22ct gold decal pendants

Here is my new range of dichroic glass pendants. The images are 22ct gold and are fired into the glass on a second firing cycle. They measure about 4cm across and comes complete with a 40cm stainless steel chain.

These are £30 each plus £3.50 UK postage or £5 postage for outside the UK.

If you would like to order one of these, please contact me via email at stevesmithjewellery@yahoo.co.uk

Hope you like the new designs.

Steve

New Tree of Life and Owl pendants

These two pendants flew out of the door quicker than they came out of the kiln. They measure about 35mm across and are set of silver plated bails and stainless steel chain.

The Tree of Life pendant has, as you can see a beautiful dichroic green glass base with 22ct gold image fired into the top glass. The Owl has a more multi-coloured dichroic glass base and is also fired into the top glass.

I saw the Tree of Life pendant worn at the weekend, it looked stunning, catching the sunshine on both the dichroic glass and the gold. If only I could make the picture look as good.

I will definitely  be making a few more of these designs in the future. If you would like to see other designs I make then please take a look at my website 

www.stevesmithjewellery.co.uk 

and my facebook page 

www.facebook.com/stevesmithjewellery.

Thanks for stopping by and hope you come back soon.

Steve :-)

Tree of Life hair clip.

The challenge should I choose to accept it was to make a Tree of Life hair clip for a customer in the USA.

Well the challenge was on. There was many possible problems with this, I was not sure if I could actually do it.

First things first, 

choose the glass, 

the customer had already requested streaky green so that was the easy bit.

The idea was to make the approximate shape by using a fibre kiln material

Here is a piece!

Then, cut the desired shape out, as the next picture shows.

Sorry about this but I seem to have a few picture missing. But basically I cut the glass in fit inside them shape. One long strip and two half moons pieces. I then repeated this with the top glass. Fitted all the pieces into the cut out and fired for the first time.

Once the firing cycles had been completed, I removed the glass from the fibre material, cleaned up the edges to reduce de-vitrification on the glass for the second firing. Like I said, I fired this cleaned glass again for the second time.

I now had a flat, streaky correct shaped glass cabochon.

The next stage was to bend the glass.

With a 4" square sheet of copper, curved to fit the curvature of the hair clip. See the following picture, although the picture does not show the 5 coats of kiln wash to stop the glass sticking to the copper.

I then fired the cabochon on a slumping cycle, not as hot as fusing the glass but enough to let the glass fall into to right shape over the copper

Once this had cooled,

 I applied the entwined Tree of Life decal onto the center of the cabochon.And fired it once again.

After leaving the new creation to cool completely. 

The cabochon was glued to the curved hair clip with E6000 glue.

Then totally left alone for 48 hours (glue drying time). 

I presented it in a beautiful heart shaped box, all ready to be posted over to the USA.

Then a few weeks later I receive this picture.

I was so please it all worked out in the end. I have missed a few points out as an alchemist can't give away all his secrets.

A massive thank you to my customer for letting me accept this challenge and for ordering my hand made jewellery.

Thanks for reading.

Steve

PS. if you have an idea of a piece of jewellery made from glass, please contact me via stevesmithjewellery@yahoo.co.uk and I will see what I can do, but no promises LOL.......

The Matrix, dichroic glass pendants.

Hi all.

I have made one of these before and it got snapped up really quick so here are two new designs of "The Matrix" let see what happens!!!!

The matrix film has a massive cult following all over the world and they are in my top ten films I enjoy to watch and they also make me think about the bigger picture.

The first pendants is about 4cm x 2cm (with the bail) and comes complete with a 40cm stainless steel chain.

The second pendant is a bit larger, measuring about 4.5cm x 3cm (including bail) and also come with a 40cm stainless steel chain.

To order either of these or any other pieces listed on here, my facebook page or my website then please feel free in emailing me your request.

Thanks for looking and hope you see something that you like.

June 1st Darlingtons Sunday Peoples Market

Blimey, I can't believe how long it has been since my last blog post. Must have been busy making LOL.

1st June it was our monthly street craft market in Darlington and the Sun shone nearly all day, with

laughter and smiles all around us. 

It was the day I had been waiting for to show off my new pendant designs on my new display stand I had made myself

This simple display is made from MDF

(being an ex carpenter, I am not overly chuffed with using this stuff but it's affordable) 

and painted a easy on the eye colour.

This display started off with only four shelves but at 5pm the evening before the market I decided it need more shelves. So, out with the router, saw and the PVA glue not forgetting the paint. Two hours later the final design was finished and loaded in to the car.

By mid afternoon I needed to stretch my legs so leaving my lovely Sue in charge, I had a little walk around. Catching up with people I knew like: Beryl from Guru,  Louise from U-Neek, The moody baker(garlic mushroom pasties are amazing) to name but a few. I also had a chance to see some new crafters/traders.

This next picture shows Gill and her crafts of Pink Crumble. The ethos of this trader was "Not For Profit". All the money she took from what she made and sold went to charities for the needy and homeless. I was and am so impressed with this. I really hope she done loads at the end of the day. 

And here is another new crafter, Steffi of Poly Pattered. Lovely colourful handmade jewellery. You really must see the colour of this jewellery in real life to appreciate it.

Well, that's about it for this post, I hope to get back on track with posting more frequently.

Thanks for taking the time to read this far.

Steve

Steve Smith Jewellery

The making of a small shop shelf sign.

My recent idea is to put together a starter pack for shop outlets to stock my creations.  
Making the jewellery is like second nature but I thought the pack should come with 
my logo for the shop shelf. 
And here is what happen.

First idea was to use a piece of perspex 20cm x 10cm.

The tools required were, plus a few hand tools.

A saw

A router/dremel

A chunk of wood

A sand blaster plus compressor.

 

The Craft ROBO cutter for making the stencil

 

A brief story of how to make the shop logo sign.

My wonderful partner Sue of Inspired by Script, an excellent calligrapher turned wedding stationary specialist had already designed my logo a couple of years ago. She used the original to scan and then set her Craft ROBO cutting the A4 piece of sticky backed vinyl.

Once the stencil was made I attached it to the perspex. 

The compressor was turned on and my little sand blaster was loaded with the abrasive, this time it was aluminium oxide, I etched within the stencil cutouts. After all the sand blasting was done, I removed the stencil and washed the perspex under water, making sure I did not cause any unwanted scratches.

The Base

As for the base, The chunk of wood was routed with the Dremel to a depth of 5mm to allow the sign to sit into it. Then I cut to approximate size using a saw. With a bit of planing and sanding I had the desire smooth feel to the piece of wood. A quick seal of Bee's wax and the sign foot was finished.

Then with a bit of hot glue I attached the perspex in the rebate and there you go. 

The finished sign in perspex, or is it!!!!!!

I then decided to go through all this again but this time using glass as the sign material. 

I much prefer the glass one. The image looks so much more crisp. 

After all I do work in glass so that should have been my first thought.

My New Glass Shop Sign.

And that's about it. Now I just need to get this sign and a few of my jewellery pieces into a shop.
Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed another one of my sometimes crazy little makes.
Steve 

New bracelet designs, dichroic glass grinding.

The latest designs from our studio. Hand ground dichroic glass cabochons set on silver plated bracelets. 

The Sun was shining so I just had to use this beautiful green and lovely blue dichroic glass.

The setting shape was a bit awkward but with a bit of crafting and imagination. I managed to grind the cabs the fire them in the kiln to accomplish the fire polish process.

I love pushing my knowledge of working with glass.

If you would like to see my other creations, please tale a look at my Facebook page or my website. Links at the top of this page.

Thanks for stopping by and having a read. Leave a comment if you can.

Steve :-) 

Batman pendant, dichroic glass jewellery.

This is my latest commission. A few weeks ago a lovely customer bought from me a dichroic glass pendant. Whilst she was wearing it, she visited her Four year old grandson in hospital. He could not keep his hand off it. To him it was a magical pendant. Well, I pretty much agree with that, dichroic glass pendants do look magical!

When my customer returned home she contacted me through Facebook 

https://www.facebook.com/SteveSmithJewellery?ref=hl

and asked if I could hand engrave the batman image on yellow dichroic glass.

Always being up for a challenge, I said, yes I'll give my best shot.

And here it is, I really hope when the little lad sees it he has the same feelings, magical and special.

I just loved how this turned out.

Somethings I know I can't do because of the nature of glass and the firing process but if you have an idea and would like to have something commissioned please get in touch at

Steve smith jewellery@yahoo. co.uk 

Hope you like the latest design

Steve

The Matrix pendant.

I had a dream, as the famous man said. But my dream was not quite as profound. 

It happened the other night, where I was making pendants with 

The Matrix on!

I um'd and are'd for a few days and told sue about it. She thought I was totally bonkers! But me being me, I decided to have a go.

Armed with a chunk of green dichroic glass, a dremal and a simple idea, the creating started. 

And this is the outcome!!!

I am so pleased with this. Really hope it sells and there is a demand for more.

To purchase this unique matrix pendant please contact me via email at

Steve smith jewellery @ yahoo.co.UK

The price is £20 plus £2 p&p.

My next commission is for a hand engraved batman symbol...

Watch this space :-) 

My new design for taking the perfect picture !!!

Hello readers!

Here is my next barmy brain wave idea, design and make of trying to get the best picture I can of my Dichroic Glass jewellery.

Simple things laying around the studio were gathered together for this build.

Bits and pieces.

Small piece of 12mm MDF

A piece of foam core board

Some silver foil

Gaffa tape

Two sets of LED Christmas lights (left over from the window display).

Tools

Dremel

Craft knife

Spray glue

The Make!

The housing for the lights to fit in was made with the MDF. Shaped with the dremel and drilled for the LED lights. 

The shiny wall around the lights was made from the foam core board, scored at about every1/4" to make a curve. Spray glue was applied and the silver foil was stuck to the inner walls. This was then gaffa taped around the light housing. 

Well you get the picture anyway.

Two sets of lights = two rows of lights.

This is what it looks like the correct way up.

Lights off.......Lights on!!!!!

With the lights on and camera sat on top.

It needs a bit of tidying up but the lights work really well and here is the proof.

A dichroic pendant in all it's sparkling splendour.

Thanks for reading, leave a  comment if you want and share as well.

Steve :-)

The making of LED Jewellery Display lights for the studio cabinet

It's been a while since last posted.

I have been really busy with commissions (something later on that) and putting to good use one of my other talents. Soldering!!! Well I think talents is a bit strong but what I do seems to work. LOL.

So here is a selection of pictures, a bit like a story board showing the different staging of how to make the LED lighting for the studio display cabinet.

"A picture says a thousand words" 

as they say but I still have to add a few of my own. lol

My trusty old soldering irons dusted off and plugged in. 

 Finding a UK company that sells LED light strips that seem like they know something about them took a while but found this amazing company LED Lighthouse based in Huddersfield. 

A quick phone call to them made things a lot easier. They advised on powering them and different types and ways to connect them up.

Here's a close up of a couple of pieces cut and pre-soldered (by me) . As my cabinet has about nine shelves, the LED strip is sold by the meter and you simple have to cut into the required lengths.

 Here, you can see the short lengths of LED strips with two core cable soldered and plugged into the mains adaptor. Because the shelves are at different heights. I had to work out the different lengths of cable to fit the cabinet. 

 And here, the lights are fitted into the cabinet. 

The picture on the left has them off and the one on the right has them on. The pictures don't really bring up the difference but I can assure you they look great! 

Lights on making the glass sparkle!

Full length pictures of the cabinet, the left one with lights off and the right one has lights on

 So, here is the cabinet, in all it's glory......

  Thanks for reading, 

and I hope you come back to see what else a Alchemist can come up with.