New Website

Am very excited, I have just built a new website, which is why haven't posted anything for a while, just have had too much to do. The address is www.silverpenny.co.za. Still need to put up my shop, but it's there!!!!

Ivory Necklace

This piece was commissioned by a man for his wife. They normally holiday on a piece of land in Botswana where the animals roam free and he found this piece of ivory from an elephant graveyard, he has other pieces, but this was the piece he wanted in the necklace, and the few ostrich eggshell beads near the pendant were also found on the site as well as the blue glass beads which is what the Portuguese used to trade with the locals a couple of hundred years ago. He wanted me to incorporate this into a necklace for his wife's birthday with silver, because she loves silver. I have done some jewellery for her before. Anyway, this is the result, they are thrilled with it!!!! Thank goodness, it is always nerve racking designing for other people. The silver on the pendant is matt and the loop is textured and LOS'd and the two silver beads are also textured and LOS'd.

Spring Challenge

I know it's autumn here, but the Jewelry Art Network had a Spring Challenge and I decided I had to do it this time, get the inspiration going, and since I am playing with filigree this is what I came up with. It is light and flirtatious and gives the suggestion of a flower.

Emerald Ring

Yay, I have finally finished this ring, the customer had the stone and she changed her mind about how she wanted it, so it took a while, but it has turned out really well in the end.

Initial pendant

I was asked to do this by one of my sister's friends, and it proved more of a challenge than I had expected. I decided to try cuttlefish casting so that I could get the thickness of pendant that I wanted, and it was such a hit that I am definitely going to cast like this again. For those of you who don't know, you melt your silver so hot that it is liquid and you pour it into the mold you have made out of cuttlefish and voila! you have your shape in silver. Of course, you also get the texture which I love, but which was wrong for this pendant, so I had to file it off. Was a lot of work, but worth it. Then, she wanted coloured stones down the centre, and these were all I had, you can't see it, but the two outer ones are sapphire blue!!! This was my first attempt at bezel setting square stones, but they came out well!!! There were scratches that couldn't come out between the stones, but Nikki ('cos I went to Nikki for a learning session - I think I learnt more than she did) had the idea to make a satin finish between the stones and it worked out really well. So at the end of the day, after the huge learning curve, it turned out quite well and I am feeling so motivated and ready to do more, which is great!!!!!!!!!

Stolen Camera

I haven't been posting for a while because my camera was stolen in a burglary at our house, and this has hit me so hard, that inspiration also went missing for a while. Anyway, when insurance finally pays out, I will post all the things I have been up to in the meanwhile.

Curly earrings

I need to find a way to hang my earrings nicely when I am taking pics, but I had fun making these and wanted to show them off.