Sometimes it feels a tad depressing to be working in a field where the cost of your materials is down to the sometimes extreme whims of a market which has absolutely nothing to do with what you make.

At the moment both silver and gold are priced higher than they have been for a very long time. However, especially since the global economic crisis kicked off the price of gold has been going crazy as investors have been sinking their money into it, seeing it as a much safer bet than the stock market.

But as someone buying gold as a material to make jewellery with and not as an investment (or to make investment jewellery with), this is definitely unhelpful!

The photograph above is of a piece of 14ct gold (that’s 14kt for Americans) which is 0.5mm thick (0.02″) and 35mm tall and wide (1.4″). It set me back AU$245 (currently around US$200). Ouch!

Silver has also been going up and up for the past couple of years for all sorts of complex reasons. It is currently costing around double what it has done for most of my career. But to give an idea of how much more expensive gold is by comparison, 14ct gold is currently around 28 times more expensive per gram than sterling silver at trade cost.

Gold is a wonderful material to work with, but it does indeed hurt when a very small business like mine needs to purchase it.

As for what I’ll be making with my teensy little piece of gold … well I have a few ideas, but nothing concrete at this point. I have been using thinner gold as highlights in a few handmade jewellery pieces for a while now, but I would like to make some pieces where gold is more of a feature.

Stay tuned for details!

Finally I have a new range of handmade jewellery almost ready to put into production! And I thought I would share a sneak peak of this work with you.

This work is primarily inspired by my fascination with Victorian-era aesthetics – the mish-mash of cultural and historical influences, a hint of modernity and a strong connection between words (or ideas) and visual design and art.

There is also the mixture of culture with nature which seems to be so much a part of aesthetics from this period – something I also find endlessly fascinating.

These pendants have all been created in sterling silver, with some featuring an 18ct gold (or 18kt if you’re American!) highlight, some suspended on sterling silver chain and some on black natural silk.

Many of the pieces are etched with a variety of designs; printed text, handwritten text, a damask-type pattern, an engraved image of plants and more. Some of the etching has had the recessed areas blackened, while some have had these areas left a silver oxide white.

The earrings are all made entirely from sterling silver, again with some of the etched areas blackened and some whitened.

In addition to the Victorian-inspired pieces, I’ve also created a pair of butterfly wing earrings to match my butterfly wing pendants – one of my most popular designs.

As yet, none of this work is listed for sale in my handmade jewellery shop. There’s still a fair bit of work to do to get to that point: creating a few more pieces, photographing each piece of jewellery properly, selecting and editing the photographs, pricing each item and – finally – listing it in various outlets.

I’ll let you know right here once they’re ready for sale. But for now you can see more images of this new work on my Flickr.

Yes, I have spent a lot of time at my bench over the last few days! Not to mention slaving away over a pot of etching solution.

I thought I would share the result of this hard work with you as all of this jewellery looks like an impressive amount all bundled up together! And this isn’t all of it – some has already been sent on its way in some orders.

Not all of the pieces are finished in the photographs – some of them have now been blackened or given a silver oxide finish. And of course various pieces need to be completed by being made into necklaces, hung on ear wires, etc..

My new mini range of poppies and roses jewellery is now properly photographed and listed in various of my handmade jewelry shops.

This rose pendant is made with four layers of disc-shaped pieces of sterling silver to create the petals. The discs have been beaten, shaped with a variety of hammers and domed. It is attached to a delicate silver chain with handmade findings.

There is a matching pair of stud/post rose earrings which have three layers of petals.

And there is also a matching rose ring, which features a rose the same size as the pendant.

This poppies necklace features five blackened poppies which move freely around the delicate chain. I’m really pleased with the shiny black and silver finish on these pieces.

There is also a pair of matching poppy earrings in this style, along with the above poppies ring, which features two poppies which move freely around the band of the ring. I really like the tinkling sound the poppies make when they hit against each other.

This silver and gold poppy ring features a centre of 18ct gold (or 18kt gold if you’re American!) as a highlight.

There is also a matching sterling silver and 18ct gold poppy necklace.

You can find all of this work in my handmade jewelry shop, along with my other online outlets.

I tend to make much of my jewellery in a fairly organic way. I generally do a only a few very rough sketches of an idea and possibly a little bit of design problem-solving on paper. Then I launch into making, using the process of sitting at my bench and working with materials to refine my ideas and finish problem-solving.

Poppies and roses rings, earrings and pendants prior to being tumbled and finished.

I’m sure some of my former lecturers would be horrified by my minimal drawing and lack of comprehensive design work beforehand, but for most of what I make it works very well for me. I really enjoy making this way and have lots of happy accidents.

Close up of poppies and roses jewellery after tumbling and finishing.

But a couple of months back this process failed me, as it does every now and again. I made some little cup-shaped flowers out of sterling silver – an idea I’d been sketching and thinking about for a while.

But while the little flowers themselves turned out really well, I found myself unable to satisfactorily resolve the finished pieces of jewellery I wanted to make with them.

Ever since the little flowers have been sitting on my bench amongst my ‘bench junk’ (partly finished pieces, experiments, interesting pieces of scrap, etc.), looking at me reproachfully for never having made them into anything.

Until today!

Before I start work on the larger range I want to create in the next few weeks, I decided my little cup-shaped flowers had to be resolved. After some more thinking, drawing and playing with the flowers, I decided to make them into poppies and roses … and successfully made them all into new pendants, rings and earrings.

Along with sterling silver, I’ve also used some 18 carat gold as a highlight in a couple of the pieces. I have blackened (or ‘oxidised’) some of the silver, but have finished them in a way which leaves them a really lovely shiny metallic grey, which I’m really pleased with.

Once I have the new pieces properly photographed and listed in my jewellery shop, I’ll post the new images and links right here!

In the spirit of working less and getting a bit more balance into my life, I spent the weekend … at my bench making jewellery! Which probably sounds I’m failing on the whole ‘working less’ front, however, I do of course work with metal because I enjoy it and this weekend I actually made some pieces just for me – which makes a very nice change indeed!

This ring is made from a hammer-beaten sterling silver band and settings with two lovely deep pink lab-grown rubies.

The idea behind this ring is something I’ve been wanting to play with for a while now. The two stone settings are not actually attached to the band of the ring. Instead they have loops at the back through which the band passes. This means the stones move freely around the ring and change position as the wearer’s hand moves. So far I’m really enjoying fiddling with them!

This domed ring is made from sterling silver and 18k gold. The circle on top has been heavily textured with a variety of hammers and given an organic, petal-like edge before being roughly punched into a domed ‘buttercup’ shape. A beaded piece of 18k gold has been soldered into the centre and the inside of the cup has been blackened. Finally the ring was tumbled, which has given the interior of the cup a glossy, metallic grey sheen.

And here are my two new rings being worn. I’m likely to put similar versions of these rings into production to sell through my handmade jewelry shop at some stage – even though I’ve been putting off selling rings because the sizing issue is such a pain.

So keep your eyes peeled for these designs and some other new pieces I’ve got in development.