Well, a bit different, at least. I’ve written a bit about tube settings on here recently, and thought about using a length of tube as a structural element as well as a spiky setting!
So here’s some pictures of a bit of fun 
The three spike ring is set with garnets, and the five spiker with white CZs.
My name is Mel and I am a MAGPIE. Unsuprisingly I have quite an array of sparkly rocks to gaze at, fondle and occasionally make into jewellery. While diamonds may be a girl’s best friend, cubic zirconia make damn good drinking buddies. Loud and glittery.
Round stones are pretty easy to set, and I think I’ve pretty much got the hang of those, and I like a challenge, so I had a go with the purple marquise I had. Quite a modern looking setting, this, involving doming a disc of silver and cutting it in two before soldering the outside edges together. It looks a little like a boat.
It looked a little lonely, so I decided to make it part of a set of stacking rings. I thought the Suffragette colours of green, white and violet would make a nice set, and coincidentally would match a couple of my dresses rather nicely! I picked an 8mm intense green brilliant cut round CZ and an 11mm triangular one in white.
I liked geometry at school, so made a first attempt at a conical setting for the emerald-ish rock. It took a fair bit of drawing with a protractor and compasses to make a template, but I think it worked out pretty well. As for the white stone (oooh, imagining a DIAMOND this big!), that was a case of cutting half a hexagon, folding into three and soldering the joint.
Soldering the mounts to matching rings, setting the stones and polishing to different levels of satin finish was the final step, I’m really chuffed with how they turned out. Now, keep or sell, keep or sell?
I’ve always loved Celtic knotwork, and of course it lends itself so well to jewellery! I’ve made a few things in the past, like painted slates and cross stitch designs with Celtic themes but have only just started doing it in silver. I posted yesterday about the little ring I made for my nearly nine year old lad, these are the grown up versions!
So we have a mens’ ring with a gorgeous deep red spinel and a ladies’ ring with a super-sparkly high set marquise cut CZ. The stones in these rings are quite flashy, and closer in you can see the crisp detail in the silver.
I always feel a little sad that children’s jewellery is generally cheap shitty crap made from metallic paint and plastic. Why not give them something to treasure that has a bit of intrinsic value? I’m not talking hundreds or thousands of pounds here, but when a pair of kids’ trainers can easily cost sixty quid, why not spend twenty on a nice silver ring? I made this for my lad today, as he really liked the grown up one that I wear. He asked me to engrave his full name on it too, and I just about managed to squeeze it in Of course he’ll grow out of it, but I made it for his middle finger, so there’s a couple of smaller fingers to stretch things out a little longer…. Maybe he’ll lose it, maybe he’ll wear it until it’s too small to go on his hand and it might end up on a chain and be given to his own child one day. It’ll be interesting to see where it ends up
Anyhow, do get in touch if you’d like me to make one for your nipper. I can do Celtic ones like this, plain ones, ones with silver balls on, solitaires in a whole array of colours and settings and engrave the inside to boot.
I’ve recently been experimenting with tube settings as a way of rubover setting small round stones. Basically it is really fiddly to make a mount from sheet or wire for a stone under 5mm!
I had made a few very low profile settings for the centres of some small silver flowers, and thought it would be fun to make the settings really tall! I’ve made some rather spiky rings (I’ll be blogging those later this week!) and Beardy suggested I do a middle finger one…. So here it is 
You can buy yours here!
I’ve been waffling on about spiky rings with tube set stones both here and on the Facebook page recently, I’ve got a fab one to share but am just awaiting delivery of the last of the precious stones, so keep your knickers on for that one. Anyway, I showed the designs to Beardy, who jokingly suggested I do one to look like a one fingered salute. So that’s what I did! Set with five sparkly CZs, and made from sterling silver: the Foxtrot Oscar ring
I have had an epically creative couple of days in the shed, thanks to an incredibly forgiving husband, a couple of desperately fabulous friends and a child who is quite happy to sit with me as long as he has his iPod and doesn’t have to converse.
I made five rings from silver, getting some new shinies ready for the Killer Heels event in Hereford on April 14th. So when I emerged from the shed it was pitch dark, and the only way to get a shot of the day’s labours was to shine a torch on it and use my iPhone… A crappy picture, but you get the idea! I shall photograph them properly tomorrow, but just couldn’t wait to show them off tonight
I met some lovely ladies at the Expo today, and even sold some jewellery The free cake was a big hit with the visitors, so poor Scroticule didn’t get much in the way of leftovers.
I was quite pleased with how the stand looked, but had some very helpful tips from one of the ladies who suggested that it wasn’t immediately obvious that we design and make our jewellery ourselves. So Beardy is going to take some artistic (artistic being black and white, obviously. Hides a multitude of sins!) photographs of us getting busy in the shed which we can use on some publicity material.
Well, the car is loaded with our shop and just enough petrol to get to Treforest, I’m working my way through a pint of tea and gathering the last minute bits and pieces together. Really looking forward to the Expo, hopefully we’ll make some sales, but more importantly I hope we’ll meet some like-minded designer-makers!
If you’re in the Pontypridd area today, why not pop into the Student Union at the University of Glamorgan and come and say hello? And raid the cake stand
I love optical illusions and the Mobius Strip is so simple but so perplexing. To make one, just put a single twist in a strip of paper and stick the ends together. Now draw a line along the middle, as far as you can. You’ll find that the strip only has one side and you end up where you started from. Simple but just a little bit magic.
I’ve been thinking about making one in silver for a little while, and today was the day. Think I’ll try a square section one next!
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