I’ve just added two shiny new rings to my handmade jewellery shop. The rings each feature beautiful deep pink lab-grown rubies. The tube settings that the rubies are set into are connected to the ring shank by loops at the back, meaning that each setting moves freely around the ring.

One version is a two settings ring with one stone larger than the other. The other features a single ruby setting. Of course both are also available in my Australian handmade jewellery shop.

Quite some time ago I made one of these rings for myself and I love wearing it. I particularly like the way the stones move as I do – and of course I can’t stop fiddling with it when I have it on!

The choice to use lab-grown gemstones is partly down to the fact that they are identical on a molecular level to a mined gemstone, but are flawless and beautifully coloured, while also being a lot more affordable. But also they are a more ethical choice given that there is none of the massive environmental damage that mining can cause and none of the other issues such as mistreated workers or gems being used to fund wars.

Photographing jewellery

I took the photographs of the rings today – the first time I’ve photographed my work in my new home, so it was a bit of an experiment. I’m not thrilled with how the shots I took today (including of a number of other new pieces) came out so I think I’ll have another go at them soon.

Part of the issue was down to wanting to make better use of natural light in my much brighter home, but only finding the time to take the photos on a very windy day with clouds coming and going, meaning the light level changed constantly – not ideal! But also I think the spot I chose just wasn’t quite right. I’ll see how I go in another location as soon as I get a chance.

A while back I answered some questions for an article by the lovely Angela of The Jewelry Report, a blog for jewellery makers. I really enjoyed answering the questions as many were specific to the process of making jewellery and written by someone who knows a thing or two about it.

The resulting article has an introduction to make me blush:

Australian jeweler, Simone Walsh, is an inspiration to all one-man-band jewelery designs. Not only does her jewelry reflect a sense of originality and dedicated to quality, but her success is a testament to her hard work and dedication to being a successful business woman. Yet every…single…piece is completely handmade. Here she gives us some insight into that productivity, and I really feel that this gal is someone that many aspiring jewelers, and established jewelers alike can (and should) look up to.

So if you’re interested in reading the rest of the article with the Q&A I completed you can find it right here on The Jewelry Report.

I spent some time at my bench this weekend making some jewellery for one of my consignment outlets along with for my own stocks. And the results of my labour all needed to be tumbled in steel shot to become bright and shiny.

A batch of handmade jewellery fresh from my new tumbler.

Recently I purchased a sparkly new Lorotone tumbler to replace the wonderful but now old and slightly decrepit tumbler my Dad made for me years ago using bits from his shed).

It’s taking me a while to get used to the ways of my new tumbler. Because I’d used my old (and rather eccentric!) one for such a long time I knew exactly how much shot, water and tumbling compound it needed and exactly how long my work needed to be tumbled to get the result I wanted.

Of course my new tumbler is different and it will take me some experimenting to get those things right.

It’s been making me think about how very familiar we all become with the tools and equipment we use extensively. Changing those things can be a bit disorientating at times. But of course change can be a good thing!

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 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!

Yes, I am finally finished the big web-related job I’ve been working on since late last year, along with another small one.

And finally I can get back to jewellery making and all sorts of other things for myself – until a couple of other lurking web jobs come to fruition, anyway! There is also the possibility that I’ll be moving up to the Blue Mountains in the next little while, which is exciting.

But this weekend and early next week I plan to spend a lot of time at my bench catching up with making work and attending to a whole lot of neglected bits and pieces. And once I’m caught up I’m keen to get to work on some new handmade jewellery!

If you’re interested in what I’ve been working on, the smaller project was for an exhibition of contemporary jewellery called Luminaries, which was organised by the Jewellers & Metalsmiths Group in NSW and shown from 2006.

There are plenty of photographs of some wonderful work by some of the luminaries of Australasian contemporary jewellery.

The much larger project was for the Corporate Responsibility Index in Australia. This was a complete redesign and rebuild of a site that I first created years ago and which was badly out-dated.

Although the front end of the site isn’t particularly complex, the new site runs on a content management system, which is what made it a much larger job to set up. But the good news is that most updates to the site can now be handled by the Index staff.