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Poppies and Sian's 21st

31/1/2021

Tourmaline and Diamond Pendant for Sian's 21st Birthday

Our week started with my youngest sisters 21st birthday, and in trying to make it a lovely occasion for her, Dad decided to make her a necklace using a stone that she unknowingly had chosen a couple of years previously when dad made my 21st gift.
Her chosen Deep Green Tourmaline was claw-set in an 18ct Yellow Gold Gallery Setting and paired with a rub-over set 2.2mm Round Diamond.

Poppies and setting more Sea Glass

During the week I've been practicing making texture in leaves and poppy petals for my ongoing poppy project. After a quick demonstration and a few minutes practice on a scrap piece of silver, I used a Scorper to make regular lines growing out from the petal centres to mimic the markings and textures in a real poppy.

After using a tonne of cotton wool and trusty masking tape to wrap around my hands whilst engraving, this fun process has encouraged me to look forward to continuing with my poppies and even think about other flower projects I'd like to hand craft afterwards.

It also couldn’t be a week at the workbench in Whitstable without choosing a few Sea Glass pieces and beginning to set them. I tried to select different colours this time and took the opportunity to build our stock with a variety of new jewellery pieces to open with when we can.

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New Additions to our Sea Glass Collection

24/1/2021

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This was my first time making and setting something on my own ...

These have been some of my favourite sea glass pieces I've made so far. A huge amount of time, work and material is put into a rub over set piece of jewellery, but the end result really makes up for it.

From a 0.8 mm thick silver sheet, an organically shaped bezel is pierced out and created to fit snugly around the individual piece of sea glass.
A 0.6 mm thick flat base was then hard soldered to the bezel and the base was pierced out from the inside of the setting, leaving a 1.5mm edge of base for the sea glass to sit on. We felt it was a tidier finish but allowing light through the back would also help enhance the colour of
the glass.

I later cut and filed a fraction of silver from the top as Dad had warned that too much metal to push over can cause creasing in the silver and an untidy finish.

Lastly before beginning to set, a small angle was filed around the top edge of the setting where I would be later pushing the silver.

Working from opposite sides, I gently but firmly pushed and wiggled the silver over – it took me a long time of doing this and re-filing the angle (to decrease the thickness of metal to be pushed over), before I was at the stage of changing angle and begin pushing almost downwards from the top.

A final burnish round the top where the sea glass meets the silver, gave it that finishing touch before polishing.

Next time I'd like to pay more attention and care to reduce the marks made on the outside whilst setting, which will also help alleviate the amount of polishing needed after. I’d also try to remember to focus on troubling areas from earlier on in the process, as I hope this will help enclose the shape more evenly.
I'll have to make lots for the fun of it and hopefully I'll gradually get more skillful at setting.

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New Year, New Fun...

13/1/2021

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We've started 2021 off in the right way, with a bit of fun and playing around with ideas for Whitstable Sea Glass Earrings after a lovely customer requested some. Obviously we couldn't leave Digby out of the fun!

It started with the traditional idea of claw setting, but with naturally irregular shaped sea glass it can be a challenge in all directions; deciding where to make the claws sit and balancing the sea glass in the setting for it to look flat on the surface.

Despite encountering difficulties, it was lovely to get to watch and practice the steps and methods of claw setting. It led to our discovery that my hands are quite a bit smaller than dads, which has made setting with the his tools difficult, not just my lack of experience! However, there's no excuse now as I have my very own tiny setting pusher for my stumpy thumbs...

In the moments of waiting for the claw settings to be finished in the acid or in the ultra sonic, I sat at my bench drilling small sea glass pieces I had previously paired and later experimented with the simple ideas of making a peg and bead to create our first pair of small simple studs and a pair of drop earrings.

I loved making these and really hope to get to work and make a few more variants for our general jewelry stock. Think I might try a few more setting styles for other sea glass jewelry pieces this coming week.