Becoming a Jewellery Maker…

Some of you will recall we were lucky enough to win a competition with Jewellery Maker and we received a lovely goody bag of treasures!  Regular readers will know that this blogging duo is made up of one accomplished jewellery maker…and one who is not so much (but she does shop with sheer brilliance!)

We thought the best way to really test out the goody bag would be for the non jewellery maker to give some crafting a go, and here’s what I ended up with:

…I was a little concerned when Debs showed up with more than one set of pliars…couldn’t work out why I would need more than one!

 

Ok so I had a little help – but only in terms of tools and guidance on how to use them I promise!

We had lots of organza ribbon so I was really keen to use this but couldn’t think of how to use it…so I made something up…I’m handy with a needle…

I took three different colours of organza and cut them to the same length and then threaded them with cotton and pulled

Finally I attached a brooch clasp on the reverse (sewn on) and this was my first piece – it’s a bit rosette-y but I do quite like the idea. I attached a gemstone bead to the centre.

 

 

So the first piece was just a little something I came up with on the hoof but what I really wanted to make was a necklace inspired by a friend’s Tiffany bracelet.  Now the Tiffany design was a little beyond me and I couldn’t work out how to get the spacing right so I added some rock crystal to help, but the theme was layers.

The process of laying out the beads for the necklace

 

Then I threaded these straight onto the wire

Learning how to add the findings 

You see I genuinely gemstone did do it all myself!

We got a couple of different fastenings in the goody bag but this is a great one as the wire is fairly delicate so I didn’t want anything too fiddly

Ta da! Not too shabby if I do say so myself

                           

There were also some fab earring bits and I have left the right pieces of amethyst for those…but after two creations trying to work out how to get gems onto the earring pieces was too much, another time perhaps!

 

Disclosure:  The majority of items used to create these were provided by Jewellery Maker as a competition prize – thank you!

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Jewellery Maker goody bag

You may remember back in June that we managed to win a competition on Jewellery Maker for a strand of jewellery (lucky us!) as if this wasn’t exciting enough take a look at what actually arrived on our doorstep:

 

Yes a wonderful goodie bag, when the package was opened, not only did it contain the fabulous strand of amethyst mentioned in our blog post:

 

 

 

 

but a whole host of goodies!  Having promised to make something with this I immediately had an inspiration for a fabulous necklace so got a sketch down (inspired by Tiffany…not that I am over ambitious or anything…) ready to show my co-blogger and chief jewellery maker to see how realistic I was being.  More on this another time however, I would hate to spoil the surprise!

In our goodie bag was a host of goodies, tipping it out was a great experience even for a making novice like me.

 

 

 

The amount of material was staggering – we had lots and lots of threading materials ranging from nylon threads, wire and cord.  I wanted to give you the links to everything, but when I went to check out the Jewellery Maker website for threading materials there were just far too many!  I started getting carried away (…do I really need Sari yarn…?  I want it but have no idea what to do with it…if you use it do get in touch and show us what you make)

 

 

 

 

 

 

There wasn’t just enough additional items to make one or two items, there was enough to make LOADS!  What we haven’t included in the pictures are all the findings also included which are a bit daunting I must admit so as well as listening to pearls of wisdom from my co-blogger I intend to check out the Jewellery Maker YouTube channel for some tips.

We were particularly impressed with the beautiful blue dyed pearls and the aluminium chain (I have literally no idea how this would work but Deborah assures me with the right tools it can be used) and another fab two strands we are hunting down the name of.

Checking out the competition

You may not have seen, but we were lucky enough to win the Jewellery Maker #blog2win competition a few weeks ago, check out our post if you haven’t already!  We’ll be posting more in due course, but in the meantime we thought it would be worthwhile sharing with you the other entries because we really enjoyed reading them:

 

The Cassia Creations blog is from Kate who is currently on her travels in South East Asia (Vietnam we think), but will be returning to us to continue her jewellerying (…I know, it’s not a real word…but maybe it should be) in September.  We were particularly impressed at her choice of green amethyst – it’s such a lovely colour.  We look forward to following how her jewellery develops and is influenced by her recent experiences, exciting times, keep us updated with what you’re up to on the blog!

 

The Game Over blog post was really interesting, because this is completely outside her usual comfort zone!  We particularly liked the colour theme and well done for spotting the watermelon solar quartz – what an unusual gem and we agree this would look fab on some jewellery.

 

Mel’s Makes is a blog from Mel, a beader and jewellery maker, the whole blog features some fantastic and unique pieces of jewellery from.  We really love beaded jewellery but working in such detail can be a real challenge so it’s lovely to see how she manages to work the beads into such intricate designs.  We really liked the way she had been able to use actual pictures of her jewellery to demonstrate how the gems could be used, these amazing art deco style earrings have become a personal favourite.  Do check out the posts on her blog about storage and organising of your crafty bits, it’s organising heaven!

 

Vovs Jewellery Blog is a fab blog with tutorials and how to guides – they’re very good and tempting us to try loom banding after seeing the finished band with beads!  If you’re interested in trying out jewellery making for yourself do check it out, it’s well worth it, although you could possibly get a bit addicted to plotting all your future makes…

Anyway the point was onyx and black diamond – both pretty unusual choices but excellent ones, these would set off pretty much anything and make a fabulous choice.

 

Aarticrafts by Fi is  a blog from a wonderful beadweaver, she had a really eclectic choice in that she hit the big boys (which we completely missed…pretty unusual for us!) excellent choice and then moved onto mookite, which we love so it really caught our eye (and we’re looking forward to seeing more mookite from you!)  She really knows her stuff when it comes to gems too so her blog is a really interesting read with a mix of jewellery and the inner workings of a jewellers mind.

 

Cazzann was an exciting entry and it was her first blog post!  Congratulations to Carol and we’re looking forward to what else there is to come.  Again the beautiful amethyst, but joined by some lovely opal and tourmaline, and with some more brilliant green in the form of chrome diopside which is a really beautiful and vivid gem, all great choices.

 

 

Have we missed anyone?!  If we missed your post do message us (Twitter: @throughtheloupe; FB: http://www.facebook.com/adventuresthroughtheloupe; Email: adventuresthroughtheloupe@outlook.com) so we can check out your blog and add you to our list!

 

 

Am I a Jewellery Maker?!

When we saw this opportunity we just couldn’t say no – Jewellery Maker are offering bloggers the opportunity to win a strand of gemstones by writing a post about our top 5 choices from the site under the hashtag #blog2win.

This is rather appropriate for us, as one of us has a small addiction to the Genuine Gemstone Company Ltd, the umbrella company who run Jewellery Maker and sister channel Gems TV, and a burning but unfulfilled desire to create her own pieces of jewellery (I’m not telling you which one of us it is….)  Having only recently discovered Jewellery Maker it was a good opportunity to explore the website, so here are my top 5 Jewellery Maker gemstone strands:

1. 65 carats of Smokey Quartz graduated drops – anyone who knows me will know why I’ve picked this!  Aside from being one of my favourite gemstones (I have a fabulous smokey quartz ring which is one of my most prized possessions) the graduated sizes of this strand mean that it would make a very straightforward yet striking necklace.  I would probably team this with a brightly coloured wire such as this purple coloured copper wire – although I can’t tell from the website what thickness would be best for these drops…a quick call to the freephone number should resolve that though!
2. 140 carats of multi-colour fluorite diamonds – I love the unusual shape of these and the mix of colour.  I feel I should probably pick something more expensive as this is a particularly cheap strand!  But I just couldn’t skip over this strand, I am a great one for crochet and I have been aiming to start my creative journey with some jewelled cuffs and these would be the perfect thing.
3. 480 carats of red jasper puffy coins – these look amazingly tactile, I can imagine lots of them on a layered statement necklace (although I fear they would end up spending far too much time in my son’s mouth) or think what great earrings they would make.  I can imagine them really standing out against even the chunkiest of winter clothes.
4. 140 carats of labradorite graduated plain drops – labradorite is such an amazing gem and often overlooked so I couldn’t resist these huge pieces.  The labradorescence given off by this gem means it looks fabulous in pretty much every light and is sure to attract attention.  I also think this strand is great value – you could get several pieces of jewellery from one strand.
5. 75 carats of amethyst graduated plain marquise – I am a huge fan of amethyst and chose this particular strand to highlight the unusual cuts available.  It’s not a cut I would usually go for, so it’s a bit of a risk, but I think these would make amazing earrings.  If you, like me, enjoy amethyst do check out the cabochons and puffy coins which look good enough to eat.

Well, there you go, my top 5.  I wish it had been top 10 because I didn’t get to tell you about the larimar pearls, green aventurine, real blue sapphire, slabs of chalcedony and ruby nuggets to name but a few (moonstone, agate, turquoise coins, sunstone rondels and crackle quartz to name a few more…Jewellery Maker, you may have created a monster!)

I promise if I do #blog2win I will do a blog about creating my first piece of jewellery…although I may have to enlist the help of my favourite co-blogger/jeweller/gemologist!