As I sit here this afternoon it has been hailing and pouring with rain but I have got some gorgeous little bits of gold jewellery to warm us all up!
18ct gold stud earrings
Firstly, though, I want to say what a wonderful Oxfordshire Artweeks we had in Great Coxwell over the past two weekends and thank you to all who came and said hello. We had loads of visitors and I particularly enjoyed seeing and talking to a few Artweekers who come especially to see me (apparently!). Annabelle Zinovieff has very kindly allowed me to show my jewellery next to her exquisite Handmade Books for the past 8 years.
This year her son, Tom, a furniture maker, was there too, showing some tempting examples of his smaller work - chopping boards, salad servers, and the slimmest slivers of wide & shallow wooden serving plates. He also made me some beautiful little wooden display stands to order which are perfect! By the way, Artweeks in Oxfordshire continues over the rest of the month - check it out here.
Tom Zinovieff's beautiful little jewellery display stands. Do visit http://www.tomzinovieff.com/ to have a look at what he gets up to most of the time.
We never know what the weather will bring or how many visitors will come - but whatever the weather and whoever does come, it always feels cheering and worthwhile and is also a great village event.
Now to the gold.... When I first started making jewellery about 15 years or so ago, I was keen from the very start to make some gold jewellery. This was, simply, because I knew I couldn't afford to buy jewellery for myself so one way of obtaining it was to make it. Gold was expensive but nothing like as expensive as it is now. Here are some pics of a few things I made for other people back then - they are photos of photos so not very good quality.
I love working with gold and the warmth of 18ct gold yellow is unbeatable - for instance in the tiny gold heart-shaped wings I have put on to a number of little silver bird pendants over the past year or so. Or the teeny 18ct gold highlights I have added to these little silver studs.
I boldly ordered a pretty small rectangle of 18ct gold recently and thought I would make a couple of pairs of textured gold earring studs. Firstly I stamped out a couple of pairs of very small gold circles. For one of the pairs, I then drilled small holes to one side. After that I soldered on the 18ct gold earring pin on the back. I often drop these tiny things on the floor of the workshop and am always glad when there's noone else about to see me searching around on the floor with my torch!
Here are the finished pairs of gold studs - one pair with garnet and tiny freshwater pearl bead drops - which will be available to buy in the shop very shortly - £85 per pair.
Enough of the rain now - let's have some warm sunshine!