Shawl pin

December has started. Time to make presents. Literally :)

My first attempt 1) to make a brooch 2) starting from a sketch and 3) to patinate nickel silver with Brass Black Metal Finish. 

Have you ever been misled by pictures of an instruction regarding the size of your future item? When I started a project from "Wire Art Jewelry Workshop" by Sharilyn Miller, I though of something slightly wild, with small stones chips, etc. But after I made the coiled part and saw how tiny it was (not like at the macro picture in the book, yeah! ) I had to change all the concept :)

I posted the pictures from the previous post to Facebook and a friend of mine told me she couldn't even imagine, how I made it. So I took some pictures for her while making a pair of earrings. As I don't use ready-made jump rings, my chainmail pieces usually go through these stages:

Coiling	Sawing	Aligning the ends
Work hardening	Assembling	Polishing
Waxing	Polishing again	Taking a picture :)

I would call this post "a day in my life" but this necklace actually took two days. Mostly because I decided to change all the idea right before finishing the piece. And I suspect I've reinvented the wheel with these joints, but it was such pleasure to do it :)

Do you know that strange feeling, when making a gift box takes much more time than making the thing you are going to put in it? I have experienced it two times already. The earrings for my cousin took me about an hour, and the box - about three.

I also spent about two hours making the bangle, and several hours - constructing a suitable gift box.

It's so unfair! :)

Captured fire

I had a rather long pause in jewelry making. Too long, I think. I'm glad, it has finised, and happy with my new polishing tools, that made the working process easy and pleasant. Here is the result (taking pictures was far more frustrating than making :) ) I used copper and Swarovski fire opal crystals.

It's such pleasure to use proper tools for each task. Some polishing bits have arrived recently :)