Agate Earrings

After finishing up with the silver band ring I started on my final project in the Jewellery I course. We were learning about cabochons and bezel settings for our next ring project but I was leaning towards making a pair of stud earrings instead.  Here are the Botswana Agate cabochons I picked up along Queen street. In this photo I just finished hammering out the walls of the bezel setting using the bezel mandrel.

Briarwood & Ivory

Here are earrings I created using a stencil that was too large for the actual pieces of copper. The base coat transparent Ivory put directly onto the copper. Above it I layered Briarwood for the stencil which ended up being a fairly "hard" colour. I had to do two coats for each piece, being careful to line up the stencil between layers. Then I fired both earrings together side by side to try and get an even distribution of heat. Even so the left earring turned out well but the right earring was about 2-3 seconds underfired so it didn't turn out as smooth as the other. How finicky!

Briarwood & Ivory earrings

 Next I worked on a pendant to go with the earrings. I used sections of the same stencil from the earrings to cover different areas of the pendant and am working through the second coat before putting it through a final firing.

Matching pendant

More Deviling at the Workshop

After having such a great time at the wedding band workshop I signed up for a 6-week Silversmith class at the Devil's Workshop in the fall.  It was such a nice escape to spend 3 hours there every Tuesday night, focusing on just the small projects in front of me and spending an evening with other women.  The cozy studio has room for only 6 students which I thought was a perfect size for an intimate setting.  

Silver ring

Cufflinks for Mike

Over those six weeks I worked on three projects. I started with the silver ring which taught me some new techniques such as drilling, sawing small shapes, and testing the hammering effect on silver.










Next I used matching Tiger's Eye cabochons to create a pair of cufflinks for my Mike which was a real challenge when it came to setting the stones. I was really proud of the results and Mike has already worn them at least once!

Earrings for me!

Finally I finished off with a pair of leaf earrings for myself.  It was really cool dipping the gleaming silver pieces into a clear sulfur chemical solution and watching the metal instantly turn black!  I then lightly polished the leaves and all of the more recessed points were left with the dark patina.