Another Blog Giveaway: A Necklace to Celebrate the Chinese New Year

The Chinese calendar is a true lunisolar calendar – i.e it incorporates phases of both the Sun and the Moon. In 2010 (or rather 4707) the Chinese new year begins on Valentine’s day or 14th February. This year is the year of the tiger.

Red is traditionally used during the new year celebrations to ward off bad luck and gold is used to attract good fortune.

So with this in mind, I have created a new blog giveaway using these colours, to celebrate the Chines new year and to bring the wearer good luck.

The piece I have created is a necklace.

It comprises a pendant, which hangs upon a  silk thong.

The pendant is made from sterling silver, hammered into a spoon shape and textured to add depth and dimension to the spoon. It is made up from 3 spoons and a central wire hanging down. The central wire has 5 red Swarovski crystal beads that represent the Wu Xing or 5 elements.

To enter the giveaway you need to leave a comment in my shadowbox which is located by clicking this link

IMPORTANT Its really IMPORTANT that you leave me an email address on the Etsy Stalker comment otherwise I wont have any way of contacting you.

I will then, on March the 1st, run the sequence generator widget on random.org (this gives me a timestamp to show when I have run it and the top number in the generated sequence is the winner, i.e. the number which equals the numbered comment on Etsy Stalker).

London will be celebrating the Chinese New Year, you can find out more about that here

The competition is open to worldwide users and I’m happy to pay the postage, but if you live outside the UK you’ll have to be responsible for any customs charges: although there shouldn’t be any as it’s a gift.

Pictures of the prize:

Chinese New Year necklace 1

Chinese new year necklace

Legal bit (sorry!):

By accepting a prize, all winners agree that the Host  will have no liability whatsoever for, and will be held harmless by winner for any liability for any injury, loss or damages of any kind, to winner or other persons, including (without limitation) injuries, loss or damages arising out of or relating to death, and, injuries, damages or losses to property, due in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, from the acceptance, possession, use or misuse of the prize or participation in this promotion.

Sterling Silver Heart Necklace: Progress

I’ve been in the process of making a new necklace called “My heart was broken, but it is beginning to mend”. I think we all have a story like that, don’t we…

Anyway, I got inspiration for this from a personal experience, but also from an old jewelry making book I found, I think it’s from the late 40′s. In it there was a really nice idea for silver links for a chain, which I liked the look of so, that was how it started.

The Chain

Each link, around 4.5 cm in length was cut from 1.5 mm sterling silver wire.

I then hammered each link to flatten each end, but leaving the middle unflattened. Once flattened, I then dimple hammered the length to give  a nice Arts and Crafts effect. The links were finshed off by filing down any sharp edges and sanding over any small scratches.

Both ends of each link then were drilled to allow jump rings to connect the links together.

You can see the necklace starting to take shape in the photo above.

The Rest of the Necklace (silver heart and clasp)

I have also created a handmade clasp which has an oval jump ring in place to close up the clasp once hooked.

As you can also see from the image above, I have attached red sea jasper beads to the ends of the necklace where the silver heart will be attached.

The heart is made of PMC (which is a clay like substance containing 99.9% silver granules. You shape it, then fire it in a kiln (or use a torch). The heat processes evaporates the clay, leaving almost pure silver behind. Once out of the kiln, you have to clean it up and place it in a tumbler with steel shot to shine it up.

As I write, the heart is tumbling away, being cleaned ready for attachment.

I’ll post up the completed necklace in a  day or so.

Oh, I’ve also made matching earrings – you can see  a close up shot of one of them here:

I think the effect of the red sea jasper with the hammered silver has a Mackintosh  feel to it – do you think so too?