Stone charms

One of the lovely things that can happen when having a clear out is you find forgotten treasure. My lovely other half recently discovered some stones that he had polished years ago. He asked me if I though I could do anything with them – they aren't beads and so aren't drilled but I jumped at the chance!

The selection of polished stones

The stones are a wonderful mix of colours with a good depth to their shine. I thought they'd be perfect to make caged charms with. Starting with the quartz and the blue stones I made drop charms by caging them in 0.4 silver plate wire. When looking through my stash for a chain to hang them from I couldn't find anything that I thought looked right, so I broke out the jump rings and made a simple double link chain-mail bracelet. The drops were then hung from it using the same size jump rings. I'm very happy with the result.

The finished charm bracelet

Bird's nest

I love making wire bird's nests. There's something wonderfully creative about forming the shapes out of straight wire, then nestling you bead "eggs" in the centre. Once made they can be hung with jump rings from ear hooks or necklaces. My preference is to mount them on a ring or bracelet shank, a really extravagant option would be to make a bracelet just of bird's nests - each attached to the next with jump rings!

Bird's nest bracelet and ring, using silver plate wire and blue glass "eggs"

Memory wire bracelets

These last two months have possibly been the busiest two of my life. Including one very exhausting but rewarding week that will be life changing. At times like this it's nice to fall back on simple skills and so I've done a big batch of memory wire bracelets. It's a type of jewellery making I often overlook as the focus is on the beads rather than the wire. But the results are striking in their simplicity. The bracelets give a wonderful stacking effect that can be either chunky and bold or fine and delicate. Here's a small selection of what I've been making.....

Green bracelets with butterfly charm detail and red bracelet

Pink nugget bracelet and purple mixed bead bracelet

Monochrome bracelet and chunky pink bracelet