I wrote last time about using twisted jump rings in handmade jewellery – still my favourite by the way. But I decided to use up some of my immense store of beads so I combined them in a variety of ways and I was very pleased with the results. Lots of glass beads can become quite heavy in, say, a necklace so I had to be careful with the larger beads. But I still prefer to use glass beads and semi-precious stones when handcrafting jewelry rather than plastic and acrylic which I hate. Have a look at some of my latest designs.

You know I am really keen on these twisted jump rings. You can use them to create a whole piece of jewellery or use one or a few jump rings to enhance other jewellery. They are much better than ordinary jump rings because they do not mark so easily having only a very small edge that touches the pliers, they close together beautifully. Because of their twisted design when closing you cannot see the join. They reflect the light so much and retain their plating because of less surface area touching the skin.

I have been experimenting with Tree of Life pendants and the effects you can achieve using different beads. These pendants look beautiful when worn with a coloured thong. I particularly like the Cherry Blossom one with the pearl beads and bright red seed bead.

You can make all these with jump ring/chainmail links – in fact more than these. There are many different types of links which go back hundreds of years. Byzantine link, Persian link, Queen’s link, box link and more. Here are a few examples of the type of jewellery I have made using these links. I have incorporated aluminimum coloured jump rings and twist jump rings (more about these on the next blog). Handmade jewellery using these techniques is so individual I really do not know why anyone would want to buy mass produced jewelry. But that’s just my view I suppose. Check out the site because this jewellery is so competitively priced for such quality!

Hi, I am Deborah and I work with Caroline in making jewellery for our website. My collection is called DB Dualities. Ken and Caroline are really busy in their new shop so I am taking over the posts and website in between handmaking jewellery!

We have been concentrating on handmaking jump ring jewelry lately which can be seen under latest products on our website. It is amazing the jewellery that can be produced from jump rings, particularly when combined with beads. There are so many different types of links and then combined with different sizes of jump rings, different wire gauges and different types of wire. It is mind blowing.

I will be posting more about jump ring jewellery soon.

Apologies for no new posts for a while but we were working constantly towards the opening of our new workshop in San Fulgencio, Spain. After several weeks of delays, disruptions and typical Spanish red tape the Workshop opened on Saturday and the first course took place this morning at 10am;  spiral silver bracelets made with silver and coloured copper wire. Courses will run every Monday during the summer and I am hoping to run a kids polymer clay course on Saturday mornings during the summer holidays, details to follow soon.

The latest silver jewellery workshop was on Monday 31st May in the Gran Alacant area on the Costa Blanca in Spain. The course was an intermediate level lesson focusing on the use of a jig to create silver wire jewellery.

For those not familiar with the jig it is basically a metal plate perforated with holes drilled evenly through the plate. Metal pins are placed in the holes to create varying designs and patterns and then jewelllery making wire is looped around the pins to make the shape required. The advantage of using a jig, especially with earrings, is that the shape is uniform with the twists and curls in the wire nice and tight. It is much harder to create uniform loops using a pair of pliers.  The course was well attended and all the students successfully made two sets of earrings using their jigs. Photos will be put in the photo album soon.

One of the things I love about working with wire for jewellery is that the number of variations and different types of jewellery that can be made using wire are virtually limitless. Firstly the wire comes in different strengths varying from soft to hard depending on what type of jewellery project you are undertaking. The wire can also be bought in different thickness from 0.2mm to 2mm. My favourite thickness to work with when making coiled and spiral wire jewellery is 0.8mm or 0.6mm.