Private Jobs.

In amongst everything else with the end of year so and preparing for it I have been very busy in private jobs for my own customers. The first piece, A friend of mine owns a farm and carved a small piece of wood into a heart for his girlfriend and he wanted it to be a pendant, so I made the pieces to make it into a pendant. I found myself loving the idea of wooden pendant that have been carved and so I'm going to start trying to carve wood for myself or at least shape it.





The second piece is my best friends engagement ring, I was so excited when her boyfriend phoned me to ask if I would make the ring. I think that it just made it that little more special as her friend made it, He proposed last night at bible study infront of everyone and she cant stop looking at it and showing it off. I'm so glade that she likes it. This isn't a very good photo, but I have told her she has to bring it back so I can take a better photo.

End of Year Show.

At the end of every year we have a show to display our work that we had done over the past year. It's very stressful and nerves are in the air and people start to panic about displays and stands for the jewellery.Below is my display for this years end of year show. I made a glass box to encase my jewellery.

Here are a few of my friends with their displays.
This is Jadi Clark and her jewellery is all about interactive colourful jewellery, she mostly makes fun and colourful jewellery.

This is Kelly,

And this is Lusanda.

Show case!

At the end of every year the third and fourth years have and end of year show. The third years get to show their new personal project pieces and the fourth years get to show what they have done over their the year or years. This year I have made a glass box to put over my pieces, with a lock on. The steel frame is from my mothers work. the reps at her work said that if I could use it then take it. As to you can see from the picture below, there are a few lings that I'm wanting to change on the steel frame itself. Because my work is all about nature and the purity of it I have decided to put flowers around the steel bottom to make it look like a garden theme. On the wall behind my stand I'm going to put photos of my other pieces as I'm not putting all my pieces into the show case otherwise it will be too crowded.

Wooden Ring!

I just got this sudden burst of inspiration with the wooden disks that I have been using. I have so many ideas that I have found myself stumped on where to start.

I made a ring below of wood and silver wires act as veins holding the wood. The way the veins interlink is to represent the confusing feeling I have when there is just too much that has to be done and I don't know where to start.

More Wood!

I've sort of been on my own mission lately and trying to Incorporated new materials to my jewellery. When I made that first pair of wooden earrings I realized that I enjoyed working with wood and had more pieces that I wanted to make, its like designs have been pouring out my head, I have so many ideas there's just not enough time in the day to get them out and the more I working the more ideas keep popping into my head.
I been wearing my wooden earring and have been given orders for them and now I have to try keep up with not only my head but also the orders.
Below are a few more jewellery pieces that I have made. One of the girls that I work with asked for a pendant that matched the earrings that I made last week.

Pendant made of wood with small silver flowers riveted and a mother of pearl flower carved shell in the middle hanging off a brown organza ribbon.

Wooden earrings cut to a pear shape with small silver flowers riveted to the wood. They so light you forget that you have them on. I feel that they simple yet elegant.

This is another pair that I have just made, the only problem with these are that they are sightly heavy on the ear. They that the two different shades of wood giving them that contrast and they have two small silver flowers riveted and that the mother of pearl shell carved flowers.

The next two pairs of earrings are just plain silver flowers that I made into studs and little sweet dangle earrings. They very light and I feel they are a bit to plain for my liking but I have a few orders from friends and family for them. So they work I guess.

Memories!

I have just had to deal with a close friends death and its had me really down lately. She was such a wonderful person and always ready to have fun and cause a little trouble every now and then, she was full of life and lived each day as if it was her last. She loved nature and she always recognised the good and purity in everything and everyone even if you couldn't see it.

In the last blog I showed a whole lot of stuff that I found while shopping. I decided to design a piece that I know my friend would of worn and also to symbolize her in a way. The first pair of earrings is made of black wood which reminds me of death, I then designed a simple yet complex little Flower that represents Sarah (my friend) as her soul and the white flower is carved mother of pearl shell and that for me represent and symbolizes the good purity of her soul.






This next set of earrings, well they where just an idea that I had after making the top pair. The great thing out these earrings is that they not heavy at all, I wore a pair today and I didn't even remember that I had them on. I felt really pleased when someone stopped me and commented me on my earrings.

Ideas!

I went shopping the other day and found a whole lot of things that caught my eye. There are wooden disks, clay roses and some shell flowers. I suddenly had a few ideas that I needed to get out of my system. It was like they were hunting me. So here I start.

I have started playing with the wooden disks and disks of pierced metal and I started layering them to see what they would look like. I felt that it gave the effect that I wanted, but the metal disks need more piercing and more intricate patterns on the metal to show the colour of the wood a lot more.

My Garden!

I'm so excited, my garden is growing so well and they really are blooming nicely. I have stared building my own little green house as I want to start growing Orchids. I'm also wanting to plant more flowers in the garden, now that I know they wont die on me or at least I hope not.

Daddy!

Today, two years ago my father died and today I sit and remember all the silly things he did and things he taught me and showed me. I found a poem that I want to dedicate to my father on this day.

I love you, Dad, for all the things you did.
You made me laugh when I was feeling blue.
You could untie the hardest knot of all,
Although I had tugged the lace until it was small.

You knew the the reason for most everything,
Like why it rained and why bees sometimes sting,
Like why the sun came up and flowers bloom,
And why a jet created a sonic boom.

You are the closest friend Ive ever had.
You shared with me the times both good and bad.
I love you, Dad, for all the things you did,
But most of all I love you, Dad, For you.

Wild Rose Earrings!

I have finished my Wild Rose earrings, but there are a few technical problems that I still have to work on. I feel that you cant really see the colour stone, so I feel that the stone needs to be bigger and the wire should be thinner. So will be making new ones and see how they come out.

Wild Rose Process!

As you have seen from my last post I have been designing a new range of flowers, the Wild Rose. I have been spending a lot of time trying to get the right texture. I have made a few test pieces and so far they are working. Once I found the texture that I wanted to use I felt that the piece would need colour as wild roses come in many different colours, so I decided to use colour stones.

Young Artists!

Friday night was exciting, our local High School has an evening every year for their grade 12 pupils to show their art work and designs. A family friend of ours had taken part in it and we went to the evening show. It was wonderful to see what the younger generation is up to and thinking in terms of design, it was mostly dresses that they design but the project was wearable art, it took me back to when I was in grade 12 and had to do our wearable art fashion show. But it was great to see so many different styles of wearable art. My favourite was a young lady (who asked not to be mentioned) who made a very short but beautiful creation, using colourful paper into flower an making the flowers into a dress. My friendas dress is to the right and the dress that I loved is below.

Thinking!

I have found myself a bit stuck on the Daises range, so I have started designing for a new flower range Wild Roses. As you have seen from the picture below, you can see a small process that I have gone though to get to my design and some test pieces that I have started making.

I have been looking at the basic shape of the wild rose petals and have used these shapes to create my simple flower shape. From there its just experimenting with my different textures that I know and think will work for the piece that I have in mind. I'm already thinking of using coloured stones in the middle with wires holding the stone in, acting like claws. I'm at the moment, working on that.

Planting Plants!

Its just 8 days into spring and all you hear are the birds that wake you up in the morning or in my case the birds and the bee's, I have a nut tree outside my bedroom window and in spring the bees start coming back. I woke up yesterday I felt some what house bound and getting home sick, as in being at home to much and not getting out a lot. So I have decided to start my own little flower garden. Its something to keep me busy and out of the house in the morning. Ive been so excited to start my little flower garden. Even my brother Jason got his hand dirty and helped me.

Thoughts

Over the past few days I have been doing some of my own research for a presentation on my work for the 3rd years at collage but have some how stumbled on to a few artist that I have really enjoyed. The first one is Hannah Simpson. I love the simple flower shape but what I enjoyed the most about her pieces is the texture that she adds.

Hannah Simpson
Ref: http://www.dazzle-exhibitions.com/

The second jeweller that I found very intresting was Alexis Dove. A designer of a few ranges but one inpurticure caught my eye and that was the Wild Rose collection. These piece sort of reminded me of the flowers I use to make last year in my 3rd year.

Alexis Dove

Ref: www.alexisdove.com

SPRING!

When you wake up and all you hear are the birds singing you know Spring is on the way. Its such an exciting time, you see and hear birds, the grass gets greener, the trees start springing to life and the flowers start to blossom. Things become brighter with colour, and peoples moods become brighter with day light. What I enjoy the most about Spring starting, is the house magazines, they start showing you how you can decorate your house with flowers and pot plants, they some how capture the beauty of the flowers in their photos, you just cant stop looking at these pictures, they just so stunning.

This is one of the magazines that I buy and enjoy their ideas. This is the cover of their Spring addition that just come out. Inside they have stunning photos of flower arrangements you could do to bring spring into your home. I love their main heading "Frolic with Flowers".

Holiday!

My family and I are going on holiday, I'm sooooooo excited. I remind myself of my father, he loved going on holiday to Port St John's in the Transky. I love it there to. Its the perfect place to be or live. Its such a lovely place. So peaceful, quiet and tons of nature to observe, not much to do but it helps get your mind off things that are happening in your life. The last time we went to Port St Johns was to scatter my dads ashes July last year. My father and I would sit outside where ever we where staying and just listen to the birds, water, and the sounds of nature around us. These are a few places that we stayed at last time we went to the Transky.


This year we going North, up country , I'm not to sure where but am just excited to think about going on holiday and getting away from real life, even if its just for 5 days.

Flower bracelet

The past few days I have been making a bracelet to match my earrings and my rings from my stylized daisies. So far I have made the flower but I'm battling with the clasp and which one is the best for this piece.

A Ring For A Friend!

I have had to put a side a my own work for a small amount of time to manufacture a 9ct yellow gold ring for a friend of mine. I hated it at first, 9ct yellow gold is so hard to work with, I had to start the square setting, ohhhh, about 4 times till I got it as perfect as I could. But the shank was just as much of a pain to make. But I think it turned out very well and my friend was over the moon with it.

Platinum piece!

A few weeks ago the fourth years had to enter the PlatAfrica competition, we had to design and manufacture the piece out of platinum that was given to us by our tech. The theme was Anniversary and we had ti design a piece that celebrated anniversary of some sort. I design and manufactured a piece that was a remembrance piece to my father. I decided to make a simple looking piece, I had never used platinum before, it was my first time, at first I hated it as you had to anniel the metal so often and it takes so long to pull wire. I then got to the forging part on my piece and started to like it, what I like was that you could roll the metal so thin and then hammer it even thinner and it is still so strong.

Thoughts!

My father died in 2006 just as I was going into my 3rd year at tech and just as we started our personal projects. My father and I had a song named "Butterfly Kisses" by Bob Carlisle. In my 3rd year I started creating jewellery with the shape and forms of butterflies and flowers. Starting my 4th year I found myself going in a different direction some unknown reason. A few weeks ago I was Helping my mother clean out a cupboard and found a drawing my father did of a rose and dated it 1982. I suddenly realized what I had been missing and that's my flowers that I had made.

I Started thinking about my flowers and looking at other flowers, looking at their shapes, forms and what they mean. I have been looking at the Daisy flower and have taken the simple shape of the petals and have created my own Daisy flower, except they out of metal. Daisy means innocence and purity, they use Daisie's to cheer people up, they cheer me up, Ive been looking at the normall white and yellow daisy flower but you can get different Daisies in a vibrant rainbow of colours.