The story of a ring....

(or three).

I know lots of you like to see my work in progress; I always loving seeing other people's WIP - how things come together is fascinating. And it's especially nice to see when the work in progress is destined for you; so this one is for you Trudi.

First of all, I measure out the wire I need for each ring, to the millimetre, using my digital calipers.

The wire is shaped into a rough ring shape, and where the two ends of the wire meets I file and sand to make a perfect fit. It takes a little time to ensure that the ring ends meets together snugly and smoothly. These joins are then covered with flux (a liquid which helps the solder to flow), and rings are then soldered in place.

(I didn't mean to make it look like a suprised ring face - honest!)

The rings then go in a pickle pot - a chemical which takes off the heat markings and cleans up the silver. I use an eco-friendly pickle. After ten minutes in this, and a good rinse and clean, the silver is nice and silver again. The rings are then placed on a mandrel and each hammered into a perfect circle.

Then I double check the size - (fingers crossed - phew R1/2 as planned)... and have to saw through the join, remove some of the wire and repeat the process above if it's too big. Luckily thanks to a bit of careful measuring at the start - the size is usually okay.

At this point I usually have a look at the soldered joins, and clear up any messy bits! Thankfully more often than not these days, I tend to use the right amount of solder and don't have too much excess to file away (which takes aaaaages to files, and sand back down to a nice finish). But it hasn't always been the case, and I still do have those days! 

Then we get to the fun bit... adding the settings......(look out for part two coming soon....)

Wooooooaaaah what happened to March?

It's mid- April already! How did that happen?

March was a complete blur for me. It was my birthday at the beginning of the month, and not just any old birthday, but the big 4 - 0.

I was hoping I'd finally feel like a grown up, but I guess that comes at 45?

So, March meant three weekends of celebrations with different groups of friends (followed by a lovely mothers day weekend at the end of the month). With all that going on, it was always going to be a fantastic month - but to top it all off,  my jewellery was featured in Glamour magazine!

I was beyond excited. You can imagine how I skipped around WHSmith!! I really must set up a press section on my website now....hee hee. The item they featured is the 5 band rolling ring (number 16!) which is  available on my website at the reduced price of £58, but the price will have to go up to £65 at the end of this month, so if you'd like one, get in quick!!

Phew - so far April has been pretty hectic too so far, but more on that later..... for now I just wanted to show you a few of my birthstone stacking rings...

How lovely is this Sapphire, Opal and Ruby combo?