Painting and Decorating - Paintbrush Pendant

At first glance you may think this is the world’s largest pendant containing a full size paintbrush. It is however probably the smallest paint brush in the world encapsulated within a resin pendant.

I was given a pleasant challenge last week by a customer who wanted a painting and decorating theme for a pendant to give to his wife. I am not entirely sure the reasons why but he ideally wanted a miniature paintbrush setting within a teardrop shaped pendant.

Painting and decorating paintbrush pendant

After much searching on the internet, a lovely Etsy store called ‘Middlemums miniatures’ came to my rescue. Carole of Middlemums miniatures produces fantastic handmade dolls house miniatures including a range of miniature painting and decorating items!

Because the paintbrush came with a separate paint can I also included an additional pendant as a gift to my customer. I added a sterling silver bail to the paint can to produce this pendant.

Paint can necklace

I am just loving encapsulating dolls house miniatures within my pendants and spending many hours searching through all the lovely items Middlemums miniatures and other similar sites have to offer.

Mick

Horse Hair Cufflinks

I had a new addition to my ever expanding range of horse hair jewellery this last week; this time it was a request for cufflinks containing horse hair. These cufflinks are to be given to the groom on his wedding day so that he can carry part of his late horse with him on their special day.

I have set small strands of the hair within resin onto sterling silver cufflinks and hope they make a special present for his wedding day and a lovely keepsake for the future.

Horse hair cufflinks

Whilst on the subject of horse hair jewellery I was also given the opportunity to make a new design of horse hair pendant this week. This design was asked for by a local customer who has had several orders from me in the past. The ‘challenge’ for this pendant was to create a loop with the horse hair and set it against a sterling silver bezel that I also engraved. I couldn’t have made this pendant without the help from my wife Angela; it really did need two pairs of hands to hold the loop in place whilst tying it and we had lots of fun making this too!

Sterling silver horse hair pendant

If you would like to see more examples of my work involving horse hair, please visit my horse hair jewellery gallery.

Mick

Haribo jelly ring in a paperweight

I had quite a lot of fun making this custom made paperweight this last week so I thought I would share it with you. You may remember a previous blog post where I showed you my Haribo jelly sweet engagement rings and mentioned I had been preserving quite a few of these rings for happy couples.

Preserved Haribo sweet engagement ring

Some people wear the Haribo rings hung from cord as necklaces and others mount them in picture frames as a keepsake for their special day. I wasn’t aware that the use of a Haribo ring as a temporary engagement ring was so common until I started making these but it is! I get requests from people all over the world and even got sent a ring this week from Australia!

Last week I was asked to preserve two Haribo rings within a resin paperweight and this was the result. I was also asked to supply the rings (which I was quite keen to do since I welcome any excuse to buy some Haribos). This proved quite a challenge though since the Haribo rings had to be specific colours. Several bags of Haribo Starmix later (and quite a full tummy), I managed to find the correct coloured rings and here they are.

Haribo jelly sweet engagement rings in a paperweight

If you would like to see more paperweights I have been making for people, please visit my custom made paperweights website page.

Mick