Rings and Things

Hello everyone!  Last Thursday night we went down to Royal William Yard to have a social get together with some of the members of Flameworks and ended up having a really enjoyable evening meeting a hot-metal worker, an artist, a photographer, a metal sculptor and a potential new member who's interested in printing as well as my husband, also an artist.  It does increase your motivation to meet up with like-minded creative people!

In my last blog I mentioned that I'd had a request for aluminium rings and that I'd tell you more about what I'd been working on this week.  The customer in question treated herself to two rings so here's a glimpse of my aluminium and silver rings.

Andromeda Wraparound Ring

Andromeda Ring

All of these rings are made entirely from aluminium which has been dyed and forged into shape to produce a unique piece of jewellery.





Starry Nights Ring

I also wanted to work on a ring which combined sterling silver and aluminium.

I hand pierced two flower shapes, filed and polished the edges and then made the sterling silver ring band to which I soldered a small silver wire.  I domed the flower shapes, drilled the centres and stacked them onto the silver wire and cold connected them with the wire acting a rivet.  Hope you like the outcome!

Flower Ring I

So, what else has been happening this week? Well my family have come back to their homes from working in all corners of the globe so that's something!

I've found Pinterest which is great fun and has lost me many hours of my life this week!!! It's so addictive looking for and adding the items that I personally find beautiful, inspirational, funny, cute and plain weird to my boards (like the dog that looks exactly like a loaf of bread!!). If you are also on Pinterest, come and look for me!

In other news my husband is just in the process of redesigning and relaunching his website so if you'd like to see his paintings then pay him a visit on http://www.davidmuddyman.co.uk

See you all next week!

Competition for a Valentine's Treat!

Hello folks! We've just been to the Seco Lounge to meet up with other Flameworks members, however, no-one turned up so we had dinner and forlornly came home, checked our emails and realised that the meeting is next week - hey ho, dinner out next week too!! #notaseniormoment

So, who would like to win a delicate Valentine's inspired pendant? There's no cost to enter so why not have a go - you could give the pendant to someone you love or you could just keep it yourself!! I know what I'd do!

So how do you enter?  All you have to do is guess the weight of the pendant with chain and the nearest guess will win it!  The closing date is Sunday 5th of February at 5pm so start guessing and post your answers below!

What is the weight of this pendant with chain?

Last week I blogged about Alison Branagan's books on business for Artists and Designers, so I thought I would tell you about another book which is providing me with a lot of inspiration at the moment.  We all get our inspiration from many diverse directions and I get a lot of mine from naturally occurring forms, such as the bark of a tree or a lichen formation.

This book, which I received for my birthday at the end of last year, is proving to be such a source of ideas, even if I only use a colour combination or a small pattern repeat from within the pages.  If colour and texture are your thing too, then give it a try.

It's called Heaven & Earth, Unseen by the Naked Eye by Phaidon and contains stunning photographs of our planet and us, but mostly from the inside!

Do you remember the piece from my Signature Collection I showed you last week? Well this week I have used to same form but in shades of yellow ochre, green and blue, forged it and also designed a pin through it to make a very desirable brooch which would look sensational against black clothing with simple lines.  The oval head of the pin is made from heavily reticulated silver and perhaps I'll post some pictures of it next week.  I've also been working on some simple aluminium adjustable band rings and some not so simple ones!! Pics next week!

Hope you all have a good week - competition results Sunday night!

It's A Double Giveaway!

Hello again!  Well, it's been a funny old week as my husband has been away and Layla the cat seems to have taken the absence of her favourite man personally.  She keeps glaring at me as if I've got him hidden somewhere and I wouldn't mind, but she's actually my cat and I had her before we met!

I also started another blog on food - we are foodies after all.  Look out for http://slickysfantasyfoodhaul.blogspot.com/

I was hoping to have another blog collaborator this week, however, things have not quite worked out that way and we shall have to wait until another time for the person I had in mind.  Next week, however, I hope we shall have another exciting collaboration to look forward to! So, to make up for not having another artist this week I thought we'd have a little giveaway - details at the bottom of the page.

So, what else has been happening on the jewellery front?  Following my shoulder surgery I've only just started making again so I've been mixing up new dyes (a mid pink, a deep coral and a lovely gold) and trying out some new dyeing techniques.  I tend to texture my aluminium after dyeing and cutting as that helps me to maximise the best areas of the design, however, I have been experimenting with cutting a much smaller sheet, dyeing it once, heavily texturing it and then dyeing it again.  As this only produces a small amount of usable material (commonly the edges of the sheet are lost through trimming) I plan to use this technique to produce some very special signature pieces.

This week I've been chatting by email to Twitter friend S L Jewellery and Accessories about our dreams and plans and about approaching galleries to feature our work.  Today I went into a new gallery and looked at the jewellery on offer.  There were a couple of empty shelves in their display cabinets and I noticed that they didn't sell anything like I make.  I took a chance and introduced myself to the owner.  I always carry business cards and leaflets that show my work, although I don't normally take the cold approach as it doesn't often work.  I guess today was just pure luck, right time right place, etc etc because the gallery owner is very keen to stock my jewellery.  Hopefully it will come to fruition!  Normally if I see I gallery that I like, I email them and ask them to take a look at my website and to let me know if they would be interested in stocking me.  What does everyone else do in this tricky situation? Similarly if there are any gallery owners out there reading this - how do you prefer to be approached? I'd love you to let me know what you think.

So the competition then! The above sample is taken from my Poppies collection - what I'd like to know is - how many different aluminium sets are currently available on my website for sale?

The prizes? Yes, there's two!! And you're not going to be able to see them this time! I'll be giving away two aluminium rings which are adjustable to two lucky winners and the competition closes on Monday 24th October at 7pm.

So get checking and leave your answer as a comment below!

See you next week!

What A Week That Was!

Well folks, last week I promised to be a more regular blogger and here I am and what a week it's been! If you recall I wrote that I planned to get to grips with my online presence and I have since realised just how little I know. I started off by emailing my good Twitter friend http://www.sljewelleryandaccessories.co.uk/ to ask her what I should do.  She, bless her, sent two very detailed emails about increasing this and that and I didn't understand much of it at all so I realised 'Huston - we have a problem'!!! Now I know when I'm defeated and whilst we didn't have slates and chalk when I was at school, we didn't have computers either so I've acquired my skills through work and play (my greatest skill being shopping!!) so time for some more formal learning.  This came in the form of an ebook from Pete Mosley called Make Your Creativity Pay which I duly read and which was very good.  It explained the whys and wherefores of having a good web presence from a creative perspective. So far, so good. Another Twitter friend http://www.shellybobbins.blogspot.com/ asked me if I would like to be involved in a feature on her 20,000 visitor celebratory blog and of course I said yes and donated a couple of pieces of jewellery for her to give away as a prize.  This kind of took the brakes off!!! As a result my Twitter account was getting a lot of action and it was pointed out to me that I only had a Facebook group and not a page where people could like my work.  Oh dear I confess that I got into a bit of a kerfuffle and made things a lot more complicated than they needed to be which resulted in a telephone call from Shelly and her daughter who talked me through putting it all right - they shall be sainted! Anyway as a result I have a bright shiny spanking new Facebook page where you can 'like' me! http://www.facebook.com/pages/SlickSilver-Jewellery/241037522592328  Poppies Wide Cuff http://slicksilverjewellery.co.uk/A200.htm  I am now drowning in a weighty tome about online marketing which should keep me out of mischief whilst my shoulder continues to mend. Onwards and upwards with my jewellery though and I've been asked if I make aluminium rings and I didn't before but I shall in the future so look out for those and one of my cuffs was featured on http://www.guildedgems.co.uk/ so all in all an exciting but exhausting week!