LuNi Designs

Its that time of year again

2009-12-11T03:57:00.000+02:00

The end of the school year has arrived and I needed a present for James' teacher.

She is pregnant and I think hormones have got the better of her - well it must be the hormones because how could anyone not love my son?

So........A small reminder of my talkative lively child.

The chain is fused sterling silver.

and the charm is etched - sterling silver.

Silly drawing done on ,printed and photo copied onto transparency paper.

Set the iron to the silk setting - it mustn't be too hot because you get smudges. Turn it upside down and balance it between 2 bricks. Get a knife and fork ready and put your clean metal on the iron finally place your image upside down on your silver hold the metal down with the fork and gently rub with the back of the knife.

make sure you have transferred the whole image to the metal. Paint nail polish on the back of your silver.

Place the metal into a nitric acid solution (1:4 acid : water). I used a tiny glass bowl.

I put the solution outside on a black table and it warmed up very quickly - it was a hot day.

I used a feather to remove bubbles from the surface of the metal.

Its as easy as that.

My Moms ring - finally!

2009-09-15T09:44:00.000+02:00

When I started making jewellery and way before I was ready, my mom asked me to use the stones in a necklace and earring set that my father had given her to make her a ring.So after three years procrastination I have finally made the ring.
Its very shiny and a pain to photograph but here its.

Pink tourmaline ring

2009-08-25T13:30:00.000+02:00

I am quite pleased with the way this ring turned out.

The triangles were fused onto the ring shank before I formed it.

Hollow madness

2009-08-18T11:53:00.000+02:00

I have the urge to make something hollow.Both the hollow pieces I have started to make in the last month have failed.

The first is a hollow ring I got this far then got a little frustrated when I couldnt fit the outer edge to the inner bit and I ended up flatting it with my hammer.

So I decided to make a pair of hollow earrings.
BUT....................

When I was polishing them one of the stones fell out and I cant find it. I have ordered a few more but I couldnt get the exact size so I might need to make another earring. The top stone is tube set and the bottom stone is flush set.

Still playing with enamel

2009-07-23T11:17:00.000+02:00

Thank you everyone for taking time to comment on my blog - I appreciate your comments especially those of you who have way more skill then I do!

Penny and I bought 3 more enamel colours and I made these earrings.

Michaela wanted me to make her a pair of earrings with stars um well stars are not so easy - they look more like starfish. I used orient red - the bumps are clear beads crushed and sprinkled on.

I have been using hairspray as a fixative for the enamel before firing - I have decided that it is not such a good idea as it seems to make my throat close up so I have bought a spray bottle and will be using gum arab and distilled water.

enameled bracelet

2009-06-23T16:48:00.000+02:00

This project comes straight out of the latest art jewellery magazine.It is enameled copper.It has black under coat with yellow, red and orange top coat - sifted on (I have no idea where to get liquid enamels from.) The random patterns were scratched out before I fired it. The blobs are broken beads fired into the enamel.I have etched some of the links and left others shiny.I had so much fun playing with colour. It reminded me of my beading days. Like my beaded jewellery this is kind of retro

edited on the 25th to add

I wasnt happy with the the clasp as it is here so I decided to face my fears and combine soldering and enamel. My problem was that I dont have eutectic solder. So I decided to make my own. After searching for a formula in all my books and on the web I decided to wing it and make up my own formula. I thought I would start with an 80:20 ratio and melt that and some hard solder next to eachother on a piece of copper to see which one melted first. It seemed like they melted at the same time so I went with it. I am very happy with the results!

2 pairs of earrings

2009-05-31T14:41:00.000+02:00

Michaela was going to a party last week. She asked me to make her some hoop earrings - in a hurry. I dont usually do things in a hurry but I did manage to make these in a couple of hours.

I made these little earrings with 2 stones I got in a bag of stones when I was in London.

I was a bit mad with myself because I damaged the one earring when I was trying to remove it from the jet set after I set it.

I am back

2009-05-29T13:19:00.000+02:00

This year hasnt been a good year for me and my jewellery ambitions. I have been focused on my overseas holiday but the holiday has come and gone and now I am back in my studio.

I made this pendant before I went away the bullet is labradorite and the stone in the top is a bluish green tourmaline.

My Melissa chain

2009-02-25T09:41:00.005+02:00

It was Vanessa's (my sister) 40th birthday on the 13.I wanted to make her something special. I decided to try a new technique. I have always admired Melissas chain which has just been published in Art Jewelry magazine so that was my obvious choice.

So I made some fine silver wire and a few links I made a small sample to see how it went. I decided that I dont like fine silver - it seems so soft. I got so frustrated with trying to ball the end of the sticks - It wouldnt ball unless I placed a piece of wood behind the work and then everything fused together. Eventually I managed to get it right but the fine silver was so soft that the pin came out anyway. I saw that Melissa pushes the jumpring closed afterwards to lock it in place. So I decided to try fusing both ends of the pins before assembling the bracelet. It worked! Yay. So I switched to sterling silver and balled first and here is my result. Thanks Melissa!

Here is a link to the wall paper of Melissa's chain

http://www.artjewelrymag.com/art/default.aspx?c=a&id=1026

Enamels

2009-02-10T14:28:00.002+02:00

I was really lucky to get a few enamels for christmas - and now that the festive season is over and the kids are back at school I have finally got to play with them. It took me a whole weekend to make a sample sheet. and another to make these experimental pieces.All are copper and enamel.

The forms were pressed using my vice, perspex and my husbands slipslops (beach shoes) which I cut up. The stripes on the big one are made using a foldforming technique right out of one of my new books - foldforming by Charles Lewton Brain.

TAGGED

2008-12-07T06:34:00.005+02:00

yikes Janice from Doxallo designs tagged me now I need to list 7 random or weird things about myself and tag 7 more people.
Finding 7 fellow bloggers that havent been tagged yet is almost impossible so I have chosen 7 people who I admire on the JAN forum for one reason or another. Sorry if you have been tagged yet again.
Thinking of 7 wierd or random facts about myself is extremely daunting.

Here are the rules
Rules -1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

These are my facts

1. I am extremely untidy and yet I am a perfectionist when I make or do something.
2. I hate making mistakes.
3. I remember lots of small insignificant details about everything but forget big things like baseball matches and birthdays.
4. I have a fiery temper.
5. I dont wear make up because I always feel like a little girl dressed in her mothers clothes when I do .
6. I am afraid of heights.
7. I love playing with lego.

And here are my 7 victims

1. Kay
2. Penny
3. Alice
4. Melissa
5. Swati
6. Kewlie
7. Chris

citrine earrings

2008-12-05T09:03:00.002+02:00

I started this pair of earrings about 2 months ago.

I tapered the wire for the tear drop with my rolling mill - I love my rolling mill. Then formed it around one of my dapping punches and hammered the subtle texture.

I made the claw settings - so I had a few tries before I was happy about them and they were the right size. I swear stones shrink.

The first earring was well behaved and did exactly what I wanted. The second earring was a different story alltogether.

As I got the stone set - the claw came completely off the frame. UUgh so I made a new one and when I was checking to see if it fitted the stone flew across the room and I still havent found it.

So I bought a new stone - which is much prettier and a little bigger then the first set of stones.

but the stone fitted beautifully.

Simple pressed form earrings

2008-12-05T08:46:00.004+02:00

These were formed with 4mm thick perspex, rubber from an old pair of slip slops and a vice.

The texture on the silver ones was from a piece of grass paper found in a scrap book shop.

The green earrings are formed copper - enameled with smashed beads and set in sterling silver with a little flower pierced out the back of the earrings - because I felt like it.

I love those earrings - I have given them to my sons teacher as a christmas present - I hope she loves them as much as I do.

forged earrings

2008-11-19T19:02:00.003+02:00

I made a bigger copper pair of these a while ago.

I loved them so much that I decided to create a smaller version in silver.

Enamel - well sort of

2008-11-11T18:28:00.002+02:00

I am desperate to learn how to enamel. Penny has a kiln and I have serious tool envy.

I Recently bought Linda darty's book on enamelling and set up a tin can Kiln as per a diagram in her book. All set up except uuh no enamels.

I can order enamels but I am impatient and when I want to do something I want to do it now - not wait for the mail man.

I have thousands of seed beads, from my bead obsession days.

So I crushed a few and used a tea strainer for mesh and hairspray to help it stick.

All thing considered I was really pleased with these results

Jasper Ring

2008-10-24T15:12:00.002+02:00

I started making this ring about 2 months ago.

But it challenged me at every turn.

My biggest mistake was trying to get away with a thin back plate for the large stone.

Then I realised it was too thin and I remade the whole of the top piece using .8mm back plate which was probably too thick for my torch to handle. Then when I was setting the stone the whole thing came off the ring. AAGH. luckily I was able to remove the stone without too much damage and resolder it to the ring. I made sure it was soldered properly this time!

adventurine earrings

2008-10-19T08:51:00.002+02:00

I have finally made something.
These earrings were a birthday present for my sister.

Double viking knit chain.

2008-09-08T13:14:00.002+02:00

This is a double viking knit chain. I found it much quicker to do this weave then the other weave I know.

earring finding

2008-09-07T18:04:00.002+02:00

The other day I got a phone call from Penny to find out if I knew where she could buy a silver screw on earring finding. I didnt know but managed to convince her that she could make her own. I like a challenge and thought it would be a good learning experience for me too. So here is my (unfinished) version.

Bead setting

2008-08-16T12:53:00.010+02:00

So in keeping with my resolution to practice other methods of stone setting.
When I saw Janices work, I decided to try bead setting again.
Setting the stone isnt that difficult. Its the cleaning up with the gravers afterwards that is really hard. I have been reading a little and I see that I am going to have to invest in another graver.
YAY more tools!
This was practice it wasnt supposed to turn into anything.

Just a pendant

2008-07-29T13:45:00.002+02:00

This was a spur of the moment pendant.

It is made with 2 tumbled stones and 5 faceted stones.

I think the tumbled stones are sodalite. Just because they are blue and Sodalite is on my list of African Gemstones.

I bought them in Pilgrims rest which is an old gold mining town in Mapumalanga (used to be the eastern transvaal) in South Africa.

I love tumbled stones because of their uneveness.

The faceted stones came in a mixed bag of gems. I presume they are smoky quartz because smoky quartz was on the list of stones included in the parcel and the colour fits. I flush set them because I always think that this is the least fussy way of setting a small stone but I did wonder at my sanity when 2 of the stones would not stay there.

Garnet earrings

2008-07-18T14:41:00.004+02:00

Here is my next stone setting attempt.

The little stones are spessarite garnets. 6x5mm.

I hate the way photos always show up all your mistakes.

These look a lot better in reality.

Play date

2008-07-12T09:28:00.000+02:00

I went to Pennys house yesterday. We are trying to get together once a month just to swap ideas and practice skills. It was great! Penny has a fantastic studio which she shares with her husband.(if she didnt live an hour and a half away she would be sharing it with me too!)When I arrived Penny made me coffee - I need coffee! Then We selected a stone for Penny to make a setting for. Penny has a stone collection that turns me emerald green.I then drew down a bit of wire for the settings I was going to make and made 4 jump rings. Then it was time to go home can you believe it 4 hours later and it was time to go home. I hadnt even got warmed up yet. Thank you for a fantastic day Penny.

woven earring

2008-07-09T17:35:00.004+02:00

Melissa from JAN made a pendant like this. Ireally liked the pendant -as a pair of earrings. I dont usually copy but I had to have a pair of earrings like that.

So here is my attempt.

Ametrine ring

2008-07-02T09:21:00.001+02:00

A year ago Penny and I did a stone setting course.When we were discussing taking another course I realised that I havent done much with stone setting. So my next few pieces are going to focus on refining these skills - I have a way to go still. This is a little Ametrine (about 6mm X 4mm).