Featured Item. Owl Necklace

 

This weeks featured item is the Owl Necklace from my online shop Fashion Magpie Jewellery.

The owl necklace is a bronze coin which was pressed onto a pattern with a Vintaj Big Kick embossing machine. The embossing machine rolls the blank coin with a deco embossing pad sandwiched between to clear pieces of plastic. The rolls pressed the coin down onto the pattern and emboss it.

Next I took the patterned coin and polished it with a nail file pad. This technique helps to polish only the pattern on the coin and relieves it. The next step was to add colour, I did this using Vintaj's patina ink which I dabbed onto the coin with a paint brush. the colour I used is called Moss green. Before it dries and while its still tacky I took the nail file pad to it again and polished the patina from the pattern so the green only remained on the background.

 

 

To keep the shine I coated the entire coin in patina glaze, again by Vintaj. this helps to keep the metal pristine.

When the coin had dried I wrapped a four star shaped filigree around the back and then added holes with a hole punch where I wanted the owl to hang from (it already had the hole in the top.) 

 

 

The owl is a bronze charm with a front and back to the owl. I hung him from a jump ring and added him to the bottom of the coin.

The chain is made up of a mixture of 8mm bronze filigree beads and 3 beads together, 2 brown beads and a moss green faux pearl. 

 

 

 

To buy the Owl Necklace it is £12.95 with £3.20 UK postage and packaging.

You can find Fashion Magpie Jewellery at the below links

Folksy Website www.folksy.com/shops/fashionmagpiejewellery

Etsy Website www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FashionMagpieJewels

Facebook www.facebook.com/fashionmagpiejewellery

Pinterest http://uk.pinterest.com/fmjewellery/

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

To be the first to hear the latest news from Fashion Magpie Jewellery blog you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+

Featured item. Red and blue necklace

Each week I take a piece of my jewellery from my shop to write about for you in my featured items blog post. I aim to use this post as a insight into the inner working of Fashion Magpie jewellery.

This week I have chosen to feature the red and blue necklace, which is one of my favourite Jewel enamel pieces.

As with most of my necklace pieces I started with the pendant. It's this pendant which I love the most about the necklace. It's a plain brass coloured disc but it's the Jewel enamel within which really catches the eye. This piece typifies how unpredictable the Jewel enamel is. I used sapphire blue and Burmese flame.
Burmese Flame jewel enamel is my favourite jewel enamel. When it first melts it has a pure gold glaze over the top of the colour, so if you pour it straight away you will get a deep bright red with hints of gold in it. However if its left a little longer the gold disappears and your left with the red you can see in this necklace.
I love the way the pendant almost looks like an alien world, with blue seas and red continents. Perhaps this is what Mars used to look like?

The chain on this necklace is made up of a mixture of red beads with turquoise crackle glass beads. I wanted to keep the look of this being of another world, so the red beads all look like stones and the crackle beads look like the oceans whirling around.

I'm really pleased with how well the colours all match up in this necklace. Measuring 24 inches long, it would be ideally worn with a high necklace top to best show it off.

 

To buy the Red and Blue Necklace it is £12.95 with £3.20 UK postage and packaging.

You can find Fashion Magpie Jewellery at the below links

Folksy Website www.folksy.com/shops/fashionmagpiejewellery

Etsy Website www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FashionMagpieJewels

Facebook www.facebook.com/fashionmagpiejewellery

Pinterest http://uk.pinterest.com/fmjewellery/

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

To be the first to hear the latest news from Fashion Magpie Jewellery blog you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+

Featured Item Purple Necklace and Stud Earrings Set.

Welcome to the first featured item post of 2016, featuring the purple necklace and earrings set.
The featured item blog posts are an insight into how the items featured came to be made. This set started off as just the pendant and stud earrings, which are made of Jewel Enamel. Jewel Enamel is a type of Ultra Thick Embossing Enamel or UTEE for short. This UTEE starts life as a powder which has granules like sugar, its then melted down in a melting pot which doesn't take long. It can then be poured into a mould and looks a little like a subtle glittery marble. The glittery quality can only be seen when in bright lights or outdoors. Jewel enamel sets in less then a minute which makes it a perfect substance to work with.
With this set I heat shined the jewel enamel which involves carefully heating the top level of jewel enamel with a heat gun. It turns to liquid again then sets immediately after the heat source is taken away again to reveal a shiny surface. This technique gave more definition to the swirls in the pendant and makes it look like there is several different layers to the purple.

The earrings where harder to make than the pendant due to there size. The bigger the piece your pouring into the easier it is to pour. I had to be careful not to pour to quickly because it runs out of the melting pot quickly and its hard to judge when to stop the flow before it overflows. Jewel enamel gets darker with time, the longer its left in the melting pot which isn't a good thing when you want items like these to match! I got there eventually there and I'm pleased with the results.

 

 

The necklace took time to decide upon but after a trip to Hobbycraft and a new stash of beads (couldn't help myself!) I found the perfect beads for the projects. They are a deep purple crystal bead, 8mm in size with a facet that helps compliment the glitter of the jewel enamel. I coupled these with 2 bronze toned Swarovski crystals to keep attention on the pendant. I used my Vintaj bead looper and set to work stringing then in a Y shape, When I'd finished the necklace hung 16inches and I used a lobster claw fastening for the clasp.

 

 

I think the set looks very elegant on, the sort of thing you'd see an actress wearing on the set of a period drama perhaps. What do you think?

 

To buy the purple necklace and stud earrings set it is £19.99 with £3.20 UK postage and packaging.

You can find Fashion Magpie Jewellery at the below links

Folksy Website www.folksy.com/shops/fashionmagpiejewellery

Etsy Website www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FashionMagpieJewels

Facebook www.facebook.com/fashionmagpiejewellery

Pinterest http://uk.pinterest.com/fmjewellery/

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

To be the first to hear the latest news from Fashion Magpie Jewellery blog you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+

Most Popular Blog Posts in 2015

 

A look at the inspiration which lead to the Blue Clock Charm Bracelet.

Click here to read

 

A closer look at the inspiration behind the Three Pendant Necklace

Click here to read

 

August was one of the first months which started the monthly 'what's new' blog post, and it was a massive success

Click here to read

 

This Folksy Friday was by far and away the most popular Folksy Friday of 2015, published for Halloween.

Click here to read.

 

The blue flower necklace post was the most popular post 2015 and still gets a lot of hits today, it's also the most revealing post I've wrote.
Click here to read



You can find Fashion Magpie Jewellery at the below links

Folksy Website www.folksy.com/shops/fashionmagpiejewellery

Etsy Website www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FashionMagpieJewels

Facebook www.facebook.com/fashionmagpiejewellery

Pinterest http://uk.pinterest.com/fmjewellery/

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

To be the first to hear the latest news from Fashion Magpie Jewellery blog you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+

Featured Item. Blue Heart Necklace

This week the featured item from my shop is the Blue Heart Necklace.
This necklace was inspired by the heart of the ocean necklace a replica of which is worn by Kate Winslet in the blockbuster Titanic.

To explain how this necklace came about I first need to explain a little about last year when I was coming up with the idea for this necklace.
At the beginning of 2014, my nana was dying she had cancer and it was gradually taking over her whole body. Over her years she had picked up various bit and pieces of arts and craft and tried them then stored them. Unfortunately she was now too ill to put them to use and knowing her granddaughters where just as crazy about arts and craft as she was, she called us all up and had us come over. She told us all her hiding places and we happily spread the pieces out among our selves and listened to her tell us stories about the pieces she made and how easy or hard she had found doing them. In my stash of items I had found beads and clasps. Nana said she had tried jewellery making because she loved the pieces I had made and decided to give it a go. She reminisced about a beautiful springy bracelet and spending ages threading the beads together only for it to spring from her fingers and send beads flying through the air. Her fingers weren't strong enough to do the loops which jewellery making demands so in the end she had admitted defeat and packed it all away. (She said granddad was getting sick of cleaning up all the beads anyway!)
In one pack of clasps I received gratefully that day was the flower clasps used in this design although it would be a few months more before I would use them.
By August of 2014 I had started to blog regularly and one of those first posts was a post about the heart of the ocean diamond. ( if you'd like to read it click here) The movie prop had always been one of my favourite pieces of jewellery from any movie and even more so after researching it for the blog post.
so I sat down with my jewellery enamel one night and made the heart pendant of this necklace with sapphire jewel enamel and a pinch of black to darken the colour down a bit. The result looked fantastic as I heat polished by warming it up with a heat gun until the surface just started to melt. The heat brings out the colours and gives it a shine.
I thought about just adding it straight onto the chain but instead decided to take a look in my box to make sure there wasn't anything else I could do. It looked a little plain sat on the chain all by it's self.
Sure enough the first thing I saw when I opened the box was the flower clasps from nana. I smiled and couldn't help but wonder if nana had guided me to them!
I decided instead of using them as a clasp behind the neck I would use them as part of the pendant design.
Ever since making this necklace I have loved it and it remains one of my favourite pieces in my shop, I have to admit I will be a little sad to see it go when it eventually sells but at least I know it'll be loved and worn!

If you would like to be the one to buy this Blue Heart Necklace, it is £12.50 with £3.20 UK Postage and packaging. I do also post aboard.

It will come to you wrapped and in an organza gift bag.

You can find Fashion Magpie Jewellery at the below links

Folksy Website www.folksy.com/shops/fashionmagpiejewellery

Etsy Website www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FashionMagpieJewels

Facebook www.facebook.com/fashionmagpiejewellery

Pinterest http://uk.pinterest.com/fmjewellery/

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

 

To be the first to hear the latest news from Fashion Magpie Jewellery blog you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+