Ivy Mania

I know, lots of gardeners hate ivy as it strangles other plants, but I love the shape of the leaves, they are just so pretty and decorative, and I am always surprised by their symmetry.

Here's the Ivy Bangle, one of the commissions I made this week - see the Commissions June 2008 post. This one is for Caroline's sister and she'll get it at the end of next month for her birthday, so keep quiet about it until then. ;-)

This bangle - like the one I made for myself - has been made using a real ivy leaf from my garden as a template for the design cut from copper sheet. The leaf then has been filed and filed some more, sanded, brushed, polished, two holes were drilled in it and filed and sanded for the thick wire to be fed through, which then in turn has been shaped and hammered for texture and finally the whole thing has been oxidised and polished.



And here's a little ivy ring I made for Caroline so she wouldn't be sad when she had to hand over the ivy bangle to her sister. It's been made in the same way as the bangle but with a much, much smaller leaf and thinner wire.



Since I was busy making ivy leaves, I decided to make myself some earrings to match my ivy bangle. They are so comfortable to wear and very stylish and unusual, even if I say so myself. :-)

Here you can see them hanging from a little tealight jar in my garden.



Lastly, I made this necklace - in the same way as the earrings, ring, and bangle but with a larger ivy leaf and some gorgeous prehnite triangle beads, my favourite cut for beads. They look like little flower cups and the ghostly lime green works particularly well with the oxidised copper. The clasp is a new design.



All these designs will be available as a custom order in my Etsy shop soon. :-) I will add other leaf shapes and metals as well.

Latest commissions

I've had some more commissions recently. They are for designs from my website that had been sold already.

I don't make the same piece twice, but I create new designs based on a particular design. It's very important to me that each design is unique. There is so much mass produced stuff around and it just has no soul. It's okay for every day things, but with jewellery I feel it's important that it is an extension of yourself. Quite often it's not possible to create the same design again because I either use things like seaglass in my designs where each piece is unique anyway, and also because I only buy small quantities of beads, so often don't have more than just a few of the same bead (especially feature beads, rather than seed beads) to make the same design again.

White Charm Ring

The original ring design can be see on my website.

This is lovely charm ring. I've hung up little glass flower beads (three different types) from one loop, then added a tiny dragonfly charm and wrapped a double ivy leaf around the loop for texture. This looks lovely on. I am very pleased with it.


Lizard Mobile Phone Charm

This little charm is based on another charm with a lizard on my website.

I like the natural feel of it with the lizard charm at the end and the leaves and star flower.

Here's a close-up of the charms:


Rainbow Daisy Chain Necklace

I love the idea of daisy chains. I remember making them when I was a kid. Using all the colours of the rainbow in this necklace makes it even more fun though, than if I'd used just white flowers. AND it goes with everything. All of the flowers are glass and I used good quality seed beads, frosted glass leaves and little lustred Miyuki drops in pale green to make the chain. Everything is threaded on pale green tiger tail and the findings (clasp, jump rings, cord ends) are all silver plated.

Here's a view of the necklace hanging down, so you get an idea how it would look like when worn.


Please feel free to contact me for commissions. Either through my website or my Etsy Shop.

Note: I am just in the process of uploading new designs to my Etsy shop. However, I will showcase all the items here.