Turquoise Mermaid Amulet

 

 

 

 

The latest Mermaid Amulet containing a stunning Turquoise gemstone with a beautiful black matrix running through it :) The whole piece is meant to resemble a piece of barnacle covered piece of coral, fit for a  Mermaid on her wedding day !!

 

 

The Eye Of Poseidon - Mermaid Amulet

Finally after about a year of rehab and recovery following a torn shoulder tendon, I have been able to wire sculpt again!!

This piece is a Mermaid Amulet called the "Eye Of Poseidon" honouring the all powerful God of the Oceans and Tempests, which seemed particularly fitting as this piece is a veritable maelstrom of crashing waves and turbulent waters, woven loosely into my interpretation of his eye




I feel this piece fits in nicely with the rest of the pieces in the Mermaid Amulet collection - there have always been stand alone pieces such as Ariel's Voice, and Cascade but all in all I think this is one of my favourites. I won't lie it was tricky to make, as I had to take a slowly slowly approach to making it, rather than my usual 16 hour straight approach lol - but I feel she was worth it in the end :)

Ariel's Voice II

                                 
                      Cascade Mermaid Amulet

 

There are a few Mermaid Amulets still available in the shop at present including these two personal favourites of mine....anyway follow the link HERE to see them all

 

 

 

Seafoam Mermaid Amulet, the blog post on this piece can be found HERE

Yellow Aquamarine Gaudi inspired Mermaid Amulet available to purchase HERE

 

 

I do love photographing my work against natural textures such as river rocks, pebbles, wood and stone - it adds to the organic nature of the work. I hope my shoulder continues to behave from now on and allows me to create this kind of work again soon :) Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the rest of the photos

 

 

 

Thanks for looking ...



Samantha Braund

Humble Beginnings

 

It has been a long time since I have been able to do any wire sculpting, due to a Rotator Cuff tear of my shoulder...so you cannot imagine the joy I felt today in creating this little nugget of swirls lol. It is the humble beginnings of a Mermaid Amulet :) So far the shoulder hasn't reacted badly to doing this, but we'll see...if all goes well then wire work can be officially part of my rehab too (yay)
Thanks for looking ...



Samantha Braund

Meet The New Mermaid Amulet Queen!

Having been immersed in making Pirate Treasure chests for the past week, it was only natural for my strange mind to turn to making another Mermaid Amulet for the shop. This one started as a rather modest composition around the central green pearl, then it started to grow, and grow , and grow!

The piece has cascades of my signature swirls and embellishments falling from the pearl, culminating into this Art Nouveau style sculptural feature. It is a real statement piece and the new Queen of the Mermaid Amulet Collection in my mind. You can find her here in the shop . I've included plenty of views so that you can appreciate the detail and intricacy that has gone into the piece. I hope you love her as much as I do!


















Thanks for stopping by




Samantha Braund

New Acorns and Golden Oldies

Smokey Quartz gemstones and Sterling silver acorns

This post shows pieces going into the shop that represent new beginnings while reflecting on the past. I read in a Psychology book recently about how it can be beneficial to look back at the ups and downs of your life and work out how you got through the toughest times, and to acknowledge that you always did get back up again. You are meant to learn lessons from your own history and take reassurance from it. Bearing this in mind I created this piece as an ode to new beginnings . I have a strand of these smooth tumbled Smokey Quartz gemstones, that resembled acorns, others can see grapes, buds and even olives - what can you see? I sculpted the stalks , vines and tendrils in Sterling silver. You can see from the picture of the piece in my hand how small and intricate the piece really is (below)





By way of a coincidence, I also found this significant piece I made years ago. This "Golden Oldie" was created at the height of some really tough times I was going through, and had no sense of control over my situation. This piece represented something of a creative breakthrough in my wirework, which gave me such a sense of hope and serenity in the midst of all that hate being thrown in my direction. I guess I should value the fact that my art and creative outlets have always comes to my rescue whenever I have fallen down, I will always be grateful for that. I hope to get these two pieces in the shop within the next few days :)


14 carat gold and microfaceted  Citrine gemstone





Thanks for stopping by




Samantha Braund

Grey Skies Seafoam Mermaid Amulet

This is the latest necklace I finished making today. It is the follow up piece in the Seafoam Collection, inspired by Hans Christian Anderson's Little Mermaid short story. The first one as you may recall contained Aqua Blue Chalcedony gemstones, this one contains White Chalcedony gemstones



These gems arrived in the post a few days ago, and I was instantly captivated by the milky grey - white hues, and I especially loved the luminescent glow that seems to emanate from within the gems themselves. They reminded me of grey rainy skies with the sun peeping from beyond the clouds. I had to start making the necklace within two hours of opening the parcel! I used 5 of the gemstones for this piece, and tried to emulate coral and barnacles with my woven swirls and beads, to create a piece suitable for a Mermaid.

It was a tricky piece to photograph, I do have some high contrast images against a white background, but I personally prefer the grey against grey...for the shop I used a close up crop shot for the primary image. Anyway I am in love with this latest precious and may even anoint it the new "Queen of the Shop" (there is always one lol) . The hubby is very enamoured with this one too which kind of clinches it for me. It is strange though how much I adore colour, riotous bright hues all the way through to sombre darks, and yet my new favourite piece is such a watery, cloudy desaturated coloured piece...very ironic

I hope you love the rest of the views of this piece, which is already in the shop (I've been pretty efficient with listing lately, how unlike me lol)









Thanks for stopping by :)




Samantha Braund

Paisely Easter Holidays

I'm back to making jewellery now that the Easter Holidays are here, and I'm on a well earned break from university work. This is the latest piece, a rather substantial  sized necklace containing a large faceted bicoloured Lemon-Smokey Quartz gemstone. The whole design is inspired by Paisely patterns. I took my time over it, and included a couple of sections of coiled wire - a technique I haven't used in forever... it was great to feel I had the time and the sense of calm to mix it up with my wirework methods. I think it turned out very well in the end...

I took a look back and noted that I hadn't fabricated a new piece of jewellery in almost a year! It was strange coming back to the discipline, but I loved every minute of it. So far,  my holidays have involved finishing a repair/commission piece for someone, dealing with sales, and taking pictures of new pieces for the shop. I have been so neglectful of the shop, and yet it does manage to tick along without my intereference lol. Anyway, I will be editing some of the new photos and the result will mean that there will indeed be more items in my shop - at last lol.

I am also in the process of designing a new metal clay/wire sculpted piece with a gorgeous Labradorite gemstone. I am excited about the prospect and am also just a tad nervous about it. Uni wise I have organised to meet up with a couple of tutors in Metal and Glass workshops in April , so I am keeping my hand in there too...no rest for the wicked as they say







Well thats it for now, hopefully there will be more prettiness and items in the shop soon...




Samantha Braund

Coral Reef Sculpted Necklace

I'd wanted to create an organic pendant, inspired by the Coral reef, as part of my Shipwrecked Jewellery Collection (as seen HERE). The collection is based on the idea that precious art jewellery are marooned on shipwrecked vessels beneath the sea

Over time, barnacles, and other marine life settle and grow over them, creating new organic, part living, sculptures. These are in turn discovered by Mermaids, searching through the shipwrecks, for lost treasure.

I usually sculpt this collection in sterling wire, but I wanted to add another dimension to it, by fusing metal clay sculptures with the wire.
Below is my original sketch. I wanted to emulate hard coral, with those finite repeated patterns and arching forms, which I found wire weaving lent itself to. The fine silver clay was sculpted to create a chamber for the gemstone, and to create that flowing "fin", that gives the whole piece that sense of movement and directional flow. I think the fused wavy wire work on the right side , resembles turbelent water flowing around the coral



I then used fine silver to add the little organic embellishments such as the seashells.The gemstone is a flashy Labradorite (the same stone seen in an earlier post), it has proved to be very inspirational. The colors within it are unbelievably bright at times, with yellows, golds,greens and blues are captured within it.

Anyway, here are the rest of the photos, showing different views of the piece. I'm really happy with it, and am encouraged to do more sculptures combining wire and metal clay

Ocean Cluster necklace

The latest necklace inspired by the seashore
A cluster of freshwater pearls and sterling silver beads resembling barnacles, with a beautiful Blue Chalcedony faceted gemstone at its heart

This will be in the Etsy shop available to purchase from here

Enjoy the pics!!