Stained Glass panel - Kalahari scene

In the early 80’s, I was the proud owner of a Craft & Gift Shop, offering lessons in various crafts, one of them being working with stained glass. During this time I was commissioned to do a stained glass panel for a Game Lodge in the Kalahari and the owner was very specific about what she wanted, describing the area in great detail, with me frantically taking notes – low mountains, a scarcity of vegetation, dry, hot and dusty landscape, the colours at sunset and little troops of buck and zebra eking out a living on the seared landscape. And the size – 3m wide by 2m deep! I had never made anything this big, except for a couple of window restorations and I must say I was a bit overwhelmed.
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I worked on this piece for two weeks and finally the customer flew up to Gauteng to come and view the finished article. I think I chewed my nails down to the bone waiting for her arrival. But I needn’t have worried, much to my delight she was ecstatic and my work now proudly takes pride of place in the reception area of her Game Lodge in the Kalahari

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Brooches in Copper and Silver wire

Making jewellery is a fascinating past-time. Holding a piece of copper or stained glass in my hand and imagining what it can become is exciting and exhilarating, gets the creative juices flowing and can lead to hours of immersion in the design. There's a certain thrill in looking down at the new piece just made.

.10mm Silver plated wire from Germany I mostly use. Other sizes are 0.8mm and 0.6mm, after that at gets a bit too thin.

Using wire and copper in making jewellery gives you endless choices in creativity. Wire allows you the freedom to get creative with twists, turns, and wraps and endless creative shapes can be cut out of copper. I mostly use silver plated wire from Germany, but also love the .20mm copper wire you can buy from electrical shops. It's thicker, firm, but still easy to bend into shapes.

A necklace with Green beads made out of copper wire

If you're interested in using wire in jewellery making, there are many tutorials on the internet, but I found this easy one for a 'Purple Passion Pendant' at Domestic Diva. At 'All Free Jewelry Making' you will also find some useful links.

I use copper sheeting bought by the roll from many craft shops, it's soft and pliable and very easy to work with and the solder takes to it perfectly. 5 Mil (.005 inches thick) 36 gauge, copper is thick enough that it will hold shape pretty well. You cannot tear it with your hands, but it can be be cut with scissors. It is very flexible and pliable. To use in jewellery as is, you have to have something solid backing it, but covering it in solder gives it the necessary rigidity for brooches and pendants. It is perfect for die-cuts and punches. 8 Mil (.008 inches thick) 32 gauge, copper is approximately 11 - 12 times thicker than typical household aluminium foil and 1.5 times thicker than the 5 mil. This is a heavy-duty tooling foil. 8 mil can be cut fairly easily with scissors and is still very pliable and holds its shape a little better than the 5 mil, but to punch it requires quite a bit of pressure. I rarely use 10 mil as it needs to be cut with heavy duty scissors or a utility knife. As with any sheet metal, the edges can be extremely sharp. Be careful when cutting or working with copper sheeting. Whenever I create pieces that have sharp corners, I usually use an old pair of scissors (so I don't worry about ruining them) and trim the corners so that they are slightly rounded.

Here is a fairly easy tutorial on "How to work with copper sheeting".

Hand-made brooch out of copper, wire and silver solder with a clear blue glass jewel in the centre

Two amber glass jewel brooches, the first surrounded with silver solder, the second with silver wire and silver solder and a ring for hanging something

Silver wire brooch with silver wire, filled with silver solder and two seed beads

Red glass jewel brooch with silver wire filled with silver solder

White glass jewel brooch with silver wire and filled with silver solder

An iridescent glass jewel brooch with silver wire and silver solder

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