I’ve finally given in and made a separate category for Swarovski pear drop pendants over on Oi, Shiny!
Currently 5 different pendants listed – Crystal Light Grey DeLite, Light Rose, Red Magma, Majestic Blue, and Montana.
I’m resisting getting my hands on the colour chart and working through every possible colour I can get in this specific crystal, but I don’t plan on stopping any time soon.
Today I reached 200 sales!
My 200th was this tiny garnet bird nest:
Peacock pearl, labradorite, pink fancy jasper, and pale jadeite bird nests are still available.
I swear I started out with good intentions. I was going to take photos, post here regularly, all that jazz. And yet here we are. So my New Year’s resolution is to get back into blogging and I figured why not start now?
Back when I started Oi, Shiny! I planned to work entirely with gemstones. (I planned to make just earrings, but that’s another story.) And then I got my hands on a Swarovski pear drop. Until then I’d only seen tiny, usually clear Swarovski. Then Red Magma arrived on my workmat and I fell in love.
That was a good long while ago. Below are the first dozen I wrapped – including the Black Diamond I kept for myself. (If you’d told me a year ago I’d be wearing Swarovski…)
Some of those were requests/commissions, some just caught my eye.
This one was number #14, it’s just gone out in the post to America:
#13, #15, and #16 – Crystal Golden Shadow, Crystal Burgundy DeLite, and Crystal Paradise Shine – are all still available.
I’m telling myself I can’t set a challenge to work my way through every colour available in this crystal, but I might have to start keeping a ticky list – I did just order three more. (I need something to wrap over the New Year!)
Commissions
Essentially my policy on commissions is – ask me. Get in touch and we can have a chat about what you’re looking for and what I’m able to provide.
If you spot something you like the look of but fancy in another gemstone, just let me know and we can talk about options and pricing. Once we’ve agreed I’ll whip something up and you get first refusal – if you love it, you buy it, if it isn’t what you were looking for then it goes up in the store with no obligation to you.
For example, after I posted these pearl earrings with amber a customer contacted me and asked if I could make something similar in red.
I shared a photo of the various “red” stones from my stash that would work with that particular designs, plus a few others.
She choose the one she liked best, and voila!
Reservations & Calling Dibs
I post a lot of works in progress and just-finished pieces on Instagram and Twitter. If you like something that hasn’t been officially listed yet, just let me know and I’m happy to put it aside for you.
If you’re interested in a piece but need a week or two before you’re able to purchase it then again, I’m happy to hold the piece for you for up to 14 days. If during that time something happens and you change your mind or are unable to purchase, please just let me know and I can release it for general sale.
You know what it’s like with blogs, they’re like diaries. Did anyone else do that thing – you start on January the 1st with great intentions, write pages about everything you’re going to do with the year, then fast forward to February 19th: “Dentist appointment 9.45”? Oops.
Anyway – had some pretty huge shop updates since I last posted, and broke 100 items in stock for the first time! It’s been brilliant getting to play with so many different stones.
This is my latest obsession:
Copper spirals built around a focal stone. They’re really adaptable – my first set was all 10mm fancy jasper rounds. The ones above are a mix – 8mm rounds, firepolish beads, double rondelles.
I have a feeling I’m going to be making these until I run out of either wire, or places to keep them!
You know when you’re making something and you catch yourself just playing with it over and over? That’s where I was with these. Get the beads in the exact right place when you’re wrapping them and you can just sit and spin them forever.
On the one hand, they’re just pretty. I’m pretty sure I’m going to end up making them in every colour of wire I can get my hands on, with every type and shade of 4mm round stones that I own.
On the other, they’re incredibly satisfying to sit and fidget or fiddle with, and as soon as I tweeted about them people mentioned stimming. I’ll be up front – I’m not autistic, my information comes second hand from friends. And I did hesitate about writing all this in case it wasn’t my place, I really don’t want to tread on toes. But I do know what it’s like using assistive devices – and I’ve got Opinions.
If you’ve met me in real life you know I use a cane. I actually use many canes. There’s the folding one for putting in my gym locker, the dark red one that goes with my good suit, the light brown that goes with everything (it’s the straightlegged jeans of canes). I’ve had a blue one that people said brought out my eyes, and a green one that sadly bit the dust at a Billy Talent gig.
Point being, I’m a big believer that assistive tech and devices should match *people*. You wouldn’t expect everyone to wear the same pair of shoes because “they’re fine, they do the job”. Some people are going to want heavy duty boots, some people like delicate sandals, low heels, high heels, buckles, laces. Or all of the above depending on outfit and mood. I happen to feel the same about other things in life.
So, the end result was 6 different pendants, all strung on adjustable leather cord. There’s red mookaite, light amethyst, aquamarine, green fancy jasper, turquoise, and purple garnet.
I’m really happy with how they turned out, and I hope you like them too.
Last update was all the tiny pieces, this week is a mix, little and large. And shockingly, no labradorite this time!
This one might be my favourite of the week – icy clear quartz drop in silver wire.
This one’s a little unusual – beach stone wrapped in gold wire. Picked it up during the heat wave earlier this year.
Southampton’s Pride event is tomorrow, so I’m hoping to get some very colourful inspiration there.
Now excuse me, I need to go wrap some labradorite before I get withdrawal symptoms.
OK, not that tiny, but after the size of those last cabochons these ones certainly feel pretty damn dainty.
We won’t talk about how many times I got distracted photographing the labradorite. I’d move it a little, “Oo, new colour!” Go to pick it up and move onto the next stone “Oo, new colour!” Put it down, move onto the next one, and then… yeah. I may have a bit of a labradorite problem.
But can you blame me?
Labradorite wrapped with silver-plated copper wire, up on Etsy here.
It isn’t all labradorite though, I swear. Three each of labradorite, black spinel, and amethyst.
This one is my favourite of the amethyst – I’m doing a little experimenting with size/shape of bails, style of the spirals, all of that, so they’re all a little different. This one on Etsy here.
Last post I showed off some tiny pendants – they’re going to be up soon, unfortunately I caught the cold from hell and I’ve been sat on the sofa looking pitiful and watching Netflix.
And wire-netting.
Might have got a bit carried away with that last bit. I have a lot of cabochons, they looked all sad and lonely sitting in a bag, and… well.
This one was an experiment in extending the wire netting. Usually I leave it as a frame to show off the stone but this one put me in mind of a Faberge egg. See here on Oi, Shiny!
This has to be one of my favourites – this stone doesn’t have a single bad angle. The more I work with labradorite the more pictures I want to take because every one is a different set of colours. More pictures here on Etsy.
Here’s the back of that same stone – different angle, different glow, now with Secret Spirals.
And one last one, just for something different…
In case you need something to match your favourite jeans. See here on Etsy.
Now, three guesses what I’m off to do next…
Most of what I make is one-offs and even if I repeat a design the nature of handmade jewellery and gemstones mean that each one is going to look different.
Combine that with preview pictures of just-finished pieces and I’ve had a few people asking if they can call dibs on items or if it’s possible to have pieces held until payday.
The answer is: Yes!
If you see something you want on Twitter, here, or on Etsy, but need a wait a week or two to buy – get in touch with me. I’m happy to set things aside for a little while. If things aren’t priced up yet, I’m happy to work out and let you know.
And here’s my latest set of just-finished pieces – all pendants this time.
Top row: Black spinel
Middle row: Labradorite
Bottom row: Amethyst
These will all be up on Oi, Shiny! later this week.
I’d apologise for putting that song in everyone’s heads, but it’s been in my head the whole time I was making this set.
I don’t usually do quite so monochromatic but I was playing with all the silver pieces and I really liked how the blue and the black looked with it. So everything in this update is sterling silver with either black spinel or lapis lazuli. Silver knots, silver hearts, silver cascades.
And for the first time I have necklaces up!
They’re made to match the earrings, but listed separately.
And now that those are done and listed I’ve dived back into colour. I’ve pulled out my new fancy jasper, my silver has arrived, and I might just spend my birthday tomorrow making cascade earrings.
I love these sterling silver triangles but they’re a bugger to get hold of… so of course the second I got my hands on some more, I used them almost all up. I’m holding one pair of triangles in reserve, but the rest…
Siam red Swarovski, blue magnesite, black spinel, and garnet – the garnet has already flown out the door, the other three are up and waiting for new homes.
Following feedback I’ve made a change to the Oi, Shiny! shop – item prices now cover standard worldwide shipping, and tracked shipping is an optional upgrade. Prices of existing items have been adjusted to reflect this.
So, confession time – this heatwave might be my fault.
See when I posted all those blue earrings I wrote up those descriptions like we might be having a typical British summer – one day of blue sky then back to watching the rain.
Erm. About that…
So I’ve played it a little safer this time – this update is all pearls, all day long. Pearls with purple garnet, pearls with amber, pearls all by themselves.
These ones are my favourite – the amber just glows and I want to hang them in the window and just watch the light on them.
I’d never paid that much attention to amber until I got my first strand of Baltic cognac to play with. And this morning the postman brought me some Baltic cherry, so I’m in love again. Watch this space!
I’ve had that song stuck in my head since I got this lot together to photograph, and so now I’m going to share it with you!
Realised I had quite a few blue pairs of earrings waiting to be put up for sale, so I figured I’d do them all in one day. (I checked for the next blue moon but that’s January 31st, 2018. Little bit long to wait.)
There’s blue Swarovski, lapis lazuli, and blue sapphire all ready and waiting for new homes.
Blue sapphire and sterling silver cluster earrings, £42.00 including international shipping.
I think the next update is going to be a run of pearls, since we’re coming up for June – I’ll keep you posted.
Just had my last delivery of jewellery components in a while and spent yesterday afternoon logging every individual strand into my spreadsheet, so I have all the information handy later. Very useful but at the time my eyes were crossing!
Working on getting another batch of earrings up in the store – finally going to be listing the earrings I have in my icon. 10mm green pearls.
I kind of want to put these on their own tagged #BloodyBigPeals and just leave them stand on their own! Not quite sure that would stick on Etsy, but still.
Now I just need to make myself get things up and listed before I dive into all the things I catalogued yesterday – there’s a set of coin pearls that are calling my name, and a bag of lapis lazuli cabochons, and, and…
I’ve finally bit the bullet and opened my Etsy store! There’s a handful of items up there, more to follow, but here we go!
Lou Lou’s Vintage Fair was in town this weekend so I went for a nosy around – they have an interesting mix of genuine vintage items and modern vintage style, and this time they had the vocal group Timeless in full 40s get-up.
I promised myself I’d be ruthless about what I bought – nothing just “because it’s so pretty”. But a stall that I think was called Vintage Lady had a biscuit tin full of necklaces and I pulled out two Mureno strands. Well. I pulled out one, dithered, bought it, did another lap of the room, then came back for the second.
I had to. The multi-coloured one is *huge* – 87 beads in total, plus the tiny spacers. The colour mix is uneven so I’ve separated out the blue to put with some copper for a bracelet and we’ll see about the rest. The turquoise-looking is a really unusual shape and I’m looking forward to playing with those as individual bits.
I’ve had this set of labradorite cabochons sitting around for ages – they were too beautiful not to bring home, but I wasn’t sure what to do with them. Decided to sit down with Netflix and a reel of wire and get netting.
A few episodes of Doctor Who later…
Started out with a traditional teardrop shape, a sea greenish one with peacock flashes – 3cm long, nice and compact.
This next one I ended up finishing during the episode “Midnight” – the creepy train. And it’s definitely got a little spooky going on – looks like the forest at night, or a midnight storm. 4cm this time, and I thought I’d see how the drop looked upside down – I like the result.
Then… I got a bit ambitious. None of the stones in this selection were particularly small, but I fished out…. this:
5cm from the top of the stone to the point, 3.5cm across the broadest part, weighing in at 27grams once I wrapped it.
Here’s a comparison with the midnight stone:
I’m thinking this might be a “hang it on the wall” decoration piece rather than a necklace – it’s a little on the hefty side!
I’m waiting for a set of black window druzy that will be getting all wrapped up the second it arrives.
Hi, and welcome to the blog. My name’s Jack, I’m a British jewellery maker just setting up shop online. This blog is going to be a mixture of finished pieces I’m putting up on Etsy, works in progress, and any shiny things that catch my eye.
When I was getting started I was looking for a shop name and complained that I couldn’t just say “Oi, I’ve got shiny things!” A friend said “why not?”, and Oi, Shiny! was born.
The earrings above are chrome diopside rounds on sterling silver chain. A couple of months ago I didn’t know what chrome diopside was – now I have a couple of different sizes of beads and I want to hang it on everything. I think it’s the Slytherin green!
When I’m not making jewellery or shopping for new stones I’m knitting, watching horror films, or working on learning British Sign Language.
Oi, Shiny! 