Custom made Poppy flower paperweight

I was recently asked by a lady if I had anything suitable that could be used to preserve a Poppy flower. She wanted something making as a gift for her friend and we discussed different items of jewellery because initially she wanted something that could be engraved. I then suggested making a custom made paperweight containing the Poppy; she loved the idea and knew her friend would love it too.

Remembrance Day Poppy

Rather than using a real Poppy, I suggested using a traditional Remembrance Day Poppy and that she could then write a message to her friend on the back of the leaf. But she had an even better idea! She would create a poppy herself by painting an image of the Poppy onto a piece of card making it an even more personal gift for her friend. I received her Poppy picture and it was a wonderful painting! She had also written a personal note to her friend onto the back of the picture and this can be seen through the base of the paperweight.

Custom made Poppy flower paperweight

I encased her Poppy picture into a domed resin paperweight, mounted the paperweight within a leatherette box and sent it directly to her friend and she loves it!

I must say I have made several custom made paperweights recently and haven’t even got around to advertising paperweights on my website yet!

Mick

Real pressed Fuchsia flower jewellery

I had a lovely custom jewellery order to complete recently. The order was actually first place last July however it has taken until now to complete. The lady first contacted me after seeing my Fuchsia flower necklace within my online shop which was unfortunately out of stock at the time.

The lady grows Fuchsias to show and also collects Fuchsia lore so she was quite keen to have a pendant making! I suggested that she may want to send me a few of her own flowers and after giving her advice on how to press them this is what happened. A couple of months passed and then I received a lovely selection of Fuchsias in the post from her.

Using her fuchsia flowers I photographed a few pendant designs and an example can be seen below:

Fuchsia Flower Jewellery Design

These are the pendants that I made for the lady; the first is a resin teardrop shaped pendant containing three small Fuchsia flowers.

Fuchsia Flower Pendant

The second pendant is again a teardrop shaped pendant (which really does lend itself to the shape of the Fuchsia flower) and this contains a single large flower.

Fuchsia Flower Necklace

And finally a sterling silver pendant with a small Fuchsia flower set against a silver backing that I also engraved. This pendant was to be given as a Christening gift to the lady’s niece.

Fuchsia Flower Jewellery

I love making jewellery like this where the customer has contributed towards the design and has even supplied her own flowers; which reminds me, I must remember to press a few Fuchsia flowers of my own this year!

Personalised Memorial Jewellery

I have been making quite a lot of memorial jewellery for cremation ashes recently so thought I would show off some of the designs. I am often asked how I cope with handling the cremated ashes from loved ones or pets. To be honest I do not think about it when I am working other than treating it with the utmost dignity and respect. As with my lock of hair keepsake jewellery I find that I can distance myself from it as I did not personally know the people involved. I do get immense satisfaction though when creating any kind of memorial jewellery as I know that I am providing an important service to the families.

Unlike traditional memorial jewellery for ashes, the resin jewellery that I use permanently encases the ashes with the pendant. Because of this there is no risk of the ashes from being lost and the jewellery is unlikely to break or smash if accidently knocked or dropped. The other benefit of using the resin to encapsulate the ashes is the jewellery can be further personalised with other small objects. For the following pendant I was asked to further personalise it with items that are important to the family. The lady was extremely fond of VW campervans and her son had sent me a VW sign from a toy car to encase with her ashes. She also liked anything red and glittery so the second request was to include lots of red glitter in there too.

Personalised Memorial Jewellery

I am often asked to include small Forget-me-not flowers within the memorial jewellery; the following small charms contain both the ashes and Forget-me-not flowers. Not only are these flowers symbolic but they are very pretty too!

Charms for Ashes

And finally these bracelet charms contain ashes, Forget-me-not flowers and small gold stars.

Keepsake Jewellery for Ashes

If you would like to find out more about my keepsake jewellery for ashes, please visit my Memorial Jewellery website page. Mick

Jewellery Made From a Broken China Cup or Plate

I have always been a huge fan of the work by Marjorie and her Cracked Plate Jewellery. I have great admiration for her ability to take a broken shard of a decorated plate, china, porcelain or ceramic and turn the item into a piece of art. A china plate or teacup is often an extremely sentimental item and one that may have shared many happy times (especially when involved with slices of cake and cups of tea!). So to accidentally chip or break a piece of china can be devastating to the owner.

No longer does a cracked piece of broken china need to be thrown away. Marjorie expertly wire wraps the piece of china and the results are stunning.

Marjorie’s Cracked Plate Jewellery

Marjorie also shares my enthusiasm in creating custom jewellery for people who want to preserve memories of loved ones. This leads me to a recent custom jewellery commission that I had and one that led me to contact Marjorie and in turn write this plog post.

I was contacted just before Christmas by a lady who wanted a special Christmas present making for her Mother. Her Mother had recently broken her favourite china cup and the lady had managed to retain a few fragments of the cup. Initially I thought that the ideal solution would be to have them formed into one of Marjorie’s creations and even suggested this to her. However the china fragments were extremely small and far too small to be wire wrapped.

Broken China Cup Jewellery

I set the three china pieces that the lady sent to me within a teardrop shaped resin pendant and coloured the background green. I was very pleased how it turned out and I am sure it was a lovely surprise when it was opened on Christmas day.

I hope that everybody has a happy and healthy New Year and I look forward to sharing more of my jewellery making journey with you in 2012.

Mick