Hope everyone's having happy handmade holidays - if not presents then food at least, yes? Now that the big day is over, I can finally share the bits and bobs that emerged over the past couple of weeks.

Some of my own personal gifts this year:


From left to right:

1) Earrings for my mum - when I saw these Swarovski crystal drops I immediately thought of her. Her favourite colour, you see.

2) Nesting necklace for my cousin Janice - who is expecting a little one in a few more months. She recently went on a shopping spree too :P

3) Long dark drapey necklace for WG - who laments having "few cool possessions" and not being able to carry off most things. Incidentally, this is the first piece of a new collection I have in the works... stay tuned.

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I was also tasked to come up with some pressies on specific budgets... LOL. Well, I thought I rose to the challenge reasonably well... :X

After endless discussion about size, colours and style, and the subsequent component hunting, these impossibly petite earrings emerged:


Also in the set is this necklace with complementary colours and floral theme:


Girly? A little out of my comfort zone, perhaps. But there was also this bracelet that I enjoyed working on, because from what I understood, the recipient likes the sort of colours and style to which I'm quite partial myself.


So autumny and woodlandy. Made with smokey quartz, warm-hued quartz rounds, a variety of Czech glass leaves and flowers and antiqued brass findings.

Meanwhile, presents for office colleagues were on another Santa's list:


On the left, bookmarks with various gemstone and glass charms. I don't know how many people still read physical books in this iPad age, but I know I do and am always scrabbling around for bookmarks that are not old receipts or paper napkins. It doesn't help that I usually happen to be concurrently in the middle of 289 books and magazines.

On the right, a small selection of bobby pin pairs that I also ended up adding to the Fiorissimo collection (which includes pairs and trios). I really love those resin flowers - everything about them is a delight from the soft, un-gaudy shades to the well-made, petal-perfect details.

And now it's back to work. Had to take a break the past 3 days but really gotta hit the ground running tomorrow.

In between getting back to yoga classes, last week I was also working on this request from someone who liked The Subtle Sky bracelet and wanted a necklace made from a similar mix - but in sterling silver instead of antiqued brass. I substituted the matte gold drops for shiny silver ones, and added a touch of pale taupe to lend some softness and warmth to the light, icy tones. Well over a hundred little charms were made and secured onto the large-link chain base, which was then finished off with one of my coiled clasps. I can honestly say it was impossible trying to work within the budget. But the end result is worth it, and I was also asked to do up some matching earrings.

I got a 17-70mm f2.8-4 macro lens last year to replace the (mostly crappy) standard kit lens that comes with DSLRs... and am ashamed to admit that I haven't really used it much. It's obviously great outdoors when I need to zoom in on something, or close-quarter situations where I need a wide angle to fit everything in. I just always reached for my 50mm macro lens when shooting jewellery or other small objects because I was used to that setup, and it's really the most reliable where sharpness is concerned.

So I used the 17-70mm on these shots of a commissioned necklace today... actually they're not too bad. I can't go all the way up to f2.8, but f4 is decent enough:


Can't tell the difference, can you? I think this lens is going to be a great travel companion - can't wait to take it with me :D

The first new piece of jewellery I've made in 3 months is a necklace that was commissioned back in November. This isn't my normal turnaround time, but I have been going through a rut of indifference on the crafting front. Distractions, disillusionment, even mild depression. It wasn't even due to a lack of inspiration - I found myself not caring and just not wanting to think about anything to do with all these little shiny things.

My bad :(

So I didn't really want to publish this until I was certain the client was happy with the design.... but here it is, pictured below with these earrings they were created to coordinate with (to be worn to a wedding! whee!). I'm not very satisfied with the photos, but still:


Featuring the same chatoyant grey moonstone pebbles and bunches of sparkly Songea sapphires, on 14K goldfill and 24K gold vermeil. I love this particular gem combination; it has all my favourite contrasts of colour, form and texture.

A commission I finished off today: cascade earrings to complement the Violet's Blue Jeans bracelet. My right index finger hurts because I haven't done this in a while... but in a good way. I should but can't quite think of anything else to say now because it's almost 2am and I've been sleepy for the past 3 hours, so... g'nite world.

I can't really take a decent pic of it to save my life, but here is one of my commissioned pieces - a super luxe bag charm inspired by Allegria (yes, one of those UFOs). Huge crystal quartz heart brio, prasiolite, green quartz and tiny little sapphire teardrops... topped with crystal quartz and finished with an adjustable chain, all sterling silver.

I did these with gold accents for a commissioned order and I do think they actually look prettier than the usual silver. Pearls and gold are definitely a match made in heaven :P

Missed me? Heh heh. I've been kinda busy working on a side project (and then before that I was frankly quite tired of jewellery), but it's been wrapped up and now, being a new month and all (I can't believe it's already April!) I can move on to new creations.

The wardrobe basic faceted Flint Hoops are now available in 14K rose goldfill. Although I had to wait quite a bit for the wire to arrive, I am sooo excited to have found a rose goldfill supplier :) Couldn't find the time to actually make them until today, so here they are! Note to self: get some new props. Getting sick of the current ones.

I'm sure you might have come across rose gold and even green gold - these are gold mixed with alloys (copper and silver, respectively). Rose gold has a lovely pinkish flush which I feel resembles pure copper quite a bit, while green gold is greenish yellow. Check out these coloured gold stacking rings from soloartworks that have been on my wishlist for some time!

Find out more about coloured gold alloys here.

The other thing I was working on today is a set of two custom-made bangles which the customer specifically wanted with white keishi pearls and rhodolite garnets in the clustered bangle style that I like to do (I should be making more; I've still got loads of those curved tubes...). They have been christened the Orchidée bangles in honour of phalaenopsis orchids (well, I didn't think they would sound quite as romantic or appealing being called "Phalaenopsis bangles"!) - the elegant ones with large creamy white petals and pink centres. They feel just about perfect for a wedding ;)

Here is my Leaf Necklace in a sterling silver and peridot combination for a commissioned order. Well... all I really wanted was just to put the photos side by side for comparison :P They have the exact same measurements - geez I'm so proud of myself for that because you know I usually hate making exact replicas of things because it's HARD! - but different chains. Unfortunately my dSLR was flat outta battery and the late afternoon light was dodgy, so it's a less-than-satisfactory photo.


P.S. these make great gifts! Customise one with your friend's or loved one's birthstone! And you get to choose your hardware (14k goldfill, bright or oxidised sterling silver)! :)

At last, I'm finally done and it's off to a Norwegian home next week! Here's the last of those custom bracelets...


It is similar to my Queen Mab bracelet, of course, which is why I did that one in the first place. The 5 different kinds of gems are birthstones for family members. I decided on this style mainly because of the enormous difficulty in obtaining large enough sapphires and tanzanites of a decent enough quality. Then it was a matter of obtaining evenly-calibrated rondelles. Challenging for tanzanite, because they're either so tiny, or cloudy to the point of being opaque. I am a bit nervous... I hope the new owner isn't too rough because there are 280 tiny dangles and many hours of work. This intricate bracelet won't stand for much abuse.

I'm immensely relieved that this project is completed because I've been so distracted by it, I haven't really sat down properly to create anything new. I guess working on a few things at the same time is not for me, because they loom in the background and just weaken my concentration.

One other thing that's starting to bother me is the US dollar. In just a few months, it's fallen so much that when I withdrew some Paypal funds, the pain cost S$150. Oh well.

Way back in June, I was commissioned to create 3 custom-made bracelets. Many convos later, I had the requirements fleshed out and started to source for materials in July, finally deciding on and purchasing them in August.

The lady I was dealing with had specific stones she wanted on the bracelets, as they had something to do with birthstones of family members. Some of the choices also sounded like they would clash quite violently with each other. As you know, one type of stone can come in various colours. I must've pored over dozens and dozens of possibilities. Anyway, I hope I made good choices.

This was also an exercise in which I had to physically visualise the finished pieces for the customer. Normally, everything's in my head and I don't bother with a sketchbook. In between coloured drawings and photos of bead strands, we managed somehow.

Here are the results so far:



This bracelet features faceted green aventurine so pretty and translucent it looks almost like chrysoprase. The turquoise rondelles are flanked by lapis lazuli rounds and the wire-wrapping is accented with tiny dangles of rose quartz and natural white sardonyx.



This was hard. Never before had I to combine so many different stones into one bracelet while taking care that it didn't look like a messy jumble. The "main" stones were to be tiger eye and agate. For me, tiger eye is not an easy stone to complement, due to its chatoyancy and markings, which is why I have always avoided using it. As for agate, there are so many different kinds, a lot of them dyed. But I wanted only natural colours in these pieces. I was also trying to obtain white or colourless zircon gems, but it was impossible to find them in the small rondelles I wanted. In the end, I decided on this cool palette of blues and greens. This bracelet features blue tigereye, grey-green lace agate, Sleeping Beauty turquoise, lapis lazuli, green aventurine, chrysoprase, blue zircon and lemon topaz.

I've got one more bracelet to go, but am only about a third of the way through.