Inspired by Egypt

I've always loved Egyptian things - the pyramids, the temples, the art work and as you'd expect, the jewellery.

I visited Egypt itself a number of years ago and thoroughly enjoyed visiting the places I'd only seen on TV or read about. At the time I had no interest in making jewellery so was not bothered by not visiting the Cairo museum or any other location at which the ancient jewellery could be viewed.

But since I started making my own jewellery I've been toying with the idea of making something based on Egyptian designs. I knew I wanted to involve carnelian (my favourite stone) and something dark blue like lapis lazuli but didn't really know what I wanted to do.

Cornelian (or carnelian) drops

Recently I was at a jewellery exhibition and there were some stalls selling beads - one of them had faceted carnelian drops and dark blue tube beads labelled as "lapis" - so I bought them, a design was brewing at the back of my mind.

"Lapis" tubes

I carefully took my prizes home and my brain continued to work on what to do with them.

After a couple of false starts I sketched up a design for a necklace I liked (sorry, forgotten to scan the sketch or I'd show it to you now).

But then I stopped doing anything to do with jewellery making for a while - a combination of "winter blues" and lack of inspiration I think.

Anyway, with Christmas over with I was determined to get back to making jewellery again. So I sat down with the design for these beads and put the drops on to sterling silver wire with loops. Then it all sat around for another couple of weeks.

A couple of days ago I was fed up of having accomplished nothing recently so made the concerted effort to move on with this piece of work. And I managed to finish the necklace that night (it just proves what I bit of will power will accomplish), so I made matching earrings.

Sorry that the photo isn't the best one I've ever taken but you can see the important bits in it. So this is what I created.

"Inspired by Eqypt" necklace and earrings

Today I am wearing the set around the office, need to check that it isn't going to fall apart, and making sure that it has no "rough" bits. So far it's a success.

I'm hoping that I can create something jewellery related each week of the rest of 2011, even if only some findings to use later (ear wires, s-clasps, jump rings, etc). And I hope to be a bit more creative with my own designs this year rather than only copying other peoples designs. Guess I'll see how it goes.

Bye for now
Anne