Long Necklace

No blogging for nearly two months and then I come along with two posts in one day!

Inspired by cells, lichen, moss, biology, geology and water.

Made from silver, resin, mother of pearl, gold foil, glass fragments, pearls, glass beads, semi-precious stones and a tiny dot of gold.

Hello again...

When I started this blog I decided to try to write a post on a weekly basis. Well, I have failed miserably and it is ages since my last entry. I blame a virusy computer and children being off school for holidays. However, I have not been entirely lazy and have been working on new jewellery. This mixed media brooch includes resin, enamel and rose quartz and combines my favourite jewellery making techniques. I am also experimenting with a new way (for me) of doing a brooch pin. So of course I've had to road test it myself, by wearing it as much as possible. It's holding up really well and I'm looking forward to making more like this in the future.

How Does Your Garden Grow...

I love making these little flower pins at the moment. I'm still using silver and resin, but having fun playing with different materials. These ones also have copper, mother of pearl, fragments of glass and gold foil in them. I might make a whole garden full of them!

Geometric Earrings

I've been inspired by geometric shapes and mid-century design recently. These earrings are the first in a series I plan to make very soon. There will be lots of simple shapes and bold colours, watch this space...

Mar de Color Rosa

I recently discovered the wonderful blog, mar de color rosa written by Montserrat Lacomba. I spent hours the other evening browsing through the hundreds of images of jewellery from all over the world. I would certainly recommend it to anyone interested in jewellery design. So imagine my surprise when I logged in yesterday evening to find that Montserrat had included my work on her blog. I would like to send her a huge 'thank you' for featuring my jewellery and for writing such an informative and interesting blog.

Experimenting

I've been making lots of jewellery in my 'flowers and leaves' range recently, in preparation for Spring. Now I've got a little time to experiment, I'm having a bit of a change of direction and am working on a new range. This time, inspired by geology, lichen and microscopic life. As you can see, circles are going to feature strongly in this new work.

Skeletons

Here are some of the pieces I'm working on at the moment. They are in their skeletal form before having the resin inlayed. Some will end up in my etsy shop and others are going to a gallery. I like having a few days when I focus on metal working and soldering and then have a change and spend time doing the resin. The thing I'm not looking forward to is all the polishing up at the end, which I find a bit tedious.

I'm In A Magazine!!!

I am very excited today as my work has been featured in the February issue of "Jewelry Artist" (Lapidiary Jounal) magazine. Thanks to Annie Osburn who phoned me to ask a few questions and wrote the article. The piece is all about artists who make jewellery using resin and I am featured along with Carla Pennie, Christina Aucone (Modica Design) and Tracy Page Smith, who all make beautiful jewellery.

Red Pendant Commission

This piece was collected by the customer yesterday. Each 'petal' is a slightly different shade of red. The resin is slightly transparent allowing light to shine through from the back when worn.

Thank You to Lora Hart

Weekend Eye Candy - Fiona Chapman Edition
Originally uploaded by lorahart
Thanks to Lora Hart for featuring my jewellery in her regular Weekend Eye Candy feature on her blog and her Flickr page. I have seen Lora's lovely mosaic style collections on Flickr before, so it was a lovely surprise to find that she had chosen me this week. Her blog is a really interesting read, it is full of interesting work from other designers as well as her own jewellery, which is beautiful and imaginative, specialising in Precious Metal Clay.

Work in Progress

One of three commissions I'm working on this week.

craft&design Magazine

I am pleased and excited to have my work accepted onto the "Selected" section of the craft&design website. craft&design is a UK magazine published six times a year and I always look forward to it coming through my door. It is certainly one that I read from cover to cover and their website is full of great information for makers as well as wonderful work to browse.

New Work

This is the latest addition in my online shop. The resin 'flower' has been coloured in shades of grey and white, just right for winter.

Craft Fair (Yesterday)

The Craft Fair I was at on Tuesday was great. It was only small, but very well attended. Thanks to Lindsay(Daisy Patch Studio) for her fantastic organisation. I sold about half of the stock I had with me which was a big surprise. I had not done a fair for a long time and had forgotten how good it is to speak to customers 'face to face'. I certainly hope to do a bit more of this in the future.

Craft Fair

I'm preparing for a small craft fair at the moment, so the tumbler is in full swing and I'm up to my eyes in price tags and handmade gift bags, not to mention unfinished jewellery. I'm really looking forward to it as I haven't done one for a very long time. It's going to be particularly exciting as a couple of close friends are also going to be there, one of whom is the organising the event. So, we've lined up plenty of coffee and cake, there's no real pressure to sell as the overheads are minimal and I'm looking forward to a fun day of networking and craftiness.

I made this "ring" a few months ago. I was trying to be more imaginative with different materials, so set myself the challenge of making a piece of jewellery from an elastic band and this is the result. My family thought I had lost the plot, but I found the exercise quite rewarding. Of course this material is not viable for long lasting jewellery as it has already started to perish, but it was fun while it lasted.

I spent a great afternoon yesterday visiting the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair in Manchester. It was packed with beautiful work from designers I have admired for ages and some who were new to me. The only problem was that my daughter was with me and she got bored quickly, so I couldn't spend as long there as I would have liked. However, it certainly made up for the fact that I was unable to get to Origin in London this year and I will definitely go back for more next year.

My latest earrings in silver, enamel and a touch of gold. I've been dabbling in enamel again after a break while concentrating on resin work. I like the instant results you can get with enamel.

Why Jewellery?

I was trying to remember how I first got interested in jewellery making. It actually goes back many years to when I was at Sixth Form College and we had to choose a subject to fill in some time when we weren't doing A Level studies. I chose metalwork and made a hammered copper bangle, it wasn't very good, but I enjoyed making and wearing it. I later went to college and did a B.Ed (teaching degree) and forgot about the metalwork, although it was at this time in my life that I really started buying and wearing handmade jewellery. A few years further on and I was teaching in a London primary school and one of my colleagues took me to visit a friend of hers who was a jeweller at her studio. I was in awe of the beautiful work I saw there, not to mention the tools and equipment which fascinated me.
I enrolled myself onto an adult education course in Hackney, East London and spent every Thursday evening for about three years learning as many basic techniques as I could.
After a move to Derbyshire in 2000 I was lucky enough to find another fantastic jewellery course on my doorstep taught by Adele Kime. Adele is an inspiring teacher and I am grateful to her for helping me confirm that making jewellery is what I want to do.

Phew, it's taken a while, but I've finally got the blog started...Welcome!
I think I've been putting it off as I had no idea where to start. I've decided to take the bull by the horns and see it as a 'work in progress'. Hopefully I'll get slicker and more interesting as time goes on. My jewellery is changing direction at the moment. I'm making more mixed media pieces, aiming to combine my love of resin, enamel and stone setting in the same range. I will be posting photos here as I go along. Thank you for popping in.