Camali Design Jewellery Blog

Just a quick post today, as I am preparing for a show this weekend at Trereife Park, where I will have a stand selling my jewellery.

Today I am sharing a small bit of my new work. I have recently been working on stone setting of various types and also started doing some lost wax casting. The rings below are made using the technique and I call the range “Molten”. I am really chuffed with these, they have real organic quality and I love the chunkiness of them. I will also be starting to set stones into these kinds of rings and overlay with more metal as well, so keep looking back for more! There will also be pieces with set stones soon.

Anyway, back to prep for the weekend, hope the weather is on our side and we have a great one! Hope you do too!

Cheers,

Carin

It’s been a while again! I have been really busy leading up to the Christmas events that I am doing down here in Cornwall. I have done Christmas markets at Falmouth, Fowey, Trelissick Gardens, Truro Late Night shopping and now remains only this weekend coming. On Saturday I will be at the Christmas Street Market in Truro and on Sunday at the Last Chance Event at Lemon Quay, also in Truro. After that I will have a lovely break over Christmas, which I am spending with the family in Sweden and then I will be in Austria for a week over New Year, also with family.

I wanted to show you some of my latest pieces that are made using only sterling silver, which is a bit unusual for me, being an avid fan of all the gorgeous gemstones available. It is always, however, nice to do something different every now and then and here is the result of this from the past month or so. I have had great feedback on these pieces and most of them are now sold, but I will be doing many more of these all silver designs in the New Year.

The Silver Petal earrings and pendant are simple and modern. They were made from silver sheet which was cut into petal shapes, then lightly domed using a dapping block and finally hung from hand made silver rings onto a modern ball chain. The silver has been oxidised and hand brushed and polished to obtain the gunmetal grey earthy patina that I love so much. I will be doing loads of new designs similar to these as soon as I get back in the New Year.

I have also been making some simple loops using thick silver wire that has been shaped, planished and hung simply on hand made earwires. These Loop Earrings are great everyday staples and again, more of the same will come soon!

Finally a pair of earrings that I absolutely love myself (would have kept these for myself had I not sold them before Christmas…). The Graffiti Earrings were made using tabs of silver sheet that I made holes in, textured with an interesting pattern and assembled together with hand made silver jump rings. They are hung on simple hand made earwires and have lovely movement when worn due to the “hinged” effect that the rings give. As usual the silver has been oxidised to bring out the  texture and add character.

Well, since I doubt I will have time to blog any more this year, I will take this opportunity of wishing you a Happy Christmas and a Happy New Year! See you in 2009!

Just thought I’d share a couple of pairs of earrings I made recently. They are very representative of the kind of work I do now, I am really into using silver sheet in my designs. I also love texturing, so stamping and dapping feature strongly in many new pieces. I still use my passion for gemstones by combining the two in almost all designs.

The first one is a pair of earrings that I made to match my Garnet Tab pendant necklace, and so I called these Garnet Tab as well. These earrings feature a thick hand cut silver tab that has been slightly domed and oxidised, together with rondelles of flashy labradorites and beautiful high quality deep red garnet nugget. The garnet is from a new supplier I found recently and are of a truly stunning quality (AAA).

The second pair of earrings are called Moon Flash after the pendant that they match. Again a hand cut rectangle of silver sheet has been stamped with my “grunge” stamp (my favourite!) and oxidised for character. A next to perfect Champagne Citrine was wire wrapped to the bottom and the earrings are hung on ball and post style earrings. I love the contrast of the perfectly clear and richly coloured citrine briolette and the industrial looking silver.

Unfortunately both of these earrings are now sold, but can be requested again as can most of my designs. I usually do something that isn’t exactly the same so that every piece is different.

The last piece I wanted to show you today is a new bracelet I made the other week. It’s an all silver piece, which is a little unusual for me, as I don’t do many of those. I like gemstones too much! Anyway, I have used large ovals of sterling sheet that I hand stamped with my “grunge” stamp and then domed slightly to make them lie snugly around the wrist. The ovals were then assembled together using oval silver jump rings. The clasp is also a first for me, it’s magnetic! I have never used these, wasn’t sure it they were going to be strong enough, but I am now confident that these are. They are oval and quite chunky and matches the silver ovals perfectly. This bracelet is very comfortable to wear with it’s slightly domed ovals and looks brilliant on. This bracelet is still available to buy in my online shop.

I made a few new summery bracelets the other day that I thought I’d share with you all. I am loving aquamarine at the moment, in fact any blue shades! And greens of course! Thought I’d make a few more summery pieces before starting to plan out the autumn pieces. Enjoy!

“Aqua Barrel” is made using some gorgeous barrel shaped aquamarine I found recently. I love the subtle blue-green colour of it and I have set it off with Hill Tribe silver and a sterling lobster clasp.

“Sable and Aqua” has a lovely combination of powder blue aquamarine and elegant smokey quartz. Again I have added Hill Tribe silver to complete the bracelet which closes with a lobster clasp and is extendable with a patterned chain.

“Sophisticated” uses beautiful clear pale blue aquamarine together with stylish faceted coins of smokey quartz. Little silver beads adds to the mix. Closed with a lobster and extendable.

And now for some greens… “Graphic Garnet” features a large tablet style silver bead from Thailand surrounded by one of my favourite stones- Grossular Garnet. Beautiful green hues in pretty faceted rectangles. Plus some tiny silver beads and of course an extension chain and lobster clasp.

Next up is a fun summer bracelet with Amazonite, Prehnite and various silver beads. The “Summer Green” bracelet features hand made”eye” beads fromThailand, closes with a lobster and is extendable.

And finally one with labradorite, would be rude not to! (it’s my all time favourite stone…) The “Labradorite Rose” is made from flashy labradorites and tiny silver beads surrounding a gorgeous Thai silver focal bead. The labradorites are complemented by a single rose quartz briolette on the extension chain. A new favourite!

As always, these are all available in my online jewellery shop where you can also find necklaces, pendants and earrings. Next time I will show you a bunch of summery earrings to go with these. Until then!

Some exciting news!

I thought I’d let you know that I am advertising in BRIDES magazine September/October 2008 issue!

There is a CD-rom attached to the magazine, which in this issue is a Flower Special with a Product and Services Directory. Camali Design will be featured as the exclusive jewellery supplier for Cornwall in the Jewellery section of the product directory.

I do wedding jewellery mostly as commissions, but also usually have a few items (necklaces, bracelets and earrings) in my online jewellery shop suitable for bridal jewellery. I also make jewellery for bridesmaids and flower girls and also get commissions for wedding anniversary jewellery, which is lovely. My jewellery is also great as gifts, for example as thank you’s to bridesmaids. As presents for the mothers of the bride and groom, it makes a nice change to flowers - and it’s permanent!

For commissions please see my web site for contact details. I will happily discuss any requirements and I work closely with clients from design concept to finished jewellery.

Here is a sneak preview of the advert that will appear in BRIDES, click the image for a full size image (opens in same window):

 I was recently asked to design some bright silver jewellery, which I don’t normally do, as most of my jewellery is oxidised to give it an antique patina. I had fun making these pieces, although I was struggling a little bit to find any bright silver amongst my materials! Most of my silver is oxidised as soon as I get it, ready for making jewellery. I use it oxidised and then rub it off and polish once the piece is finished or as I go along.

Anyway, here are the results. I also found that photographing shiny silver is much harder than oxidised as it gives much more reflexion to contend with. So, the pictures aren’t brilliant but they are OK for showing you the results. They are all in pretty summery colours, hope you like them! (click pictures to see full size)

These pieces can be seen in the gallery of my online jewellery shop, where I list some items that have been sold already. You can browse the items available in the necklaces, pendants, bracelets and earring sections.

I am really into stamping at the moment. So there are various new pieces of hand made jewellery in my online shop that incorporates stamped silver components. I have made a few new of the stamped dog tag style pendants that have proven popular. These are all hand cut silver sheet, filed, stamped with various patterns, oxidised and finished. Then hung on various lovely silver chains and decorated with a few well chosen semi-precious gemstones.

The “Flower Garden” pendant feature juicy purple amethyst and sparkling rainbow moonstone and is hung on a snake chain with discs, while the “Moon Flash” pendant is adorned with champagne citrine and labradorite and hung on an unusual textured criss cross chain.

Two more; the “Blue Sea” pendant again hangs from a criss cross chain and pale aquamarine and rich London blue topaz adds the sparkle. The “Mossy” pendant feature beautiful moss aquamarine and rainbow moonstone and is hung on a modern ball chain.

Also, a bunch of new earrings with hand stamped silver discs. “Boho Love” have a whimiscal heart stamped on a silver disc that swings below two luscious tourmalines. These are fairly weighty and so have been hung on ball and post earrings for safety. The “Dude ” earrings were just a bit of fun really! They have a “dude” stamped on a silver disc and flashy labradorite rondelles hung on leverbacks.

“Blowing Bubbles” are a pair of beautiful summery earrings featuring gorgeous aquamarine and fresh green prehnite along with bubble stamped silver discs. They are hung on leverbacks. The “Whiskey Nights” earrings are sophisticated with dark blue iolite and elegant whiskey quartz onion shaped drops, hung on my own hand made earwires.

All of these new goodies are as usual available in my online jewellery shop along with loads of other designs. Check them out and please let me know what you think of my new stamped pieces!

Thanks for reading, until next time.

Carin

Hi all,

I just thought I would let you all know that I will be doing my first event in Cornwall this weekend. On the 6th-7th of July I will be in Falmouth on the south Cornish coast. I am thrilled that I managed to get in to this one at fairly short notice since events are usually planned and booked a year in advance. I was expecting to do very few events this year since I am just relocating to Cornwall and it usually taking a while to get to know the area and the events on offer.

So, I will be offering my hand made silver and gemstone jewellery at the Falmouth Event Square this weekend with the aim of doing more of these events with the same organiser. I have another booked in Fowey in December. Check out events I will be attending on my jewellery web site.

See you in Falmouth?!

Carin

Hi all,

I went to an arts and crafts fair the other weekend and once again I am disappointed to see that people are undervalueing their work and selling themselves short. There were 5 jewellery stalls at this particular event and they all sold lovely necklaces, bracelets and earrings along with a few other accessories. Being a jewellery designer and maker myself I know what it costs to make those items for sale. The prices asked would not cover what it actually costs the artist, including the labour cost. Many jewellery makers seem to sell their work at well below the equivalent of the minimum wage and some seem to only charge for the materials.

I appreciate that some people make jewellery as a hobby and then sell a bit to cover their cost of materials, but what I think they sometimes forget is that this is actually not doing other artists any favours. This makes people expect quality crafts at bargain prices and consequently full time jewellery artists can not make a living out of it. The end result is that artists go out of business and there is less high quality jewellery on offer. So when the hobby jewellery maker comes to try and actually make a living out of their jewellery they find it is not possible. They are basically shooting themselves in the foot and although I appreciate not everyone wants to make their hobby into a full time job, those that do are definitely losing out.

I myself price my jewellery so that I can stay in business and carry on supplying my customers with beautiful jewellery and not be a fly-by act that disappears and isn’t available for alterations and so on. I feel it’s part of my customer service responsibilties to charge enough so that I can provide the very best service to my customers long term. If I go out of business this can not happen and there will be people out there that lose out. I am not pretending to be indispensable, I know full well that there are loads of people out there that make and sell gorgeous jewellery, but once you have found someone who’s style you like, it’s very frustrating to find that they are no longer in business. You might struggle to get that bracelet to go with the necklace you bought etc.

It’s not all doom and gloom though! The nice thing I took away from the fair (and indeed many others) is that there are people out there who really appreciates high quality hand made items and are willing to pay what they really cost, even alongside less expensive items. So there is hope yet for the market of hand made jewellery and jewellery artists!

Cheers,
Carin

I have this thing about Swiss or London blue topaz… They have the most fantastic colour and just beg to be worn! Being a very expensive stone, I don’t usually have many, but I had a couple of Swiss blue topaz faceted heart briolettes that I wanted to make something with. So I decided to make one of them into a simple but elegant pendant, to really show off it’s beautiful blue colour. As I have mentioned before I have been learning a few new things from talented American wire artist Eni Oken and so I used her techniques as inspiration for this pendant.

I started by making a simple U-shaped component in thick silver wire, hammered it a little for strength and made a simple bail to hang the pendant in. I sized the component so that the topaz would fit neatly in the middle and then wire wrapped the stone onto this component using fine silver wire. Next, I made a larger silver component to go around the first one. This one I wire wrapped with tiny fine silver Hill Tribe beads attaching it to the inner component in the process. That all sounds very simple, but it takes quite a while, as it’s very fiddly to get it right and since there is not much room to work with between the silver components!

Everything is oxidised as usual and then hung on a simple popcorn chain. This is how it turned out!

I am very pleased with the way it came out, the stone is vibrant in the middle and the silver doesn’t take anything away from it, merely frames it and grounds it by using only silver beads and by the patina applied. This pendant is now available to buy in my online jewellery shop! More similar ones to come soon…