Reviving Old Jewellery

Many of us have probably items of jewellery lying around in a box or corner, which we have not been wearing for ages - and I am no exception. Especially when these pieces are made from precious metals parting with them is not easy. Even selling the jewellery will never bring a price close to the real value.

I had a pair of large sterling silver hoop earrings, which I had not been wearing for at least 15 years, in a box. So the best option seemed to be to give them a bit of a twist and a new lease of life.

After thoroughly cleaning the earrings with a silver polishing cloth and in an ultrasonic cleaner I added lightweight 4mm jump rings in sterling silver and 9ct yellow gold. After a final bath in the ultrasonic cleaner they are now nice and shiny and as good as new. And the weight is with just 2.2g per earring still very good for comfortable wear.

And the best thing:

It is easy to change the design, if I ever want to give them a new look again.

Tea Party

Today is actually a dry and sunny although a bit chilly day here, but the last couple of days the weather was simply atricous. It was freezing cold with temperatures in the single figures, windy and wet. It felt much more like November than May.

So I decided to cheer myself up with the gorgeous Dovecraft Tea Party products by Trimcraft.The goregous pastel colours and yummy treats really lifted my mood - although it was hard not to go to Starbucks and organise some real treats ...

For the card above I used the Tea Party decoupage paper pad. I created the flowers with Card Candi, which is shapped around tweezers - a technique I saw demonstrated at the recent Sincerely Your papercraft show in Edinburgh. The leaves are cut with a Marianne Design die.

My products of choice for the next cards were the Tea Party glitter stickers. I added again Card Candi flowers. This time I used a Crealies die for the leaves.

Product lists and step-by-step instructions for both cards (with exception of the Card Candi flowers, as I created the projects for Trimcraft) are in my Trimcraft gallery.

I hope you like these two cards.