Back to the studio

Finally last weekend (which was a long one in Australia) I was able to get back to my jewellery bench, now set up in the studio space in my new home.

I spent the weekend completing an order for the National Portrait Gallery shop in Canberra, along with making some urgently needed jewellery for my own supplies seeing as I’ve been badly running out of the jewellery in my shops.

Above are just a few of the little silver blossoms I cut out in sterling silver on the weekend. Each of them were then soaked to remove the paper (with the shape drawn on it), sanded, filed, tumbled and then finally turned into finished jewellery which was then tumbled again.

I seem to spend half of my life making these little blossoms as they form some of the most popular jewellery pieces I sell, so it was no surprise to spend my first weekend of making since moving doing yet more of them!

As for how my new studio is working out, well so far so good! The space is almost fully set up, but there are a few loose ends to tidy up.

The only issue I found on the weekend was that the three large windows let in so much light (in spite of the room being painted so dark) that heating or soldering metal can be difficult because I can’t see what I’m doing! All I need to do is remember to pull a blind or two down before I start and it’s fine, however.

This is not going to be set up as my ‘dream studio’ seeing as I’m still renting and things like fume extraction, heavy equipment which should be bolted to the floor or heavy furniture, etc. are currently out of the question. But soon enough I hope to be working towards just that!