing and more than fine for 'wearing' as it won't tarnish. I am especially fond of the silver. Anyway I've had a go two pieces from the book and here they are! For the domed bracelet they soldered on a silver bead cut in half or beads made of PMC - not being able to solder onto the artistic wire and I don't have a kiln for the PMC I made do with a sterling silver bead cap which I filled with polymer clay which I then baked - did a test piece to see if the wire would take 130 degrees centigrade - it does! which gives me a few more ideas. The domed bracelet is 22 gauge wire and the freeform bracelet is 16 gauge. Lots of fun and I intend to try a few more pieces in the near future. Other exciting news is that my Mum now had a laptop and a webcam and we are now talking/seeing it other via skype - great for the kids as they can see their Grandma all the way in Ireland. Last time the kids actually "saw" Mum was in 2004! talk each week on the phone but actually seeing her was a big thrill for all of us. Poor Mum is trying her best to come to grips with the computer, but she is a gun with her mobile phone LOL - can text with the best of them. Two of my girlfriends go and have a cuppa with my Mum regularly so we all had a lovely catch up a few hours ago - the three of us hadn't 'seen' each other since 2002!! we have all been friends since we were 13yrs old and we are making plans for our 50th's in a few yrs time LOL - where does a lifetime go???

3 comments:

France said...

Hey Carmel! I posted some pics on my blog of my *ahem* wire work... I still have a lot to learn!!! :)

France said...

oops, I did mean to steer you in the right direction: this way please

Myléne Hillam said...

I love the wire weaving - I haven't seen this before and after seeing France's I wanna try it too. Beautiful piece Carmel!