Rose pendant

Most of the making work I do for my business is what I’d term ‘production work’ - creating items which are not one-off designs and which are intended to sell and be worn by my customers.

Back when I was a student I used to see production work as a necessary evil - or at least a necessary not-so-interesting thing to do. My intention was always for my production work to help fund my other ‘more interesting’ work. It was a way to bring in some income by doing what I love, even though the work itself I didn’t think was as engaging as the one-off jewellery and object artworks I created which were far less likely to find a market and were much more about exploring ideas.

But things have changed, particularly in the last couple of years. I’ve come to realise that I now really love the process of creating production pieces to sell in my jewellery shop and elsewhere - both re-making designs, along with the process of developing with new designs which are intended to sell.

I think in part this is to do with coming to even more fully appreciate the actual process of making jewellery at least as much as completing something that I feel pleased with.

I’ve written before about how in recent years I’ve started to particularly love the process of saw-piercing metal, which is just one example of the fact that I now find a great deal of enjoyment in undertaking and perfecting these sorts of processes, even when it comes to creating the same design or components over and over - although of course in the world of the handmade, no piece is ever really identical to another.

Additionally I’m also developing even more of an appreciation of the materials that I work with, of course this means silver in particular, but I’m keen to expand into using other materials more regularly as part of my production work.

There is also a challenge in creating pieces which are mostly intended to be worn as every day items and which aren’t too complex to re-create, particularly given that selling online means that pieces need to fairly closely resemble those I’ve photographed previously. This sets up a particular set of design issues to resolve for each new idea I develop. And of course I have to actually like the designs myself, which adds another dimension to the process!

These days I rarely have the time to devote to one-off conceptual pieces for exhibitions - or even just for my own benefit as I explore an idea. I do definitely miss being able to do this as much as I would like to, but at this stage that’s outweighed by my newly discovered love of the process of making and developing production work.

I’m sure this is all helped by the fact that I’m now able to spend a chunk of my working life doing something that I love and also that this work is now a very major part of me making ends meet. That’s definitely something to be happy about!

But of course there are times when production work can be a bit more of a trial. I often find this to be the case after I’ve come up with a new series of pieces to put into production. I’ll finish the design process with one of each new piece made and lurking in my mind is the thought that I’ve completed the process … and isn’t that great! Except of course that’s just the start.

Each piece needs to have numerous photographs taken of it - which always takes longer and is harder work than expected - which all then need to be organised and edited. Each piece needs to be priced properly, which can sometimes be an agonising process. Then descriptions need to be written and the pieces need to be listed in various online outlets. All of this takes a considerable amount of time.

And then straight away the process of production work needs to start all over again - I need to make multiples for my own stocks and I generally need to make more for any bricks and mortar outlets I think the pieces are suited to. This means that I often need to make quite a number of a particular design at this stage, which does sometimes get a bit frustrating and exhausting, especially when - as in the pieces photographed above - the pieces all require very similar components to be made repeatedly in order to complete them.

On the day I took the image above I would have been happy to never need to make one of these little cup shapes again! Each one needed to be punched out of metal, beaten with different hammers to build up the right texture, annealed, drilled, domed and then the edges needed to be softened - and that’s before any of them were put together to form an actual piece of jewellery.

But I’ve recovered from that now and have been enjoying the process of re-making those same pieces as required - just not in the same quantity all at once!

Thank you to all who subscribed to my mailing list during April. I hope to have an email coming out to all of you soon, so keep your eyes peeled.

For those who weren’t aware, during the month of April I ran a competition for all subscribers to my mailing list to win a US$50 voucher to spend in my handmade jewelry shop.

So today I set myself the task of drawing a winner. This meant undertaking the complex process of printing out the list without looking at it, cutting it up into a few sections (still not looking!), shutting my eyes while I shuffled them around with them facing downwards on a table … and finally turning one of the pieces over and - with my eyes still firmly shut - pointing a fingertip onto the winner.

And I’m pleased to announce that my fingertip landed on Hayley - the lucky winner! Congratulations.

Thanks to everyone who entered. I plan to run similar competitions in future, so keep your eyes peeled for that too!

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.

Yes, Christmas is almost upon us! And things are rather overwhelming at Simone Walsh Central (aka my place!). But I thought I’d take a quick break to fill you in on shipping deadlines and more re my handmade jewellery shop over the next couple of weeks.

Shipping

Orders outside of Australia: The earlier the shop, the more guarantee you have that items will arrive before Christmas. However, if you order by 14 December then you should be fine in terms of delivery. After that date, orders may well still arrive, but you will be pushing your luck!

Orders within Australia: You will be fine to order up until 20 December for delivery within Australia. However, from 17 December at the latest you should select Express Post to ensure your items arrive on time.

Find out more about shipping.

Gift certificates

If you do run out of time or you’re really not sure what to get someone, I now have gift certificates available in various amounts.

If you purchase a gift certificate I will email it to you as a PDF that you can print out in either colour or black and white to give to the recipient - so you can buy them as late as you wish.

Thanks to my lovely friend Dusty at 27 Things I’ve recently discovered that I can create a business page on Facebook for my handmade jewellery business.

So tonight I made one - you can find it right here.

If you’re a Facebook member you can sign up and be my fan!  Awwww.  And if you’re a Facebook member with your own business, I suggest you have a look into creating your own business page.

I pretty much have no life at the best of times. But at this time of year I really have no life at all. My existence pretty much entirely involves working, sleeping a bit, working some more, eating hurried meals, working again, etc..

Funnily enough, I realise that I could probably get more done more efficiently if I worked less. But because I work too much I have to keep working too much because I’m less efficient than I should be because I work too much. I’m sure that makes perfect sense!

Anyway, I thought I would share the above photograph with you after a few days of hard work to catch up on handmade jewelry stock for Christmas. I did actually get a bit more done than this, but some was put away already and other pieces had already been sent to customers.

And now … back to the grindstone!

As promised in my previous post, here are some ‘proper’ photographs and details of the new work I’ve created in the last week or so.

Much of the new work is now listed in my jewelry shop - and you can find more photographs in my Flickr.

This simple cutout flower pendant has been intricately cut out of sterling silver to leave the outline of a flower. The pendant is suspended on deep red natural silk with handmade sterling silver findings.

There is also a cutout flower pendant on black silk (and I can generally change the colour of the silk to something else if people prefer), along with a pair of cutout flower earrings.

To date I’ve not used a lot of gemstones in the work I sell online, however, I’m starting to play with some stones again and hope to have more in future.

Recently I fell in love with these elegant and not-too-flashy facetted quartz crystal briolettes. I’ve created a few simple designs which I hope have just the right balance between being subtle and ‘organic’, while also being sparkly and eye-catching.

The above necklace features three of the briolettes which have been placed on loops of sterling silver. The loops have been soldered closed, hammer beaten for texture and then oxidised a rich black. The loops are suspended from a simple sterling silver chain with handmade findings.

I’ve also created variations on this design using a black silk necklace and silver loops, along with quartz crystal earrings using both the oxidised and non-oxidised loops.

Cameos have fascinated me for a long time and for ages I’ve been thinking about creating my own interpretations of what is a very traditional theme in jewellery making. And here is my first design along these lines - a cameo pendant.

The traditional cameo profile of a woman’s head has been sawn out by hand from a piece of sterling silver which has been etched with my favourite detailed damask-style pattern. The silver has then been cut into a circle and domed to give it a rounded surface. The metal was then oxidised black and then sanded back leaving the raised areas of the patten a brushed but shiny silver.

The cameo pendant is suspended on natural black silk with handmade sterling silver findings.

The above etched leaves earrings are a variation of the leaves designs I created recently. This time the teardrop shaped and slightly domed panels with a dense leaf pattern etched onto the surface are suspended from curvaceous ear wires. The panels will swing eye-catchingly as the wearer moves.

I’ve also been creating some simple bead pieces for holiday shopping, including using some of my lovely stash of German glass vintage beads which were created by a company which closed down in the 1970s - the beads I’ve got date from the ’40s through the ’70s.

These stylised flower beads used for these vintage bead earrings have a ripple running around the edge of them and are a really lovely duck egg blue colour. To create these each earring I’ve placed three beads on handmade sterling silver pins which have then been wrapped to hold the bead in place. The three beads are then suspended from a handmade sterling silver ear wire.

To go with the earrings I’ve created this simple vintage flower bead pendant. Again the beads are placed on handmade pins and wrapped. They are then suspended on a hammer beaten loop of sterling silver, which is in turn suspended from a natural black silk necklace with handmade sterling silver findings.

And there are some other pieces besides … You can find these and other pieces, new and old, in my handmade jewellery shop - and soon on Mintd and already on Etsy.