Mystery Discs!

Earlier today on Facebook I posted this picture and asked if anyone could guess what they could be - either everyone was out enjoying the spring sunshine this afternoon or I had everyone stumped! Well, this is what the textured discs have turned into....

I am slightly obsessed with making hollow beads at the moment. One of the three projects that one of my evening classes are working on for their assessment pieces is a hollow bead pendant, and we've been exploring different ways of making hollow beads and decorating their surfaces. This is one of the most simple methods. I've used a punch to decorate the surface of discs of silver, used a doming punch to cup them, filed the rims smooth and flat and then soldered them together in pairs. One of my jobs tomorrow is to drill the holes in them.

The five smaller ones are going to be part of the bracelet I'm making with the wonderful cabochons that Mindy Macgregor sent me for our collaboration, and the larger one will be in a pendant with the largest cab - and here's a reminder of how beautiful the cabs are, just in case you'd forgotten!

A Collaboration

A new month, a new resolve to blog more often. I have to admit that last month was a harder one than I expected. I expected to come back completely refreshed after the Christmas break and bounce back into everything with lots of energy but I forgot a couple of things - firstly I was ill over Christmas so why on earth did I think that I was going to get refreshed?! And secondly - it was January! I didn't have the January blues, but with all the grey weather it was too easy to feel a bit flat after the boys' birthdays and Christmas. It was also an extra busy month in that I had a lot of private tuition students booked in - three last week plus a whole day teaching one of my college classes last Saturday plus my usual Tuesday and Wednesday night classes. Good for the bank balance, lots of fun while I was actually teaching but very little time to do my own jewellery making. I got everything done, met all deadlines, but I did have a lot of late nights in January!

Anyway, a new month - and a new collaboration! If you've been reading my blog for more than a month or so you must have picked up on just how much I love Mindy Macgregor's beautiful lampwork. The colours she uses frequently challenge me, which I need as I can easily get stuck in a colour rut, and the detail she puts in her beads is amazing. And thankfully Mindy likes what I make with her creations too! Before Christmas Mindy emailed to ask if I would be interested in a collaboration. She was keen to see some of her new, smaller cabochons set in silver to form a bracelet, and wondered if she sent me some, would I be interested in making a bracelet with them? Can you guess just how many seconds I thought about it before saying yes please?!

If you haven't guessed already, the beautiful lampwork in these photos are the cabochons that Mindy sent me last week. I can't decided which I love the most! I love the size of the set of smaller cabochons and I know that I will be buying as many of this size as I can from Mindy! They are perfect for bracelets and smaller pendants. The colours in the larger cab are just amazing, colours that I would not have considered putting together but work perfectly together. The smaller set will form part of a bracelet, and I have a pendant planned for the larger cabochon. I will post updates to show you how the designs are progressing!