Courses and Cuffs

Hello again!

Yet another busy busy week! Last weekend saw me teaching at Cartwheels Craft Centre in Liskeard and a thoroughly good day was had by all.  All five students experimented with colouring pieces of aluminium before colouring and dyeing a final pendant piece and a cuff shape.  They then learned to drill and shape the metal before ending the day and taking home a pendant and a cuff worth £74!
Do check out other courses which are running at Cartwheels, I will be back there myself in October.
The following pictures were taken during the Aluminium Taster day and you will see the students showing off the cuffs they made.

Students filing and polishing the edges of their aluminium pieces.

Finished cuffs!










I shall also be putting some brand new work onto the website in the coming days so I hope you'll take a look.

I've been very busy and have a number of new collections to show you, however, I shall start by introducing Cottage Garden - the wide cuff shown was pictured in amongst the flowers in my garden - a perfect match for the Lobelia.

 

I shall be at Tavi Arts Market in Tavistock on Saturday if anyone wants to come and say hello.

I'm also working on a project that's a little different to the work I normally do - I shall be making cuffs to be worn in a fab new music video - more on that a little nearer the time! Watch this space!!

Interactive Blog - Get stuck In!

Hi all!

Well yesterday I really thought that Spring had arrived and even managed to catch the sun a little whilst walking by the sea, however, today it's back to normal!  Hope those of you who've got the nice weather are enjoying it on my behalf.

So, this post is intended to be an interactive one!  I've been working on a new pastel coloured sheet of aluminium, in shades of pink, peach, pale yellow and pale green and I'd like you to come up with the name for the pattern.  I've put some photos of the pieces cut out and semi-finished so that you can have a look.  There will be cuffs, a couple of necklaces and some earrings in this colourway and I have kept aside a special piece to make up as a prize for the winning suggestion, so get posting your ideas! You can make more than one suggestion and to keep the ideas fresh, send them to me via my website contact page.

Have you got some ideas then? Can't wait to see what you come up with! Remember, the winning suggestion will get a pendant in this design! You have until Sunday 21st to get your entries in and the cut off time is 2pm so get busy!

 

I've also been working this week on a new design shape and so far I'm really pleased with the outcome.  I'm planning to explore this shape further - do you like it? I think it's very stylish and if you're interested in owning this little beauty let me know SlickSilver Jewellery.

 

 

Hubby's away this week so I shall be busy, busy, busy! Lots of designs planned, some shopping for some little niceties for my craft fair stand, lots of social networking, some craft fair entries to do and some new galleries to stock so that should keep me amused for a few days.

 

I'll be at Crocadon Producer's Fair at St Mellion, Cornwall on Saturday from 9 - 3 so come and pay me a visit and if you ask me nicely I might give you one of my new discount cards!

 

Look forward to hearing from you!

Excellent Service!

Hi everyone!

I'm sitting huddled on my sofa and I really think that autumn has arrived.  On my walk into town this morning I went through the park and noticed how much the leaves are turning on the trees and I don't feel like I've had summer yet! I'm sure that I can remember endless hot days during my summer holidays as a child!

So we've all said a sad goodbye to the Olympics and the Paralympics and I thought it was all fabulous. Lots of memories will stay with me from both games and there were plenty of inspirational moments and I certainly got through a lot of tissues during medal ceremonies.

Over the last month or so I've taken on two new stockists - Boo Gallery in Northamptonshire and Workshop 22 in Bristol and today I had to send more cuffs up to Boo as they'd sold out! Brilliant!

On another positive note, yesterday I heard about a really excellent service and I thought I would pass the information on to you all.  I hand pierce all of my aluminium shapes for necklaces etc, but if I'm using a repeating shape, I tend to use jewellery templates/stencils for uniformity.  I bought a new template last week and it arrived pretty quickly with a CD catalogue of all of the company's stencils.  I looked through the vast array with relish, but the shape I'd had in mind for a while wasn't available.  I contacted the company to ask if they'd ever had anything like my requested shape.  I was amazed to receive an email back saying that if I could send them a drawing they would make me the template I wanted for the standard price and in fact they would be happy to make one-off stencils any time for me.  How amazing a service is that??? So, here you go folks, check them out for yourselves!
http://www.technical-drawing.co.uk

So, what have I been making? Lots of lovely new things! Last week I finished working on the Cherry Blossom Petals Necklace below.  It's a really lovely lightweight piece of jewellery which has a soft tinkling sound when run through the fingers and is extremely comfortable to wear. Do you like it?  If you'd like to look at any of my other jewellery take a look at my website http://www.slicksilverjewellery.co.uk

Cherry Blossom Petals Necklace

After the anodised aluminium is dyed each individual petal is pierced out with a piercing saw, the edges filed and polished and then each piece is textured with a rolling mill, drilled and then assembled.

All in all - sore fingers!!

Cherry Blossom Slim Cuff


 

I also made a slim cuff to go with this necklace and I'm pretty pleased with the end result!

















I've also made quite a lot more this week but we'll leave that till next week.

Just to let you know, I working on another blog collaboration at the moment, which I really hope will come to fruition as it would feature a very talented young lady who practices an old craft that is not seen as often as it should be these days, so let's hope she agrees!

Ok folks, that's all for this week.  See you all soon! xxxxx

SlickSilver Jewellery - The Return!

Well hello all - I'm back from my travels yet again!

We had a wonderful week in London, housesitting for friends in West Hampstead and getting out each day to visit galleries and exhibitions and new places.  My husband, artist and composer David Muddyman, spent most of his life living in the capital, indeed until 5 years ago when he moved to Plymouth and met me, so he truly knows his way around.

As we both love contemporary art, we're perfectly happy to wander around looking at new work and great jewellery and we both found things to inspire us especially in Tate Modern and Electrum Gallery, such exquisite innovative jewellery.  One moment that was really lovely was going into Studio Fusion Gallery in Oxo Towers http://www.studiofusiongallery.co.uk, where we met Louise O'Neill. She took time to tell us about all of the artists involved in Studio Fusion and even showed me her kiln - in all, a really nice lady to have met.

Last monday saw us visiting Brighton (a first for me) which was great but very wet.  It literally poured with rain so we dashed into a shop, bought 2 umbrellas and came back out to glorious sunshine and blue sky and no more rain - oh well!

Since I came back I've been producing new sheets of aluminium pattern ready for cutting.  Very soon you will be able to buy Cherry Blossom and Coral Reef from my website.

Coral Reef

Cherry Blossom

I plan to turn these two gorgeous sheets into a limited number of cuffs, pendants and earrings and perhaps a necklace. The sheets are approximately 10 x 7 inches.

I'm always inspired by nature and I've also been making moulds this week of tree bark, woodgrain, lavarock and all sorts of things in anticipation of my kiln arriving.......one day my kiln will come..........

Ok folks off to wait for the kiln delivery man! I think he may be walking......