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Posts tagged ‘sterling silver’

Shiny and new handmade jewellery!

20 July 2010

Finally my new range of handmade jewellery has been released into the wild. Hooray!

You can find the new collection in my Australian handmade jewellery shop and also in my international handmade jewelry shop.

Below you’ll find some photos and details of a few of the new pieces.

Handmade chain in sterling silver

Handmade chain in sterling silver with gold and gemstones - detail.

This sterling silver chain is entirely handmade in sterling silver – a very labour-intensive process!

The links are smaller than in my original handmade chain, so there are a lot more of them, but are made with sterling silver of the same thickness. Each link has been formed, soldered and then hammer-beaten to give it a sparkly finish.

Handmade chain in sterling silver with gold and gemstones.

The handmade chain is finished with a hammered 14ct gold link which features four ametrine gemstone beads and one amethyst bead, each suspended from a 14ct gold pin.

I’ve made a version of this chain for myself and I must say that it’s a joy to wear!

Butterfly wing pendant on chain

Butterfly wing pendant on chain.

This butterfly wing pendant is the deluxe version of a design that has been one of my most popular for a few years now. The wing has been intricately cut out by hand in sterling silver.

The new design is slightly longer and is suspended from a delicate sterling silver chain – something many customers have requested over the years.

It also features a sparkly, hammer-beaten ring in 14ct gold which holds two ametrine gemstone beads and one amethyst, all suspended from handmade 14ct gold pins.

Leaf and bud pendant and earrings

Leaf and bud pendant in sterling silver with gemstones. Leaf and bud earrings in sterling silver and garnet gemstones.

These leaf and bud earrings and leaf and bud pendant were inspired by a leaf spotted at the gorgeous Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens near to where I live.

The leaves have been cut out by hand in sterling silver. They have been hammer-beaten to give an organic shape and texture and have been finished with a brushed satin finish. The buds are beautiful pear-shaped faceted garnets.

The leaf and bud necklace is suspended from a delicate sterling silver chain which features three small green aventurine beads as highlights.

Seed pods necklace

Pods necklace in sterling silver with natural pearls.

This lovely seed pods necklace was inspired by a branch of pods spotted at the Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens.

The branch has been cut out by hand in sterling silver. It is suspended from a delicate sterling silver chain and features five small natural pearls as highlights.

Maidenhair fern pendant and earrings

Maidenhair fern pendant in matte sterling silver with gemstones. Maidenhair fern earrings in matte sterling silver.

Inspired by a native fern, these maidenhair fern earrings and maidenhair fern pendant have been cut out by hand in sterling silver. The leaves have been hammer-beaten to give them an organic shape and texture, before being given a matte white-ish finish.

The earrings are finished with handmade sterling silver ear wires. The pendant is suspended from a delicate sterling silver chain which features three small green aventurine gemstone beads as highlights.

But wait … there’s more!

I’ll share some more pieces soon, but you can see the whole range in my Australian shop or my international shop right now!

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More new handmade jewellery

12 September 2009

Yesterday I redid the jewellery photographs that I’d taken the previous day and I’m much happier with the results. So I’ve started listing more new work in my handmade jewellery shop.

Much of this work I had previously started but not resolved – some over a year ago! So I made an effort to go back to the pieces lurking around my bench and finally got them completed and ready to put into production.

Small ironwork pattern pendant by Simone Walsh.

This ironwork pattern pendant is a smaller, redesigned version of the ironwork pendant I have been making for some time. It is based on an antique ironwork pattern and has been intricately cut out of sterling silver.

The pendant is 1.6cm (0.63″) tall and wide and is suspended on a blackened sterling silver chain with handmade findings.

Ixora flowers pendant.   Ixora flower earrings.

These ixora flower pieces were inspired by the gorgeous bunches of ixora flowers in vibrant yellows and oranges that I saw in the lush tropical gardens of Bali.

The flowers are made in a metal called shibuchi. This is a Japanese alloy of 75% copper and 25% silver. Its colour varies from an golden-pink through to a light copper colour, depending much it has oxidised, meaning the colour of the pieces will vary over time as you wear them – and can of course be quickly cleaned of tarnish in silver dip to get back to the original colouring.

The ixora flowers pendant features five flowers suspended from a narrow oval of sterling silver so they hang in a cluster which changes depending on how the flowers fall. The pendant is on my favourite simple sterling silver chain with handmade findings.

The ixora flower earrings feature one flower per earring suspended from handmade sterling silver ear wires. They will swing as you move.

Damask cufflinks, sterling silver - by Simone Walsh.

I’ve also added two new pairs of cufflinks to my jewellery for men range. The above damask cufflinks feature my favourite damask-style pattern. The pattern has been blackened and then the piece has been tumbled to polish the entire cufflinks, but also to give the pattern a gunmetal grey type finish.

The other pair I’ve added have a very 1960s looking circles pattern on them. Visit my jewellery for men section (also in my Australian shop) to see more.

There is more handmade jewellery already listed and more yet still to come. For now you can check out everything that’s new in my handmade jewelry shop (prices in US$, delivery everywhere) or my handmade jewellery shop (prices in AU$, delivery to Australia and NZ).

I’ll post about more new pieces soon.

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Tumbling away

19 July 2009

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.

Handmade jewellery fresh from my new tumbler.
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!

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A little bit of gold for a whole lot of money

30 June 2009

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.

A small piece of 14ct gold in my hand.

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!

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Back to the studio

10 June 2009

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.

Sterling silver blossoms

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!

My jewellery studio.

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!

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Half a kilogram of silver

17 October 2008

Ever wondered what half a kilogram of sterling silver looks like? Well, okay, you probably haven’t. But now you know the answer!

Twenty pieces of sterling silver.

This is actually just under half a kilogram (479g to be exact – or 1.05 US pounds). Each of the sheets is 0.5mm thick and approximately 65mm tall and wide (that would be 0.02″ thick and 2.6″ tall and wide).

And of course each one of them will be used in making my handmade jewellery – in fact, some have been already!

I use a great deal of 0.5mm sterling silver sheet as it’s my favourite thickness to work with, so I’m always running out of the stuff. So this year I thought I would buy a chunk of it in the hope that this will see me through much of the busy festive season without me needing to dash back to my suppliers too frequently, while hoping that they have enough stock on hand whenever I need it.

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A busy weekend at the bench

26 August 2008

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.

Handmade jewelry by Simone Walsh.

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.

Handmade jewellery by Simone Walsh.

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..

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Poppies & roses: new handmade jewelry

7 April 2008

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 - detail - handmade jewellery (unfinished) by Simone Walsh.
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.

Poppies & roses jewellery (finished) by Simone Walsh.
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.

Cup flowers - jewellery components.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.

Poppies and roses jewellery by Simone Walsh

Until today!

Rose pendant detail by Simone WalshBefore 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.

Poppies & roses jewellery (finished) by Simone Walsh.

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.

Poppies and roses - detail - handmade jewellery (unfinished) by Simone Walsh.

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

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A couple of rings

24 February 2008

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!

Ruby ring with free-moving settings

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!

Domed ‘buttercup’ ring

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.

Ruby ring - worn   Domed ring - worn.

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.

My new handmade rings!

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

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The pain of precious metal

22 February 2008

Anyone who works in precious metal of any type will be very well aware of what sort of pain I mean.  In the last 18 months or so the price of metals – especially precious metals – has skyrocketed.  Every time you think it can’t get any more expensive … it just does.

Currently I’m paying about AU$0.97 a gram for sterling silver – that’s around double what I’ve paid for it throughout most of my career (US$0.89 at today’s exchange rate).

Even worse, today I purchased some 18k gold for the first time in a very long time.  I remember the days where I used to gasp over it being around AU$9 a gram.  Today I paid AU$35 (around US$32).  Ouch!

Small piece of 18ct gold.

And here is what AU$187 worth of gold looks like!  Yep, it looks pretty piddly – especially when you consider that it’s only 0.3mm thick (0.1″ or around the same as 30 gauge wire).

Of course everyone who knows a thing or two about precious metal prices is wishing that they’d stocked up on kilograms of the stuff a few years back!  Although some people will tell you that those reading this post a year or so in the future will most likely wonder why we didn’t buy it in bulk right now – many people think that the prices are going to get much higher again than they are already.

Ouch.  OUCH!!

Anyway, I just felt the need to have a little whine about that!  And buyers of jewellery and other precious metal objects should feel free to whine too as of course ultimately they are now paying more too.

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