JANUARY ART BEAD SCENE CHALLENGE!

Well its that time again, the Art Bead Scene Challenge. I liked how the blues and yellows in the painting made the landscape stand out.

This time I decided to use a pendant by Jean Cristin, I really like her clay work it has such a wonderfully organic feel to it, a real love of nature seems to come through and I love using her beads and pendants in my own work.

To string Jeans pendant I chose some beautiful butterscotch amber, adding pure copper beads, I used the last of my beautifully patterned sodalite rectangles separated with Karen Hill Tribe silver nuggets, I added more sodalite nuggets and finished with a silver toggle clasp. 

~Jackie~

THE CONTEST!

I could not have been more surprised when I won a contest recently, not because I thought my humble offering was unlovely but simply because it was so different to my usual offerings and  materials, but I do like to use and put together in my own way things that appeal to me sometimes unusual or overlooked materials.

Thinking about it I always go rather for elegance, it can be simple or elaborate, I have been musing on this a lot lately, why I design as I do, put together certain colours, even use certain materials or gems does it depend on my mood, fashion, time of year! Yes, probably all these things hold a certain sway over how I design and make. Then there is the inspiration, I am inspired by so many things, colours definitely I love colour! My garden, trees, the sea, flowers and leaves, photographs, architecture, sometime a film will spark an idea, art nouveau and many other things, anyway enough of musing.

The necklace for the contest started with hand dyed silk in shades of Pale blue and green with baby blue freshwater pearls for the Kumihimo braid. I made the ends for the braid in silver Polymer, inspired by the seed pods of Lunaria Annua ( honesty ) no glue was used to attach them to the braid, I hammered and sculpted the silver wire central shape, the inspiration for these shapes came from a photograph of bubbles frozen under a lake in Canada. Then I wire wrapped the center circular portion to hang a pendant of rock crystal. One end is also the hook closure. 

So there you have it, Blue Ice the necklace!

 Thank you for looking your comments are much appreciated ~Jackie~

MADE A NEW NECKLACE!

I am still working my way slowly through the blogs on Grow Your Blog it may take me a while but I will get there in the end. Meanwhile I thought I would just show you what I have been doing with the jewellery.

I keep a box with a few pieces of jewellery mainly necklaces of course, that I have never been happy with but didn't have time to redo, I thought I would take a look to see if it would give me the inspiration. I needed to make a longish necklace for wearing with some high neck tees I have.

On opening the box some lovely ovals of Tree Agate caught my eye, I love Agate and Jasper! I retrieved the necklace and laid it out cut it apart and removed all the beads, not enough Agate! I had some more in a box which I got out and also my amber nuggets, I selected another two oval Agate beads with lovely patterns and some smaller round ones, then got to work on the layout. I wanted to use a silver dragonfly with the agate but what to use for a clasp?

For myself I tend to go for rather simple hooks or S clasps they lie nice and flat on the neck or can be used lower down, today I wanted something a bit different, out came the toggles I don't use them much and only keep a few but I found one that looked good with the rest of the necklace and balances out the opposite side. I added a few small silver spacer beads which work nicely.

The necklace is below and to me at least it makes me think of ancient times, prehistory when the world was younger when agate and amber was forming and dragonflies flitted among tree ferns and lakes with huge water lilies! Well that was what I was dreaming of anyway as it came together!

~Jackie~

 

 

SUMMER IS FOR PEARLS !

I do love pearls in all their grand variety and there are 'pearls for all seasons' but especially in the summer I love to see them with pastels and brights with coloured gemstones, agates Jaspers, Lampwork, silver, gold they just seem to go with everything and I use them often when I design and make jewellery and wear them myself too. Below are some of the necklaces I have made, these are for sale right now, if you see something you would like to have, just email me! 

 Pale pistachio green pearls with elegant hand made flameworked beads the centre bead is a large floral & vines, very pretty and summery fastens with a hook clasp.

Sweet little white pearls look lovely with Rose Quartz hearts and carved flower bead, cubes of Rhodonite and silver fastens with a lobster clasp. There is a bracelet and earrings to complete the set!

 Hand wrought in silver this beautiful Emerald pendant creates the focal point in this luxury Emerald and pearl necklace the inner strand of pearls are a pale green the outer strand is white it fastens with an S clasp.

NEW DATE FOR SECOND BEAD SOUP REVEAL!

Lori has put the date back for the second and third reveal so of course I didn't post the items I have made on the 6th but will now be posting them on Saturday 13th April instead so I thought it might be nice to post a few pictures of some necklaces I have made either as gifts or commissions.

Amethyst & freshwater Pearls with a silver Agate & Amethyst pendant

South Sea Shell Pearls with Amethyst leaf and silver beads

Gemstone necklace Imperial & white Topaz with Citrine

NECKLACE INSPIRED BY LA PERIGRINA

The necklace I am showing today has no clay in it and is from the other side of my jewellery designing. It was created earlier this year inspired by Elizabeth Taylor's jewellery that was auctioned at the end of last year, more precisely that wonderful pearl drop La Perigrina given to her by Richard Burton on Valentines day 1969. It is said the pearl was discovered off the coast of Panama in the 1500's and once belonged to King PhillipII of Spain. I am afraid my pearl does not have such illustrious provenance but it is a beautiful high class AAA pearl. So I thought it aught to hang from a suitable necklace too.

The necklace is strung with three sizes of freshwater pearls, rubies and green onyx as my little emeralds had such tiny holes I couldn't string them! The strands of pearls are seperated by beautiful silver flowers links. The circular centre piece is silver it was hand made by a silversmith and set with three rubies and three emeralds with a freshwater pearl in the centre. The pearl drop which is half drilled hangs below a strand of tiny pearls and rubies it is capped with silver. The clasp is lovely it is pearl and one of only two vintage ones I was able to buy a while back. I found it quite difficult to get a good picture but it is quite beautiful and special much nicer than the photos, as these thing usually are.

It is for sale just contact me if you are interested!

Promotional Sale

To promote my shop at Ruby Plaza, I decided now is the time to have a promotional sale it is seasonal and will run through December, everything is on sale right now lots of lovely necklaces and earrings that would make great gifts there is even a silver Festive bracelet made with beautiful handmade lampwork beads etc. payment is by Paypal and we ship internationally to most places very reasonably, we try to keep the cost down even if you order more than one item.
So sit down with you favourite tipple and enjoy browsing our shop at Ruby Plaza. http://www.rubyplaza.com/shop/thesilverlodge

Of course our web site Kydo Jewellery has lots of lovely things on too http://www.kydojewellery.co.uk/
including our very popular bookmarks, being made of satin ribbon they are kind to books and make great gifts anytime! I have made them to go in prayer books, bibles and for confirmation in a favourite colour or white with a sterling silver cross.

Coping with the high cost of silver and gold

Reading my friend Lori's blog sparked my idea to write some musing on this subject from my perspective. I used to make art jewellery pieces up until a couple of years ago with sterling silver armatures wrapped with very fine silver wire, I developed my own style and things went well, but with the constantly rising cost of silver I began to question where I was going, add the gemstones etc, etc and expenses rose, yes it was fun to create, especially as I enjoy making as many parts of a design as I can apart from the gemstones obviously I leave that to mother nature.

Then a few years back I was introduced to Premo Polymer clay, its a bit like paint in solid form I thought so I was hooked. I took a few tutorials to begin with, then as usual I meandered off on my own. Many years ago I worked with clay but this was different I had colour now and many more colours could be mixed from the basics! So I made many different items from small sculptures to jewellery, which is now my preference.

Polymer clay it would seem has come into its own and is no longer considered the outsider but is sold in prestigious galleries, there are museum collections and displays of jewellery it has finally made it!

Last year I got to thinking how wonderful it would be to work with gold clay that I could shape into my own designs for necklaces and pendants, a lovely setting for beautiful Jaspers, Agates and Gemstones etc so working from my original sketches; I spent the next six months building a collection of art necklaces and pendants based in the gold polymer clay.

The Inspiration; water plays a large part in my life as I live close to the ocean, enjoy lakes and streams, with reeds and swans, the ponds in our garden. Trees are important to me, also mosses and ferns, each piece of jewellery I sketch has an inspiration in nature and the natural world around me. Sometimes it is a shape I want to capture or maybe a beautiful Jasper cab inspires a picture.

So my problem seems to be solved, I no longer need large quantities of silver or gold metal and I am excited with all the new possibilities this new direction has given me.

This collection will be available when we have finished updating the web site.

Desert Flower

This will be just a short post as my daughter and I are off tomorrow up to London, we stay with a friend just outside the city and tube in, so get the best of both worlds. We have several things planned to do, lunch with a cousin, visiting favourite shops, galleries and maybe a museum, we may go to the theatre and generally enjoy ourselves. We are both looking forward to this annual break.

We have had guests so I haven't been very creative recently but I have just finished an interesting asymetrical necklace which I named Desert Flower. The circles and tiny round beads are picture Jasper, the beautiful colour of these turquoise coloured stones look great in the centre of each circle with little silver beads the lovely chain is also silver I added just a sprinkling of Swarovski crystals in copper. I found the lovely silver flower toggle which seemed just right and Desert Flower was born! I think it turned out quite well.

Please do leave a comment if you would like to I love to hear from you all.

Summer flowers

Oh dear I have been so busy I have forgotten to post for ages so here I am at last.
The garden is coming along quite well, we desperately needed the rain, well now we have it, I suppose it just won't stop, July seems to always be a fairly wet month down here.

Lara and I are off up to London for a week in August to stay with a friend, meet up with my cousin for lunch, take in a show etc etc, we always have the best time and we are both looking forward to it as a nice break.

I have been adding to my Gold Collection and made several art necklaces two for a challenge which I can't put on the blog yet but I am adding a lovely summer flower pendant from the Gold Collection, which I just finished its in warm summer shades and is embellished with some beautiful vintage Swarovski AB crystals which are not too easy to see as they are tucked between the petals but they add a sparkle and shine the centre of the large flower has a vintage Swarovski and the little salmon pinkflowers have rows of tiny 2mm crystals as well, lots of sunshine in this piece!

I grow orchids so created this necklace of pink and white orchids and blue forget me nots. I made the sketch for this earlier in the year but never got round to making it till last month, once I started it was such a pretty piece to work on, I did enjoy finding just the right pale pink nugget pearls to add to it and the silver hook clasp which you can't see has a little flower too. Both these pieces will be going up for sale on the web site soon but if you are interested in either of them you can just email me now. .

Pandora

Lara and I went to see the film Avatar in 3D earlier this year, I loved the concept of an unspoiled planet full of natural wonders, we bought the hardback book Avatar to share between us a few weeks later and although not a thick book it was interesting and gave some insight into the design and making of the film. The use of colours intrigued me as did the idea of floating mountains in fact I found it all quite enchanting.

Since then I have been working on my Pandora collection of pendants and necklaces inspired by the strangely beautiful alien world of Pandora. Sculpted in Polymer clay, the photos don't really show them to best effect as they are dusted with interference and mica powders to add that special iridescence the pendants and necklaces were exciting and intricate to design I really enjoyed making them, so I thought I would share some of them with you, I hope you like them to!

Spring Weddings & Inspiration

I am not sure the two always go together but in this case they do, as I have a bridal commision for a May wedding the bride and four bridesmaids, I am halfway through and really enjoying it. How delightful to design something for a big day, no matter whether it be gowns or jewellery. In my case it is jewellery and the colours are silver and purple.

The bride likes a very dainty necklace and happily I had some of the tiniest purple nugget pearls which she fell in love with, so that made a good base to start from. I added purple velvet crystals and some lavendar blue pearl rondels, then she chose a silver filigree flower with clear crystal petals and a centre of lavendar blue, I offset the flower to just below her collarbone, I hope she likes it when she sees it tomorrow.

Well now it is Sunday and my bride loves her necklace! I finished the rest yesterday and have taken a couple of pictures to show the brides and three of the bridesmaids necklaces. The bridesmaids dresses are purple with gold embellishments.

I have also added some of the necklaces we have in our spring sale, you can see them on the right hand side of the page just email if you would like anything!

Spring Inspiration!

At last I am updating the blog after the OWOH, time has just slipped away from me and I so wanted to show you some new spring designs. Having lacked inspiration since Christmas and the two viruses one after the other; suddenly my muse is back and I am so busy creating new art jewellery, especially in Polymer clay. I love working with colour, just like painting, then I can add silver, bronze, glass, gemstones, crystals it is just amazing what a fantastic medium it is, I can't imagine a world without colour!

I love Camellias and grow several in my garden, I especially like this small stripped one with a huge boss of golden stamens, each Camellia I made has a centre of Swarovski crystal, the armature is Sterling Silver and for fun I made it in two parts. I joined them with the silver wire and added round Garnet gemstones and little silver beads, it will have a chain added made to length, the pendant measures just four inches from the top of the longest silver curl to the bottom of the lower flower and I signed it on the back. I think it worked out rather well don't you? It hasn't gone on the web site yet as I thought I would preview it here first, but enquiries are always welcome.

I will have more spring inspirations to share with you later this week.

Our wedding jewellery

We have decided recently to add a wedding gallery to our web site, The Silver Lodge. It all came about when we received an email in March from a young woman who was getting married in May this year. She had been browsing our web site and came across some polymer clay calla lilly focal beads I had made using the colours of real flowers I grow in my garden as these flowers come in beautiful shades, not just the usual white. She asked if I could design a bracelet and earrings for her in cream to match a tiara she had just bought. I sketched a design and made it up using sterling silver and some Swarovski pearls and crystals. It was really pretty and unique.

The young lady was pleased with the photos we emailed her and was thrilled when she received her set. It was a real joy to be able to make this unusual design and know it was for such a special occasion. That was when we decided it would be really nice to add a bridal gallery even though much of our jewellery is occasion jewellery. We have since made another but different bracelet as most of our jewellery is only one of a kind!

Jackie & Lara

Our first post!

This is our first venture into the world of online journals. We are a mother and daughter; Jackie and Lara, both multimedia artists. It is our intention here to share some of our work with you.
We have a web site called The Silver Lodge which is full of our jewellery designs including polymer clay and art jewellery.
We live in a beautiful spot on the south west coast of England where the sea meets the sky and we do not have far to look for inspiration for our jewellery or artwork.