Another pre-Christmas commission....

Mark came to me a short while back with his own plans on an engagement ring to WOW the better half.

Here is the result a stunning diamond set in platinum.

Money Clips. The perfect present.

A perfect present for the man (or gal) who has everything.

You can have your own short quote added or just go for initials or a date.

It is your choice. check out my Etsy shop for more details.

Sparkling Diamonds....

A recent commission for Paul.

A sparkling 0.18ct Princess Cut Diamond set in 9k yellow gold.

If you would like to see some more photos of this commission or my other recent commissions, then please have a look at my Flickr account.

Hitree - Tree's to hug.

A wonderful little Etsy shop called Hitree.


Here is the low down in hitree's own words


This is Mr. Oak Tree. He's a pillow for your head! If you are a tree hugger, than Mr. Oak Tree was made just for you!
His dimensions are: 19"tall x 21"wide x about 6"-7" thick.
He will make your couch or bed look extra cute.






FYI: this is a picture of just one oak tree pillow. they are all slightly different, but the same dimensions!

Pop over and have a look at the shop. Hitree.

Win a £50 ($75) Voucher.

Everyone who subscribes to my Newsletter in December will be entered into a Prize Draw for a £50 ($75) voucher.

The winner can then spend the voucher in my Etsy shop or at my personal website.



Voucher cannot be exchanged for cash and must be redeemed before 1st March 2009.

To join the newsletter, simply click here -
Sign up for my free newsletter for your chance to WIN!

So good I had to buy one.....

I stumbled across this Etsy shop and loved one of the books so much, I just had to buy one.

Froydis Faire Books speciliase in up-cycling old books. Here is a brief description in their own words.

Whatever their story, I have a difficult time passing these lovelies by. Recently, I've decided to rescue some, and give them the opportunity for a new life. I take out old, ripped text blocks, remove the pages that are unsalvageable, and clean up the cover as well as I can. I then add new pages - sketch papers, and sometimes art papers and tracing papers - new endpapers, and bookmarker ribbons. With the bumps and bruises that cannot be removed, these old friends retain the mystery of their past so that, perhaps, a new owner will see their value, fill them with their own words and images, and treasure them for years to come.

So pop on over and treat yourself to a unique present.

Blog re-design.

I have been working away at the new blog design.

I have added some advertising space on the left column, so if you would like to reach thousands of visitors every month, then please drop me a line and let me know which spot you would like.

Adverts will range from $10 - $40 depending how high you would like to appear. Discounts are available for those purchasing more than one month.

Jewellery Blog Carnival...

The jewelery blog carnival is back again.

What is it? I hear you ask. Well each month a group of talented jewellers talk about the same topic on their blogs. I am lucky enough to tag along on this little event.

So this months topic "What are you grateful for, jewellery wise?"

I am grateful for the fact that virtual each and every commission I do is unique.

i love the fact that I don't have to make the same thing time and time again, which for me would bore me to tears.

I work to commission which means that one day I can be working on Art Deco inspired cuff links and the next day, I can be setting a 3ct pink sapphire into an engagement ring.

So I am grateful for the fact that I never know what I am going to be asked to make next. It makes going to work very exciting and I think if you can't wait to get to work, that is a great position to be in.

I am also very grateful that I am part of this wonderful Carnival and I can't wait to see what the other jewellers are going to write about.

Check their blogs yourself.






Tonya Davidson
Lorrene Davis
Marco Fleseri
Tamra Gentry
Lora Hart
Elaine Luther
Kirsten Skiles
Angela Crispin

Silver Bike Chain.

A recent commission to make a heavy weight bike chain in sterling silver and for the fastener to have a blue sapphire set into it.

All handmade. Please visit my flickr account for even more photos.

Been tagged by....

You just can't hide on the web, can you? I have been tagged by KMJewelryStudio

This sounds like fun and here is what I have to do......

Here's how this works:THE RULES:*

*Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
*Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
* Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their name as well as links to their blog.
* Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So here are my seven facts.....

1. I used to be the General Manager of a restaurant, for a UK national chain. I had about 100 staff and in the end I got so fed up with the company politics, that I left and went to Uni to study Silversmithing and jewellery Design.

2. I have a piano, would love to learn, but just never got around to it.

3. I have just taken on a wonderful (employee is a horrible word) apprentice. Eva is so eager to learn and it is great having someone else in the workshop.

4. Big fan of Terry Pratchett. Great books.

5. Nothing is funnier than Monty Python. err, perhaps Frasier and MASH. Umm Have I got News for you, ...OK lots of things are funny, but I do like Monty Python.

6. Probably one of the best films I have ever seen is the 1939 Citizen Kane. Considering when it was made it is a masterclass of film making.

7. I love buying new tools.

there you are 7 bits of trivia baout me. Here are my nominated seven bloggers.

In no particular order...

1. http://www.mkwind.blogspot.com/

2. http://www.adventuresincolor.blogspot.com/

3. http://istanbuldesigns.com/blog/

4. http://www.emeliaro.blogspot.com/

5. http://www.lynetteandreasen.blogspot.com/

6. http://daniellemillerjewelry.blogspot.com/

7. http://esdesignsjewelry.com/blog/

Monty Python Cuff Links

A recent commission inspired from Monty Python's "The Quest for the Holy Grail"

Here is part one of the step by step process used to make the cuff links







The first step is to use some jewellers wax, a small square setion was cut from this.











After cutting the required small rectangle, the edges were filed so they were fairly smooth.









Some measurements were made and the rectabgle was given two sloping tops.










Here you can see that I have now carved out a hollow inside the shape.









Getting there. Here four small wheels have been added to the shape and detail has been engraved onto the sides to represent the wooden planks that the rabbit from the film is made from.








You'll have to pop back to see the next step, in making the cuff links......coming soon.

Back from hols.......

fresh back from a lovely holiday in the Welsh mountains.......

I am very excited as I have a new tool being delivered hopefully this week, maybe next week which I have a whole load of ideas for. I'll let you know more about it when it has arrived, but I had to build a new workbench just to house it!!!

I have a few commissions that need finishing and posting and I will then have some time to play with my new tool....I am so very excited.

I will be opening a brand new website to house all the lovely things that I will be able to make so more news will follow on the new website as and when I have something to tell you all....

A photo of my little shop.

Here is an internal photo of my shop.

I have just had a delivery from Belle and Boo of framed prints, and they went straight up on the wall.

A Celtic weave.....

I simply love making rings to commission.

It is just so much more personal when I make from scratch an engagement ring for a couple.

Here the theme for the setting were "Celtic" weave hearts. To add interest to the setting, the ring shank shoulders were finished with tiny little scrolls.

Made in 18k white gold and set with a sparkling 41pt diamond.

Been busy in the workshop today

Danielle came to see me to discuss a commission to celebrate her upcoming birthday.

The outcome of that chat was this design.

A "holly" shaped heart with a ribbon. Made from scratch in sterling silver and hallmarked on the back at The London Assay Office.

If you have an idea for your own commission, drop me a line.

My latest commission

A recent commission for Heather.

A bespoke design made in Platinum.

The leaves and vine have been highly polished and the background has been given a lovely satin finish.

New find on Etsy

I really like these little shot glasses that I came across on Etsy.

I am really into the whole "grunge" theme at the moment and i love the non structured style of these little pots.

You can visit their Etsy shop by clicking HERE

If you have any suggestions of GREAT sellers then please drop me a line.

Featured on "Man Made Market"

I am honoured to have been featured on "Man Made Market"

So please pop over there and you can have a little read about little ol' me.

Back from my hols..........

Hi all

I am freshly back from summer hols and will back to posting here on the blog with some regularity.

I am currenlty plodding my way through my "Inbox" and making a start on the orders that came through whilst I was away on hols.

New Website Launched

Just before I disappear away on holiday

Here is my brand new website.........

www.chris-parry.co.uk

Let me know what you think. It has been a long time in the writing and I still have a bunch of pages to finish writing in the category pages, which I will do when I return from my summer break.

Bye for now.

Off on my hols......

It is that time of the year again and I will shortly be off on my hols.

So thanks for stopping by and please pop back in Septemeber.

Custom handmade wedding ring.

Another custom wedding ring made to fit around an existing engagement ring.

This ring was made in 9k white gold and set with a 2mm sparkling diamond.

I get asked an awful lot to make "odd" shaped wedding rings to fit around engagement rings and I really enjoy the challenge. There are a whole bunch of pics of past commissions on my Flickr page

18k white gold and sterling silver

A recent wedding ring commission for a highly individual ring.

The main body of the ring is in 18k white gold with small interlocking sterling silver sections.

You can see more of my recent work over at my Flickr page.

Jewellery Blog Carnival - July

My favourite manual tool.

Welcome to my piece of the web. Once a month a whole bunch of metal smiths write a short aticle on a given topic and this months topic is "My favourite manual tool." You can visit each artist's blog and have a good nose. You'll find the links below.......

So what is my favourite manual tool?

Got to be quite simply the hammer. I have a whole bunch of them and they all have their own little specific purpose. You can't just go grabbing the nearest hammer "oh no!!". You have to use the right hammer for the job.

I reckon on every single commission I make, I use a hammer at least once, so it has to be the most valueable tool.

For instance you can take a flat piece of metal and turn it from this;




























The small curved cone was made to replace a broken stem on a 130 year old trophy.

So whilst it isn't a very sexy tool, it can produce fabulous results.

Here are the other bloggers, go have a look to see what their special tool is

http://lorahartjewels.blogspot.com/

http://www.creativetexturetools.com/news/

http://www.kaskiles.com/

http://www.fleseri.com/blog/

http://angelacrispin.canalblog.com/

http://penny-candies.blogspot.com/

http://gentrydesignco.typepad.com/jewelrydesignchronicles/

http://www.lorrene-davis-designs.blogspot.com

Custom Spinner - 9k white and yeloow gold

A recent commission for Phil.

Here is a hammered 9k white gold cental section which spins freely on a 9k yellow gold ring.

Handmade just for Phil.

9k Yellow Gold Guitar Pick - Plectrum

For the guy or gal who has everything.

Fully hallmarked 9k yellow gold guitar pick.

Enough said really......

Wednesday Weddings

Another recent commission.

The majority of the ring is in platinum, with a small section of 18k white gold inset with a small "wave" detail engraved.

The beauty of using white gold next to platinum is the slight colour variation.

The ring was finished off with two flush set diamonds.

A recent commission......

Tania came to me and wanted a very wide band set with 40 diamonds.

Here is the finished result.

It is a shame that my photography skills aren't upto scratch as this little ring really sparkled.

A recent commission for a wedding band.

9k white and rose gold with entwined leaves and three diamonds.

The whole ring was finished with a mild satin finish.

Friday Finds.....

What a cool bottle opener.

Their words on this item

"I enjoy strolls along the tracks for any number of reasons. One of the highlights is overhearing railroad spikes calling out to me who would really like to find a higher purpose in life.

I found this spike, heated it until it glowed orange, beat it with my hammer, gripped it in my vise, and twisted the bejesus out of it in order to create this hefty-yet-elegant bottle opener. It feels wonderful in the hand, comfortably opens even the strongest beer, and looks great sitting on the counter in the kitchen, or on the shelf behind the bar.

Bring this delightful piece of recycled steel into your home, and you'll be sure to start a great many conversations! Not to mention enjoy many of your favorite beverages in new style."

So pop over and have a look at their Etsy shop, just CLICK HERE

Fabulous Fire Pits.---- Friday Finds

I came across this guy's work and I just love them.

Re-cycled steel cylnders are hand cut, making these fantastic fire pits.

Quite stunning for making a focal point in the garden.

Visit his shop and see more great fire pits by clicking HERE

Tuesday Artwork Time........

I love this type of art.

superfay describes it as:

This is one in a series inspired by a character in Dickens' Bleak House. Miss Flite owns twenty-five birds, each with an allegorical name such as youth, beauty, ashes, despair, plunder, etc.

This little cage is a bit over 5 inches tall & 2 1/2 inches in diameter.

It is of course somewhat fragile.

----

Please visit the Etsy shop to see more wonderful work.
Just click HERE

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Monday Musings

I have been thinking about my "new Project" that I am going to undertake. This will be a theme which I will explore and from that exploartion will hopefully evolve some new jewellery designs.

So that hardest thing, is to create the theme for which I should explore.

So I am now going to grab a dictionary and randomly select 10 words, here goes :

Navel
Gory
Crayon
Jet
Receptor
turnabout
Feeler
cog
Avenge
Dapper

So I now have my 10 randomly selected words. what to chose and how to chose!!!!

I think for started I will select two words at random and see if that is a direction to move in.

So the two words chosen are Feeler and Avenge ( I asked my two kids to pick a number between one and ten)

So that will be my starting point for my new project

Avenge Feeler.

Now to write the brief.

The BRIEF

Explore the words "Avenge Feeler" using drawing, painting, writing and by making models in a wide range of materials.

Narrow down this exploration into a series of wearable pieces of jewellery. This jewellery can be in any format, be it rings, earrings, brooches or the like.

Produce and make for sale at least three items that follow your theme.

Saturday Ramblings------my new quest.

Creating a new range of jewellery is about research, experimentation and lots of soul searching. It has been a very long time since I embarked on such a journey.

Typically my working day revolves around creating a new and unique piece of jewellery for a client, based on their brief. Whilst this is very interesting and very exxciting working for the client, it never leads onto a body of work, as I simply don't have the time to invest in all the research.

So starting today, I will be setting my very own brief, to explore a theme, as yet undecided.

It is all very exciting, as I have no idea where this new project will lead and ultimately what designs will come from it.

I think, writing about the process and documenting it here, is a better motivation tool than doing it just privately.

So feel free to pop by my blog and catch up on my progress.

Friday Finds-----etcArts

Some beautiful maroon bowls by etcArts. You can visit their Etsy shop by clicking HERE

Based in the USA but shipping available worldwide.

Not only do the bowls look top notch, but I think the photo is fab as well.

Pop by and have a look at the shop.

Instructables.com.........Thursday Tutorials.

So Thursdays are reserved for tutorials.

I enjoy having a wander through www.instructables.com.

It is a user created site where anyone can upload their own tutorial on any subject. The users of the site can then vote on it and there is also the odd competition.

I submitted my very own tutorial 2 months ago and as we speak it has had over 40,000 views. So pop by and have a look at my instrucatable or have a browse in general.

Click Here

A recnet commission - Wednesday Weddings

Welcome to Wednesday Weddings. Here is a commission recently undertaken for Ruth and Martin.

Ruth had a rather beautiful, Art Deco style engagement ring with a green diamond flanked by two baguette diamonds.

The brief from Ruth was to create a wedding band with a cut-out section so that the two rings could nestle together nicely and to set it with two matching green diamonds.

I am afraid the lovely green colour of the diamonds is slightly lost in my photo.

Front Page on Etsy.

It is always nice to see your work, selected by others and it hits the front page of Etsy.

I am over the moon.

Edit - 20 seconds after I took this screen grab, it sold, so it was a very short lived fame. Booo. But I made a sale . Yaay. But I am not on the front page any more. Boo. But it will be going to a happy home. Yay.

A fabulous artist - Tuesday Artwork.

So welcome to Tuesday Artday.

On Tuesday's I explore the artworld and hopefully bring you some beautiful images that may have escaped you.

I love the work of Michele and the simplicity of her art. you can view more images of her work at her Etsy shop

Original ink drawings coloured with gouache. so lovely, that I bought three little ACEO's myself. I can only say of them, that the photos don't do the art any justice and I just love my new purchases.

What do you do to jump start or stretch your creativity?

So this is the question posed by a fab group of jewellers. I am a member of Jewellery Carnival and here are the others

http://lorahartjewels.blogspot.com/

http://www.creativetexturetools.com/news/

http://www.kaskiles.com/

http://www.fleseri.com/blog/

http://angelacrispin.canalblog.com/

http://penny-candies.blogspot.com/

http://gentrydesignco.typepad.com/jewelrydesignchronicles/

http://www.lorrene-davis-designs.blogspot.com

They will all be answering this question today on their blogs, so pop by them all and see what words of wisdom they have, as for me, read on and I will give you my answer.

What do you do to jump start or stretch your creativity?

For me, creativity starts with a question. ( I haven't actually done this in a long while as most of my work nowadays is from direct briefs from clients to make bespoke items. So the inspiration comes from the clients own requirements.)

The question which kick starts my creativity is a simple one. What does X mean? It doesn't really matter what the "X" is so here are some examples

-What is love?
-what is imprisonment?
-What is danger?
-What is pattern?
-What is flight?

The list goes on and you can imply inject the word / phrase/thought that turns you on.

I write the question down , then try to answer it in as many ways as I can, both literally and laterally. I brainstorm the theme and put down on papaer as many ideas as I can about the question.

From those scribbles, I then get a particular part that I would like to explore further.

So just one line of thought might go something like this......

What is flight? - fly-flying-freedom-air-escape-space-sea-we all fly- birds fly in the air- fish fly in the sea- we fly on the ground-to run- to evade- to flee- to be pursued-criminals-police-good-bad-world war II-Nazis-Jews- camps stopped the flight- freedom-we are all free- we are never free- free from work-haave to work- jobs imprison us- the homeless are free- nothing to worry about-worryless-free from concern-happy.

So this is just a very small snapshot of the type of thing I would do. then I find myself focusing on one aspect of the scrawlings. The idea of being fre, having a home and a job, but you aren't really free, you are a prisoner of your financial commitments. You have to work to pay the bills for the home you don't own.

I would then start up a list of things to draw that would help to explore this idea. So homes are our jailors, they allow us out in the morning to go to work to earn the money to pay for them, then we have to go home at night to sleep and they imprison us once more.

so now with an idea I would be out drawing doors, windows, and anything that connected with this thought process of freedom /flight. I might draw a front door, a lock, a window, a commuter, the train station - taking people to work - so that they can pay for their homes.

This would then continue until I am happy that I have a whole bunch of sketches. It might happen over just a day or a week or several months. Then from these drawings, I would start to refine futher sketches until something started to develop. Once I had a drawing that I liked, I would start to mess with materials. paper, string, mud, food, - whatever was required to bring those images to life. These models would then be the 3D starting point to making an item in metal and ultimately into a piece of jewellery.

Repairing a broken trophy

The mending of a trophy 130 years old.

I had to repair a trophy that was brought to me. The first thing was to make a simple cone, then shape it to fit the trophy base.

















































































I have now soldered the cone to the trophy base, having removed the old broken one.






























Soldering the trophy back together again