Solid Silver new design hand crafted jewellery.

OK. What does a jewellery maker do when confronted with a Silver chain, bail, strip of oval silver, silver solder and a gas torch ow yes and some dichroic glass. 

Well that's easy. 

First of all, I bent the silver strip into a ring shape and soldered the ends together using the great little blow torch bought from Sainsburys. Cleaned this up by hand with very fine grit emery paper (i think it was 1000 grit) then got the solid silver bail and dichroic glass cabochon and glued, using E6000 glue, all three pieces together. Hung on a 16 inch silver chain and 

VOILA!!!

here's the finished jewellery. 

Not my normal design so pricing was a bit tricky. 

Tacking into account the amount of silver and the dichroic glass I came up with a price of 

£35 plus £5 p&p.

If you would like to order this truly unique piece then please contact me via email at stevesmithjewellery@yahoo.co.uk

Thanks for stopping by and having a read and hope you come back soon.

Steve :-)

New delivery Post Card Designs for Steve Smith Jewellery

Hi.

Here are just a few of my new delivery post cards for mail order customers. I have tried to find relevant poems to go with them. It took quite a while but I am really happy with what I found. Have a read and take a look and see what you think.

Fairy Decal Pendant jewellery

When next meet in the Fairy dell,

May the silver moon's soft light

Shine then the faces gay as now,

And Elfin hearts as light.

Now spread each wing,for the eastern sky

With sunlight soon will glow.

The morning star shall light us home.

Farewell! for the Elves must go.

Fairy song

By: Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

Tree of Life Pendant Jewellery

The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, 

have seen so many suns rise and set, 

so many seasons come and go, 

and so many generations pass into silence, 

that we may well wonder what 

"the story of the trees" 

would be to us if they had tongues to tell it, 

or we ears fine enough to understand.

  

~Author Unknown, quoted in Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren, 1938

Dragon Eye Pendant Jewellery

Gaze into a dragon's eyes

Go with him and sever ties

From tortured reality and a world so plain

Into the world where fiction reigns.

Dragon Eyes

By: Instantramen

Catitude Cat Pendant Jewellery

Macavity's a Mystery Cat: he's called the Hidden Paw -

For he's the master criminal who can defy the Law.

He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair:

For when they reach the scene of crime - Macavity's not there!

Macavity - the Mystery Cat, by T.S. Eliot

Elemental Dragon Pendant Jewellery

My eyes have bore into the beginnings of time itself

My scales have proven dependable and indestructible 

Through too many conflicts 

Antagonised by man

And yet I lie over you

An Astral Warrior

An elemental protector

I will rush to you when you call

Sairys,Grael,Fafnir,Nailyon

I am all and all are but 

An atom of my greatness and ability

I will survive through the ages

Mighty and immortal

For I am known as serpent

Great conquer and warrior

Over all things

I am

Dragon

Hope you enjoyed the, it was certainly a journey for me LOL

If you would like to see more of these fired decal jewellery designs then please click on our Facebook link above.

Thank you

:o)

Photographing Dichroic Glass, to flash or not to flash.

Photographing Dichroic Glass.

To flash or not to flash, that is the question.

Here's a post for all you budding David Bailey's of the world. It has always a problem photographing shiny glass jewellery. The reflections are a nightmare and the colours can be so far off you wonder whether its the same piece of jewellery.

The two following pictures show the difference in one variable only. To flash or not to flash!

The first one has quite muted colours and does not show off the real sparkle affect of dichroic glass.

Whilst the second shows a great sparkle but the colours are still not quite right and the glass reflects the white flash. 

I have tried all manner of gadgets, both bought and home made to take the best pictures. I think there are just too many variables on different days. That's with the lighting conditions and my condition. lol.

If anyone has any useful idea's on how to photograph dichroic glass please feel free in commenting on this blog. As I read all comments and usually answer them within a day or two.

Ow yes, this 3" x 3" fired glass has been cut into pendant sized piece's to be fired again. The outcome of this will be posted in a few days.

Thin drop pendants.

Hi all. Its been a while since my last blog. Life just sort of took over again.

I managed to get a little done in the studio yesterday in between visitors. I fired up the kiln and cooked a few more thin drop pendants along with a few other things. I am still amazed at the beautiful colours that come out, because these are so narrow (about 1/2") the designs are quite simple as too many different colours and they begin to look a bit messy.

I also had a go at designing a landscape image with the glass for a pendant and it turned out quite well for the first attempt. More attempts will be made at a later date I think. I just need a few more hours in the day or a extra weekend day in between Sunday and Monday. LOL.

As you can see its a sort of landscape image!

If you would like to see more of my designs then please click here for my website

New Designs from broken beginnings.

This is my continuing happy ending story. If you have read my previous post then you will know the start of the story and if you have not then take a look.

I had a selection of very small cabochons left over from a previous firing and with the idea I had before I thought I should have a go at repeating the previous firing outcome.

I spent about a hour choosing and cutting narrow strips of dichroic glass and then choosing how to use the cabochons.

Oooops, I haven't told you what my idea was after breaking the narrow drop pendant. Well, when the pendant hit the diamond file and broke in two and after the initial swearing LOL. A image flashed into my mind of two drop earrings. And that's how the idea started.

The following pictures show the new drop earring pre-fired along with some extra narrow drop pendants. As you can see, I did not want the small cabochon to melt completely into the base glass so they were placed on the center of the kiln tile. This is slightly less hot than the edge of the tile.

After a very quick kiln heat ramp of 830C (1526F) per hour and no soak time. I started the kiln off to reach 800C (1472F). This took about 53 minutes and at that point the heating turned itself off and I crash cooled the kiln to about 350C (662F) by opening the door about a inch. I then kept the door closed for about 20 minutes to anneal the glass and then opened the door again so the heat returned to room temperature.

EUREKA

The fused cabochons looked amazing, colours were better than expected and the resulting big smile on my face showed everything.

As you can see from the pictures below, these new designs are quite different and Sue my partner came up with a name for them.

These knobbly drop earring are know called "Jazzmataz". They are quite quirky as the backing glass matches in pairs but the knobbly bits are all different. I really liked that idea but I know some like order and symmetry.

Another picture showing fused dichroic glass. Some narrow drop pendants and some Jazzmataz earring.

Here you can see the most beautiful colours that I have done. At last a red that stays red after firing, now that's another story......

After gluing the silver back on and attaching the silver wires you can now see what I saw in my head over a week ago.

Jazzmataz 1


Jazzmataz 2

Jazzmataz 3

Jazzmataz 4

Jazzmataz 5

Jazmataz 6

If you like these new designs so much you would like to own a pair then they are for sale at £10 per pair and until the end of March 2012 the postage is FREE. You could even have a look at my Etsy shop for more beautiful designs.

I really hope people like these new designs and you can leave comments if you want to.