Goodbye Beads

I do nothing with my bead stuff. I have no motivation, no inspiration. My mums been asking me to make a bracelet for ages. It's a simple memory wire bracelet, all I'd have to do is sit and thread beads on a bit of wire until it was full and finish it off. Easy. But I don't want to do it. It makes me really angry that she keeps asking for it because why can't she just understand that I don't want to do it? It makes me a bit angry that I don't want to do it because why not? I love beads. 

Or I used to... I've spent a few years harping on about how I want to be a jewellery designer/maker. I've spent loads of money on books, a course in London, beads, pliers, wire, Etsy fees and business cards. Spent loads of time photographing, listing, relisting, reading about SEO, building twitter followers, trying to be part of Etsy teams. 

I get no joy out of it any more.

I have totally lost my passion.

I found a bag of beads in a corner of my room, according to Instagram it was 38 weeks ago which puts us in July, I bought them in October 2013. I haven't touched them, they are still all strung up, all with receipts, all in their little carrier bags. 

I'm going to sell my collection. Maybe I won't sell all of it, maybe I'll get drawn back in while sorting out what to get rid of. 

If I look back over my blog, of the few sporadic posts I've made, they are about silver. I love my Friday silver class. I haven't lost my passion for this. It might be something to do with the social side of it. Or that there's tea and custard creams... This Friday we are starting a cone setting project. Once I've done that I'm going to make some simple rings and stud earrings and list those on my Etsy shop. I'm going to move away from beads but still dabble in something crafty. 

Pinterest Silver Board

I love Pinterest. It is quite possibly the greatest way to waste time and not feel to bad about it. I can lose hours of my life scrolling through the Humour boards, looking at tattoos, getting house envy and hair envy. I have been trying to use it productively too, I've got a Silver board and I've been collecting ideas for the start of term.

For my real job I've bought some personal development books, really boring ones. One of them was about talking to people and sounding confident. I feel like I've wasted some quality time reading this book, it was awful. Apart from one point, about having a "thingamajig" something to entice people over and to give you something to talk about. I read this as "Make a brooch" I have a black jacket that I tend to wear only to weddings and meetings, both situations where you might have to talk to strangers... Why not have something to go on there, spice it up and give me something to talk about at the same time?




This is my Silver board




Follow Tori's board Silver on Pinterest.





Its got some of my projects pinned, from my blogposts here but is generally a collection of the weird and random things I've found so far. I want to do more with the doming blocks so it might just be another experiment!

Silver Recap - Year Two

My third year of silver class will begin in a couple of weeks time so I just wanted to do a quick recap on what I've made over the last year. For once I've used the summer break to actually think about what I want to make over the next term but I'll save those plans for another post! 

To start with I made a quick pair of star stud earrings that I now wear every day.

Next up another pair of quick earrings! A theme starting here, these ones are two small circles, punched and then domed.

After Easter, I started a necklace. In a similar style to the Epic Bracelet of last year, I used square wire to create loads of different sized rings. I then soldered them together, I had originally set them all out and marked where they would all join but the marks rubbed off so it changed shape every week! Once all were soldered I just had to level it and sand it to make it super shiney and then add a chain.

Soldering in sections

Once the smaller sections were soldered, it was time to join them all together

I finished just in time for a meal out in York.

The last project was a quick ring. Again using the doming block and a couple of scrappy bits of silver. I made a dome out of a small circle and then a little blob to go in the centre. This was then soldered on to a ring. Done.

I tend to wear this one with the stacking rings I made in my first year.

Wire Wrapping Experiment

I've had these black beads for ages now. I bought them purely because I liked the shape and the cut. And they were black. I like black. However, the shape has put me off using them for all this time. They are what's known as a Briolette, it's a pear shape with the hole drilled near the top. This means it wouldn't really work with a normal head pin, it needed something to make it a bit neater.

So I had a bit of an experiment with wire wrapping. Using some silver wire I made a loop at the top as per usual but gave myself loads of wire spare. This end was then just wrapped downwards so it covered the bottom of the loop and the top of the bead, keeping the hole out of sight too. I tried it out with a couple of different thicknesses of wire, the first I used was a bit thin and flimsy looking so I moved up a gauge. And again. Once I was happy with the wire (and that it actually looked good!) I set about wrapping the rest of them, it was quite relaxing once I'd got going!

Here they are half way through.

Then it was designing time! Black beads always make me think of Jet and that Victorian style jewellery, a bit gothic, a bit sombre. That's where I went with the first necklace I made. More black beads and a simple choker style.

Photographed outside where the blazing sunshine doesn't quite fit with the inspiration...

I then made a lighter, more delicate looking necklace and some matching earrings. Using a fine silver chain, I made a cluster of the beads and then graduated them out. I then used more of the fine chain to finish off the pendant. For the earrings, I cut 3 different lengths of chain and attached the beads the the ends, and then the chains to an earring hook. 

Now I really want a day trip to Whitby to peer at the amazing jet jewellery there... 

Silver Class: new term

It's technically the third lesson (same busy at work story!) but last night was my first lesson back after Easter. I'm a bit stuck for inspiration so I've gone back to a project from a while ago. I had some square wire, I wasn't exactly sure why I bought it so I decided to make a necklace. So far I've cut the wire into random different lengths and soldered them all into rings. I've put them between metal blocks to make sure they are all level and then hammered them on the mandrel to make them nice a round. Now I'm joining them together! It's a joyous task, I remember it well from my Epic Silver Bracelet.

I have laid them out and played around with the design, I then marked all the joins so I can start filing them to get a good join. I'm doing this as I go along, just incase my filing and soldering isn't accurate. 

This is where I'm at I far, loads of marks and a couple of joins!

April Update

So once more my blog has been neglected for a few months... Once more it's due to the day job. I got settled and then everyone decided to leave... Not everyone but it feels a bit like that with 5 new starters! So it's training central at the moment and having to think for everyone else is leaving me a bit tired- read no energy for creative things! The one learning from this will definitely be 'Don't sit back and relax when it gets easy' you just never know what's going to be around the corner! 

So this is just a quick post, to check I still know how to type and to upload a picture! 

This is what I'm sat in front of... It's actually a project I started a few months back but I got a bit bored of it so I'm tackling it now! Even if I just make a bit of progress...

I've also got this bag of clothes from a chairty shop which I am meaning to refashion... Ones a play suit, which I do not do... If I finish the jeweller project I should be able to get to the sewing machine and be able to have a play on that too... Productive much?!

Silver Class - Spring Term Year 2

It was Friday yesterday which means it's back to silver class after the winter break. As usual after every break, I had intended to sort out my tool box, think about what projects I might attempt, maybe even do some homework. As usual after every break, I had not. So I went in with a blank mind and a messy tool box. But I came out with a pair of earrings ready to wear for work today so something must have gone right?! 

I have a collection of stones that I'd like to set and turn into something fabulous but the idea I had for them was a little more challenging that I could cope with yesterday, after a bit of a stressful day all I wanted was a quick fix and a chance to play with fire. And something I could show off to my new colleagues! A pair of earrings! I had this random circle of silver hanging about from a failed project last year so decided to use that. I drew on two stars and cut them out, I then drew on two more as I wasn't happy with the shape, one was really pointy and could have been slightly dangerous...

 I filled down the two I liked the best so they were a similar size and then soldered on some preprepared earring posts. 

After a bit of a polish they were ready to go. And I left class with a new pair of earrings in my ears! Not bad for a evenings work!