Bangle Magic - Roman Bangle and Wave Bangles

Had some fun with copper and cool blue or rather sea foam blue green beads:

Roman Bangle

This reminded me of Roman mosaics in a pool.



I started off with a heavy gauge copper wire and shaped and hammered it, filing and sanding any sharp bits.


I then started adding the beads with fine copper wire.


You can see below the beads I've used: amazonite cubes in shades of blue, pale green jade cubes and lovely pale blue aquamarine (rectangle) beads. I've finished it off with a 3 very, very pale green Magatama drops. It took me about half a day to wrap all the beads around, there are loads of them to achieve this lovely mosaic effect.



Wave Bangle: Copper

I really had fun with this, although my hands wouldn't agree.

This is my wave bangle:



I first cut it out of copper sheet, then filed and sanded it smooth.

Finally, I added some handmade hole to pull it together and hammered it some more over a bangle mandrel. I added some handmade jump rings, a handmade copper fish, a little handmade wire spiral and some lovely watery Magatama drops to finish it off.

Here's the bangle just after cutting:

Here you can see close up how the shapes look before filing. You can only get so close to the design with a pair of tin snips!

It took me almost a day to finish this.



Wave Bangle: Fine Silver

This was made from Fine Silver sheet in the same way as the bangle above, although I freehand designed the wave pattern in each case rather than creating a template.


Here you can see the front (top) and back (bottom) of the bangle in more detail.


This is the bangle from the top. To get it this round you really need a bangle mandrel, especially with the little waves that just want to stick out until you hammer them into place.

Below you can also see the two little fish charms and jump rings (all handmade of course).


The Fine Silver Wave is not for sale, the other two bangles will be available from my Etsy shop soon.

Works in progress - Lotus Blossom Set, Stargazer Lily Earrings and Swallow

I thought the process on how I make some of my jewellery might interest you. I've recently been making lots of shapes from copper and brass sheet. Here are a few examples of works in progress. The next post will show some of them as the finished articles. The process itself is quite long winded and it took me all day to make the items below. Just to give you an idea of the work involved.


I started off with a paper template for this lotus blossom. Then I drew around it with pencil and cut it out with tin snips. (This is 0.3mm copper sheet.) At this point the edges are quite sharp and bend every which way.

I then cut out another sligthly smaller shape to make the lotus blossom 3D.


Here you can see how the two parts fit together after filing and drilling holes and shaping.



I added two more smaller lotus blossoms for earrings.

Before filing and shaping:


After filing and shaping:



My next project were two stargazer lily shapes for earrings. As you can see they are very small, and were quite difficult to handle. Below on the right is the shaped and filed lily. The one on the left has not been filed or shaped yet.



Here are the finished lilies, complete with oxidisation. I've used a pencil blow torch as I found I get a greater variety in colour and texture. Now they're finished, the stargazer lilies have a very natural feel about them and look a bit like star anise.


Here's a close-up to show the texture and colour:



This is project number three. Again, I've made a template for the swallow, then cut it out of copper sheet, filed and shaped it, then used embossing tools to add detail.


I've also oxidised the bird slightly to add some more texture and more colour to the embossed detail, however I will use liver of sulphur to bring out the detail even more.



Here are all the projects together, finished and all the sharp edges, left after filing and shaping, removed:


And here's a sampling of the tools I've used: