Jewellery By Shalini

Here is a picture of my first cabs :-) As I said before I am not 100% satisfied with them but it's a start. It's my first attempt and some of them have turned out all right. The others, well back to the grinding wheel again I guess. Here is a close up of the individual cabochons: These are the ones that definitely need more work! ------------------------------------------- These I am reasonably pleased with for a first attempt :-) They are a lot shinier than the pictures show ------------------------------------------- And this one was a bugger! Its a Porcelain Jasper with such beautiful patterns on it but try as I might it does not get an overall smooth finish. The different patterns all seem to have different properties and grind down differently. I'll think about this one a bit more. ------------------------------------------- And I am proud of this one!

OK so I have made some cabochons now. Not 100% satisfied with them, but not too bad for a first attempt. I don't have pictures to show yet. I took some but the light wasn't too good and the focus was bad so they look like little coloured blobs. I am going to ask the expert - Dave - to take the photos for me and if he can do it today I will post them later this evening.

I have taken my first step towards making Cabochons :-) You have already seen some beautiful photos I posted of the Cabs Dave has made. Well I'm making them as well now. I have watched and learned from him and started. Yes that does mean I am now hogging the Cabochon making machine (see picture) :-) but it's a lot of fun. Ok so how it starts is that you cut the rough rock chunks into slabs, then shape them on the diamond wheel, then take it through the various phases of grinding down to a smooth finish. If done right you should end up with a perfectly polished piece with a mirror like shine. That's the general idea anyway. Right, so some rocks were slabbed on the Saw and then they were ready for working on. Let’s get on with it then…. But I wanted to do Rose Quartz and Sodalite and these were not part of the slabs we had cut. I have seen Dave spend hours on putting these slabs on Dop Sticks using wax. See picture of dop Sticks. He had a Rose Quartz and a Sodalite piece on ...

Not a lot to say about this really, it's a picture we just took as a Spitfire, a Lancaster and a Hurricane flew over Stamford. Loved it. Don't know what the Birds were thinking though!

I have recently signed up to be a Foundation Partner for The new Stamford Endowed Schools’ Foundation Privilege Card. A little bit about the Foundation - The Foundation is a charitable body and aims to raise funds in order to support the Stamford Endowed Schools and their pupils. The funds raised through the foundation will be used for the benefit of children from the local community. And that makes this a very special project for me. The Bursaries are there to provide opportunities for young people from less affluent backgrounds to fulfil their potential in sports, music, science, languages and in the arts. The new Stamford Endowed Schools’ Foundation Privilege Card has been set up to raise funds for the Foundation. Some of the best retail outlets and restaurants in Stamford have lent their support to the Foundation Privilege Card and by joining in this very worthwhile programme that supports the valuable work of the Foundation, you ...

Just sent my cheque off for the next Stamford Arts and Crafts Market to be held on 26 th July. I did the May market and it was OK, but it wasn't the nicest of days - cold, windy and wet. Plus I booked for the Art Centre which is slightly out of the way of the High Street. But I prefer to be indoors so its the Art Centre again for the next one. I did make a few sales and some good contacts. I am hoping some of us jewellery designers can get together and do an exclusive Jewellery show. We all make different types of jewellery and I think it could be quite good! I'll keep you posted as things progress....

All right so I have only "borrowed" these images from Dave's webpage http://www.roughrocks.co.uk/ but they are too nice not to share!