Silver Jewellery & The Gift Gallery

I went to London Jewellery School on Saturday for a beginners silver jewellery class. I'd been looking forward to this since booking it in July, and I wasn't disappointed.

There was 7 of us in the class, which meant that Liz [the tutor] was able to give each one of us help when needed. We spent most of the day making a simple textured band ring each, using techniques such as sawing, soldering, annealing, sanding and polishing. We were able to choose how wide we wanted our ring to be [I chose to have a thin band] and which hammer we wanted to use for our textures. Some people used stamps to put words onto their rings too.
The final part of the day was spent learning a different technique, using the rolling mill. We annealed a strip of silver three times, before choosing some texture plates and putting them either side of the metal, before putting it through the rolling mill. We then could either leave it flat, to be used as a pendant, or shape it into a wrap over ring. I chose to make a ring.

And here are some photos!! First, the band ring, then the wrap over one, which has a floral texture on the outside, and a contrasting circle texture on the inside. I also think this ring would look great strung onto a chain.








I had a really great day, and learnt some new stuff, which is always good! I'll probably end up going back there for another class at some point, but it's just a matter of choosing what to do next...

As you may have read in my blog a while back, I've got some of my jewellery being stocked at The Gift Gallery. Well, it opened on Monday and by the sounds of it has been a great success so far. So well done Kate! I've sold two items there so far - I'm really pleased. I need to get making some more stock to send! Hopefully my boyfriend and I will be taking a trip up to York soon, so we can pop into the shop and have a good nose!

What crafty stuff has everyone been up to lately?

xx