My friend Kate has a beautiful silver and gold anticlastic spinner ring. I’ve always been intrigued as to how they are put together and decided it would be a good project to work on for most of the term before Christmas.

I did some research on the internet on how to make an anticlastic ring and was left a bit downhearted as most jewellery makers use either a special metal or plastic stake or a die and a hydraulic press. I couldn’t afford to buy the equipment and even our class didn’t have the equipment for me to have a go so disheartened I decided to put it to the back burner.

Then one lunchtime at work I was idly searching on Google and came across a blog post where the writer mentioned in passing using a metal block and dapping punches. That was all I had to go on but felt that I could at least have a go.

So armed with some copper I made a basic ring using hard solder. (I’d read about how the stress of shaping the ring could make the solder pop so the stronger solder the better, I thought)

Once it was soldered, pickled  and polished I started to dap it, using only a couple of strikes before turning it over and doing the other side. Quite quickly it started to fold over. I think I probably went too far and it went too arched to be worn comfortably. So I had to put it on a ring mandrel and try and hammer it out a bit. Hardly ideal. I think next time I’ll only turn the metal slightly.

Next I had to put in the spinner ring and oh my goodness it was fiddly. I ended up having to bind my silver wire with about 3 foot of binding wire to hold it in place and be able to solder it. It’s a piece of work I’d rather never speak of again I got that frustrated doing it. Gah!

I wonder if it would be easier to make it at the same time as the main ring and slide it over before I start dapping. I don’t even know if it would work.

And here’s the finished product:

It still needs finishing and polishing, this is out of the pickle.

There’s a lot that I’d do differently next time but as far as first goes, well, go – I’m quite pleased with how it turned out.

Challenge 1
Make chalkboard books

My first challenge was first spotted back last September on the Whip Up blog. Turn old cardboard kids books into mobile chalkboards. Having a small child who needs occupying on long car journeys I thought this would be a great tutorial to try.

My only deviation from the tutorial was that I used chalkboard paint, rather than chalkboard spray as my local DIY place didn’t have any spray. But costs wise, it probably works out the same. (I only had to go and buy silver marker pens as I can’t find the ones I already had after I moved house earlier in the year.)

The front cover of the book, with space for a chalk name or picture on the front.

First two pages, Draw a funny face and Draw your pet.

One for the Peppa Pig fan my daughter is. Dinosaur grrrr…

One for when she’s a little bit older, that’ll help the time pass in the car, I can get a little bit competitive with noughts and crosses though.

Things you see on the beach and at the farm.

Draw a castle.

I spy with my little eye… another good one for car trips although I’ll have to practice drawing lorries, cars and trees.

Making it was pretty straightforward, although with two coats of paint per page and 8 pages with a 2 hour drying time for each coat don’t expect it to be done in an evening. I made mine over the course of 5 evenings. I taped the edges of the spine to protect them from wear and tear. And voilà! one awesome chalkboard book.

Want to try it yourself? The instructions (with pictures) are here.

Of course, I had so much fun making the first one (and it came out so well) that I made a further 9 (NINE!) to give to all the small children in our lives for Christmas. And I’ve had requests to make more as well from people at work.

So much so that I’m going to do a tutorial all about how to do them so you can try them yourself at home.

To try and prevent a cracked or scratched screen I got some scraps of material and some ironable batting and cobbled together a little case.

Now it’s not brilliant and it is all hand stitched but as a prototype it’ll do for now and it’s been a valuable lesson. I’ve got some good ideas now for a tutorial which will be coming at some point.

As you may remember it currently looks like this:

Nice enough, but it could do with something more. One trip to B&Q later and I had a set of paintbrushes, and two tins of paint.

I started by painting up the playhouse:

The wood, because it’s not been looked after properly is really absorbent of the paint and was just drinking it in. In the end I had to put three coats of it on to get a good coverage.

My supervisor really cracks the whip: “Paint faster! Meow!” (Someone needs a visit to the V E T for a teeth clean I think)

Getting there slowly but surely. It keeps trying to rain which is really very annoying.

I enlist the help of my own personal giant to do all the high bits. He does a good job too.

Once that was dry I made a start on painting up the window frames and the fascias. I will need to enlist the help of my personal giant again to do the high bits, it’ll look awesome when it’s done.

Unfortunately, the blue paint is really thin and runny so I’ve had to put four coats of it on so far and there is still a little bit of seepage through of the white paint.

Here’s how it looks so far:

Still to do:

• top fascia board and diamond
• paint front door
• paint the porch floor
• do another coat of paint on the frames

And then I need to do inside is all the sanding, re-hang the door so it actually closes and it’s all done. Hoorah!

One of the nice things about our new house is that the old owners left a wooden children’s playhouse in the back garden. Now, when I was just a kid, my wendy house was just a stick frame with a yellow and red nylon house shaped cover. I loved that house. My mum sewed net curtains for the place and I had a little faux fur and sponge chair to furnish it. It was brilliant.

This place however blows my little wendy house out the water. Kids these days, don’t know they’re born.

It’s awesome. I want to move into there!

It’s got a ground floor and a mezzanine level and wall to wall carpet downstairs. It even has a fitted kitchen (well, fitted as in “it’s screwed to the wall”). The ladder leads upstairs to the mezzanine and the upstairs window.

It even has it’s own electricity supply and a little ceiling light. I’m half tempted to turn it into a workshop. (Only half-tempted though).

As the little’un is subtly hinting, it needs a bit of work doing on it.

There’s a lot of graffiti inside:

Which I think I can sand out. I’ve borrowed an electric sander. I just need to find my enamelling dust mask and I’m good to go on the clean up.

The rules of the house, as drawn on the mezzanine floor by the little girl who lived here before us:

One of the windows also needs replacing:

(Clever use of a document wallet to patch it up.) My brother-in-law has gotten onthe case and donated a sheet of perspex to the cause so I can replace the window. I just need to work out how to take the frame apart in order to do so.

It has some interesting decor. I think the stars and the moon glow in the dark. I’ll have to leave it out in the sun to confirm it though.

We have given it a couple of solar lights outside to make it look a bit more homely.

So the action list for the house:
[x] Sand off all the graffiti and the pen marks to clean up the inside.
[x] Replace the window
[x] Replace the wood on the porch roof and then felt it to help it last longer.
[x] Paint the outside. (Haven’t decided what colour yet though, maybe a grey and nice bright frames.)
[x] Repair the hinge on the door
[x] Replace the light inside with LEDs. (I’ve seen some nice ones in IKEA that I’ll buy at some point)

Well after weeks of soldering, and filing, and filing, and a bit more filing, some burnishing, some polishing, a bit more filing, more polishing and some final burnishing they’re finally done!

They still need some bits and pieces of finishing off to do, such as tidying up the last traces of solder on the ring joins.

Amethyst and rainbow moonstone rings. As you can see on the small-stoned ring the bezel setting isn’t pushed in all the way around the stones. That’s because this idiot here soldered them together (accidentally) and didn’t realise it would be an issue until the stones actually went in.

I’ve been doing a bit more work on them in class and they’re looking a lot better now.

Left: moonstone, right: Rainbow moonstone. I’ve been experimenting with square and round wire to see how comfortable they are.

My secret ring. This bezel recycled some silver scrap I’d been practising stamping on, so the base of this one has a baby foot and my daughter’s initial in it.

Once the stone is in though you will never know.

And this is an opal ring. The stone is only 5mm but it was very expensive!

I’m so pleased with how these turned out. I still have 4 semi-precious stones left to do so I’ll be making a few more rings. Next on my list to do is some plain silver rings so I have a few more combinations to do with the stacking rings.

There’s only simple sets and I still have to give them the final polish, string them and fabricate some earwires for them out of copper but I’m liking how they look already.

This first set is an opaque rose colour, but instead of being pinky it’s some out slightly more purpley. I think this is due to torch firing it, the temperature isn’t as constant as in a kiln so the colours will do random things.

I have some Bullseye glass for my kiln and depending on where in the kiln it goes it comes out in different colours (shades of pinky red) I think pinks are just more susceptible to changes in heat.

And these are a colour called heliotrope. I love this enamel so very much. I love the way it’s more pinky in the middle than around the edges.

Once I have them finished and ready for sale I’ll take some more pictures of them to show you how they look.

This is a round copper disc that was drilled and domed and given a slight pattern around the edges using a metal stamp. You can’t see it particularly clearly in the picture though.

I gave it a couple of sifted layers of kingfisher blue (which comes through a lot darker over copper than it does on silver) and using a hole punched piece of card as a guide sifted a layer of turquoise over that. Because it was only the one layer of turquoise it’s a little bit patchy, but I like the effect.I may go back and do a second layer, but I’ve not decided yet.

It’s actually only about 15mm in diameter, it’s very small indeed. All my test pieces are.

And this is another 15mm piece of copper, drilled and domed, but this time I’ve crinkled the edges so I could experiment with putting enamel onto an irregular surface in an even manner.

This is transparent amethyst enamel which has also come out a little bit darker than  expected with it being put onto copper. On silver it comes out a lot more purple.

This one just needs a final cleaning up and polishing and I’ll start wearing it. I like it that much.

Once I get my extra large disc cutter I’m going to have a go at doing it in a larger size.

This culinary delight was my starter at a little pub on the moors near Saddleworth.