​Happy new year everyone! I had quite a big break over Christmas as we were entertaining a lot of people during the festive period. Something about moving into a new house seems to make people want to visit…

Before I got consumed by cleaning and cooking and general hosting I was absorbed in a couple of commissions people asked me to make for Christmas gifts. As I mentioned in a previous post one of my sister’s colleagues asked me to make identical necklaces for her daughters. I came up with three designs and luckily she liked all of them! She picked one and I got to work. I really thought it wasn’t going to take me long, but I had so many set backs throughout the process, not least when I was carefully getting the metal clay out of the dehydrator and managed to drop one of the pieces on the floor… of course it smashed and wasn’t worth fixing. I could have cried! However I finished them in the end and even got them hallmarked, my first things to go to the assay office. I was so excited to get them back and felt really proud of myself when I saw that official mark on my work. 

The second commission I had was from my husband who asked me to make something for his supervisor. My only brief was that “she always wears dangly earrings”… thanks dear! I came up with several designs and he picked one out immediately. Thankfully I didn’t have any breakages this time and have heard that she loved them.

The last thing I made before Christmas was a bit of a self set commission and quite a big project. My mother-in-law had mentioned that she would like a fox brooch and I was keen to practise wax carving. I had an idea in my head and got started the next day. It took me a long time to complete the carving, but I wanted to make it is perfect as possible. The more work you do on the wax version, the less you need to do to clean it back up once it has been cast in silver. I am so pleased with my fox and my mother-in-law was thrilled with it. I would say it is the best thing I have made so far and it enabled me to design my first collection. I was feeling a bit uninspired, but after I had experimented with the wax and saw how it could be manipulated I felt much more creative.

Now it's the new year and it’s time to start work again. I have the designs for my collection all drawn out so all that’s left is for me to get back down the workshop and start carving!

​This week I attended the ‘Make Your Mark’ event at the London Assay Office at Goldsmith’s Hall. The main focus of the event was to promote having your work hall marked. This is a legal requirement in the UK for items produced in precious metals over a certain weight. The weight varies depending on the type of metal. The talk was full of interesting facts about the history of hall marking and the London Assay Office itself. The speakers also went through the different parts that the mark is made up of; the maker’s individual sign usually made up of initials inside a shape, the type and quality of the metal, the place where it is stamped and the date. The mark can either be applied via laser or traditional stamp hammered into the metal. I’m looking forward to creating my mark and taking my first piece of jewellery to be stamped.

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I decided to give wax carving a try. I ordered the materials I needed as a kit and waited several weeks for it to arrive. I phoned up a couple of times and was told that the items were out of stock and the date kept moving further and further back which was frustrating, especially as I had been using the time to design some pieces and wanted to create them in real life. In the end I cancelled the order of the kit and reordered the items individually and they turned up the very next day! I’ve already started carving a ring and it’s taking shape nicely. I should be able to finish it off next week and move on to my next design.

I’m very excited as this week I received my first commission! A recommendation through my sister, one of her colleagues has asked me to make Christmas presents for her daughters. So this week I am going to have to get my thinking cap on to get some designs done based on the brief she has given me to get them made in time. Luckily we still have a few weeks to go but it is creeping ever closer. I can’t believe that we are into November already.

Anyway, I’m off to register for a hall mark and then put pen to paper!