Beatiful hand crafted designed jewellery

Just a few of my designs using dichroic glass and sterling silver.

To see these and many more please visit 

www.stevesmithjewellery.com

New designs are alway being added to my collection.

Great affordable gift ideas, unique presents and more!

I just love making this jewellery and this time I thought I should show my readers some earrings a Pendant and a bracelet in beautiful sparkling Dichroic Glass. 

As always with this type of glass it just doesn't show off the true colours that these hold. 

Great gift ideas for that someone special! 

prices on my shop page start at £6 plus P&P. The ones you see here are £15 for the drop earrings, £6 for the stud earrings, £15 for the Pendant and £15 for the bracelet plus £3 P&P.

The drop earrings measure approximately 5/8" x 1/2", the stud earrings measure approximately 3/8" and all my earrings are attached to 925 solid silver. The bails on the pendants are silver plated (nickel and zinc free) and this bracelet is gold plated on copper. The pendant can be supplied with a free 16" (approx) velvet style cord with adjustable chain end with lobster catch.

My jewellery is always supplied in presentation boxes or bags.

You can see more of my jewellery by clicking on the shop button above or by clicking here.

The making of Dichroic glass stud earrings an ideal unique brides maids gift.

OK. Here is the way I make batches of Dichroic Glass Stud Earrings. 

As you can see, I create quite a few in one firing. Well that's the most efficient way to make these. It involves about two days of cutting glass then firing then cleaning the backs of them and finally gluing the very small cabochons onto 925 solid silver post and attaching them in pairs to display cards.

That's the basics anyway.

Here you go. A bit of a pictorial for you to have a look through.

After cutting dichroic glass into about 1/4" strips using my own designed straight cutter. I then use a glass mosaic cutter to chop these up into 1/4" squares. This take ages when making this many.

Here you can see the selection cut and place on the cutting surface, I don't know if you know but Dichroic glass reflects light at different wavelengths at different angles. This, I have tried to show in the second picture.  See how the colour has changed, this happens all the time with this type of glass.

After cutting all these, I think it was about 270 in total. The next task was to cut the top glass (Tekta), sometimes used as a base glass. Again, about 1/4" strips were cut using the straight line cutting tool as above.

I tried to be a bit arty farty with these pictures, As clear glass is quite boring compared to dichroic glass.

Then I started playing with my new camera. With all the top glass cut into 1/4" squares, I piled them up on a piece of pale blue glass. Stuck a light under this and clicked away. 

Here is a couple that turned out quite well.

The next task was to set them all out on the kiln tiles. I usually only put two tiles in the kiln at one time but some some strange reason I decided to put three tiles stacked one on top of the other. 

 To separate tiles a simple tri-ped foot sits in between each tile making sure the points on these are not too close to any glass. Because the glass will stick to it like glue and ruin both the stand and the glass.

 And here you are. All three kiln tiles laden with very small pieces of glass. Ready for the firing. Ramp to 805 degrees C and hold for a few minutes. Cool to about 400 degree C and then anneal.

Once cooled to about 100 degrees C, the shelves were removed and allowed to cool to room temperature.

With this many cab fired at one time. I had expected that some would not fire correctly and I was right. Out of all these I lost about a dozen but these can be re fired and still used at a later date.

There was a few extra steps that have not included 

but I can't tell you all the secrets of a Alchemist, now can I!

After gluing the silver posts on and leaving to set (min 48 Hours) the earrings were paired up and placed onto there very own display cards ready for listed and showing at street fairs, craft fair, website and Facebook.
Here are just a few, take a look and see what you think.

Hope I haven't bored you with this long blog but it was one that I had been meaning to do for ages but not got around to it.

If you like any of these unique Dichroic Glass Stud Earrings please contact me via email at stevesmithjewellery@yahoo.co.uk

They are £6 per pair plus a £2 p&p charge.

Thanks for stopping by and getting all the way to the end of this post and call back again sometime to read more about my life as a kiln fired glass jewellery maker.

Steve

My own designed gadget for making earring display cards for stud and drop earrings.

Hi

I thought I would share another of my own design gadget thingy. 

The problem was how to make two slits and two holes in the display card for my stud and drop earrings.

Here is the printed 45mm x 45mm card reading for holes to be put in.

I had this crazy idea of making a hinged piece with cutters set in at the correct level. This is the second version as I stupidly changed the design of the cards. ooops.

And this sort of how it works. Open up the gadget. (you can now see the two nails sticking out and where they used to be.

Here you can see the gadget totally open, showing the two blades set for making slits for the drop earrings.

The printed, plain card sits into a template area.

With the card in place, the gadget is closed firmed, without fingers left inside.

Here, you can just see the two nails that have pocked the two holes in the card for the stud earrings.

Opening the gadget (must get a name for it) the card is removed. The card has a pair of holes and a pair of slits

Here, you can see how the drop earrings are hung in the slits of the card.

Now, drop earring set and put into a display box reading for those eager customers to see and buy.

And just to show how the studs are set, here is the final finished card with studs and set in a display box.

Quite good, if I say so myself. I like to have some things automated. Because they can take up so much time. 

Now, when I need a few display cards, I just get the gadget out and within a few seconds I have them done.

I love it when a plan comes together.

Thanks for stopping by

Steve

My Do's and dont's on How to make very small Dichroic glass cabochons for Stud Earrings

Here is my "how to" post on make very small Dichroic Glass Stud Earrings.

First things first, the reason:

I do quite a few craft fairs and we have a studio open five days a week and I have had parents ask if I can make very small stud earrings so there kids can wear them at school. It didn't take me long to have a go and this is my short story.

First, I cut long thin strips of dichroic glass on my home made glass cutting device. These are about 1/8" wide by about 4" long. This can be tricky and breaking glass so narrow is quite hard sometimes. But I carry on and cut a few of the strips from different dichroic sheets.

My home made glass cutting tool

The next task was to use this great tool I bought this year. It's a mosaic nibbler. It makes life so much easier :o) 

Mosaic Nibbler

I must mention the tile that the glass is placed on to fire MUST be coated with about five layers of kiln wash. If you don't do this the glass will stick to the tile and either the cabochon will break when removed or the tile will get damaged when removed. Either way not a good idea. So, don't cut corners and kiln wash the tile.

Cut dichroic glass ready for firing.

The tile is then placed in the kiln and temperature's are set for rampeing, holder and annealing.

Glass being fired, this is about 770 degrees C

Glass being fired, this is at full fusing temperature of 804 degrees C

Once the glass has fused and then annealed. It's left to reach room temperature. Here are the small cabochons once cooled and removed from the kiln.

Cooled cabochons straight from the kiln.

I had bought special solid silver stud earring posts for these stud earrings and set about gluing them on. It took ages and the only way to keep them upright was to place them in a bed of sand until dry.

Silver posts glued and drying in a bed of sand

Unfortunately, due to my stupid old brain. I had ordered the wrong earring post. The cabochons were just too big for these so after a few profanities I ordered slightly bigger posts and replaced these small ones for the bigger ones.

Leaving these to dry for at least 48 hours. I then presented them on my personalised backing card and here are the finished small stud earrings.

And that's about it, well apart from finding buyers and making more!

I love it when a plan comes together :o)

If you like to see more of my creations, click on the shop link at the top of this blog or click the Facebook link at the top of the blog. You will find jewellery ranging from cuff links to USB pendants. My stock is always changing to if you like my work why not add this page to your favourite list.