Handmade in Oxfordshire
It’s the same lantern as the earrings in the post below, but here is one with a clear stone as a pendant. Also from this angle, you can just see the hallmark lasered on the base. Please contact me if you would like to purchase this or a variation. The lantern is 12mm across and weighs about 5g.
These are a development from a recent commission – I like this design better. It reminds me of a lantern that someone might carry from the large ring. These are fitted with green and garnet cubic zirconia to represent navigation lights, but clear or other colour coould be used instead. The lanterns are hallmarked on the base. A single one could be used as a pendant. Do contact me if you are interested in these or some variation.
Over the years, I’ve cast a range of nuts, fruit stones and seeds – walnuts, acorns, nectarines, dates, pecan….. Olives seeds and hazelnuts in the form of pendants or cufflinks have proved the most popular. I recently did a silver nutmeg and now I have just cast some apricot stones – because I haven’t done it before and ate some fresh apricots!
I’ve cast both whole stones and a half stone that has a chain loop added so that it can be used as a pendant.
The pendant is available from my shop. Should you want a full stone, please contact me.
I’ve made a few silver spanners over the years. The first one was in the early 1990s I think. They are cast in one or two cuttlefish bones depending on whether there is a flat side for engraving or not.
Casting always has some failures. In the case one half of the spanner wasn’t good enough, but there’s nothing wrong with the half you can see and I thought a key ring might be a good gift for a mechanic or engineer. You can buy this in my shop.
The blade is from an old wooden handled knife of my father. I think it’s a small paring knife – the blade is 5cm long. Whether it is a family heirloom or something he picked up for 5p in a car boot sale I will never know!
I decided to make a silver handle for it. This is a salt casting, with a tube beneath to take the knife tang.
The hallmark on the silver was new to me. I had included the blade when it was sent to the London Assay Office. They chose not to punch the marks as I expected, but lazered them on adding ‘+Metal’ to allow for the iron blade.
I’ve had stainless steel brooch pins stamped ‘METAL’ before, but never the base metal unscathed and the hallmark done like this. Not that I mind at all – it just wasn’t what I expected.
Today I’ve just launched my new website.
Hopefully everyone will find it easier to use and more up to date. Please let me know if there are any problems or errors.
The shop remains the same – that seems to work fine and ‘it ain’t broke, so why fix it?’, but the new website should surround the shop seamlessly.
It is also a more secure site now, you should see the little padlock on the browser bar most of the time. There are probably a few links I need to fix still. I still have some content I want to move over or update.
I’ve trimmed down the examples of my work to about 100, but there’s more in the shop and on the blog. Also you can sneak into the old website areas for further examples.
These were a commission for the birthday of the wife of a local boat owner and aimed to replicate the old style oil lantern type lamp. (Port is the on the left when facing the prow of a boat and is the red light.)
I plan to make some more of these shortly, but in a slightly different style.
These rings are designed to fit around an engagement ring or other ring with a large stone. They are really example pieces to show what I can make – in silver or gold – but these two are available in my shop.
Nothing too exciting, but I’ve recently updated my page on chains to include a further page with some photos of common styles of chain and clasp.
For example
Please remember that if you like a pendant in my shop, I can change the style and length of its chain. Just contact me first, rather than ordering from the shop.