Merry festive season to all and to all a good drink...

I'm not a big Xmas fan, but I feel I hate to wish those who love commercialism... I mean silly season, a festive time... Hope you l get great gifts and as I won't post till after new years:

Merry Commercialism day and a fantastic new year [which is my mothers birthday as well]

Be Good

working... working... working...

Working hard on some shiny things.

Soon new stock will be available, exclusively from The fringe Arts. And directly from me of course. Can't wait to hear what people think of the new stock... Trust me, very different from what I've done before.

I am working, I promise!

An exhibition came and went... A degree finished up... 7 years came to a close... All good things come to an end right? Correct and so the door opens for better and bigger things.... And with that I have to start bragging about the new member to my jewellery family... Florence the fly press.... Isn't she just too green? This is my absolute favourite tool by the way and I scored an old vintage one... YAY!!! Now to make things...

And I swear I am working.... Look at my design book... or rather my new one... Soon I will have an exciting new range of jewellery available... and guess what they will be exclusively available from the Fringe arts... okay and directly from me.... Keep an eye out kids... next 2 weeks... gonna be intensely exciting....

all good things must come to an end...

With a heavy heart, but also very much relieved mind, I have the pleasure of telling you all... I am now officially no longer a student. After 7 grueling years, 5 of which were spent at CPUT, I am finally done and will now devote my time fully to the making of pretty shiny things for you all to buy (hint hint).

It's been an amazing time and I've had a swell time, but the swelling has gone down.

So just to give you guys (and gals) the update of whats been happening, seeing as I've been a bad blogger...

These last few months, I've been working on my graduate body of work for my degree... I've been doing photo shoots, collaborating with a band, working with fringe and doing the odd commission. But most importantly, the degree...

I had to present my body of work in some manner (pictured above), to tie in with my thesis, my presentation was turned into a bar/nightclub. My photo shoot I did was set up to look like people having drinks, these you can see on my facebookpage

As of tomorrow you can also go have a look at the graduate exhibition at CPUT, it's open from 8:30 till 4pm and runs from 23 November until 27 November. Lemme know what y'all think...

Aftermath of the heart expo...

Thursday (14th Oct) was the I [heart] Hearts Exhibition at The Fringe Arts (at the V&A Waterfront). 20 Hearts were unveiled, each individually designed and artified by a designer that stocks the shop. The proceeds are being split between the artist (or Heartist as we are being called) and the Association for Visual Arts’ (AVA...) Artreach fund in partnership with Spier.

I love the hearts done by Inkheart, one by Nina and one by Kevin, as well as the hearts by Metaxia and Lauren Fowler.

Above is my heart, was gone before I could snap a pic of it with the others. It's awesome to be part of this project. I now have a love for gold leaf and have a hankering to make new stock for the shop. So much to do....

I ♥ Hearts

Tomorrow is the opening of the I <3>

I can't wait.

I did a heart, as did my friendlies at Inkheart (2, cause they are cool like that) and Metaxia.

This is gonna be exciting and I have so many ideas for heart jewellery.

I need to get a cracking...

Busy busy busy

So many things have been happening on this side, jewellery, life, money, love (okay not so much)

Between finishing Btech, trying to have a life and keeping up with my dear stockist, The Fringe arts, who are my exclusive stockists currently (besides from me directly)

Work has been going on, aside from the fact that I've had a nasty car accident, but that adds to manufacturing fun, put your heart into the art. So many designs in my head, Btech, for Fringe and for clients... Where to start?

So to date [4 October 2010] I now have 11 pieces done for Btech. Above is one of my pretties. you'll just have to come inspect this one at the exhibition. Oh dear I need to plan my presentation as well... Fun times!

The Fringe Arts @ The V&A Waterfront.

So kids, I can't believe how time has flown. In May, I randomly strolled into the City Hall in Cape Town to see the Spier Contemporary exhibition and saw this quaint little shop, stocking all manners of pretty things. 5 Months down the line, I have been involved with them over three pop-ups and loving every minute of it. So this little shop is called the Fringe Arts, I've blogged about them before and I wont jabber on about them, you can rather go see their web page, located here...

So 5 months down the line, The Fringe Arts have moved to a new shop in the V&A Waterfront. The shop is beautiful, it's got the most amazing view and not to mention the thingies to buy.

I get lost looking at everything there, I love the combinations of crockery, jewellery, art and even furniture.

So I had a good look around, feeling the need to blog and to brag about this great opportunity. The best news we also recently heard is that The fringe Arts will now also be opening a second store on the Spier Wine Farm, how amazing is that? Guess it's time to get cracking on new stock and idea's

Looking around I found my friend Nina's jewellery, Inkheart Jewellery Design. I love her ribbon necklaces, darn me for being a boy.

And then there is also another friend of mine, Metaxia, with her brass range of jewellery, you know you've got good taste. Just check the view behind the pieces, wow.

And then of course we have my pieces... I love the little stand they found for me. And again check that view.

So go have a look, I can promise you some amazing local talent.

Popping up now!

It's time for the next pop-up of The fringe arts this time they are in The V&A Waterfront in the Victoria and Alfred Mall, right by Den anker.

These are some pics I took when I dropped off my stock, it's going to be beautiful.

So come have a look and even come pop in at the launch party. Meet some of the designers and get some beautiful things.

I'll take some pics tonight of the launch and all the pretty things and people.

I love this shop, they are my favourite stockists, follow them on twitter as well:

www.twitter.com/thefringearts

working hard....

So after my last blog about how hard I am working I felt I should give the latest update.

I've been designing up a storm. I discovered on Tuesday (24 August 2010) that I have 9 weeks left until my body of work needs to be done. So I need another 15 pieces before then... sadly my goal of 40 pieces has been forgotten as this year has been so hectic, well yeah I just have to forget about it... for now... So here's just a pic of my latest piece in production... stringing 8 metres of pearls, coral and moonstone... yes I have bitten off a bit much to chew... stay tuned for more insanity...

goodluck to it all

So it's been a while... Miss me?

Things have been crazily busy on this side.

Here's a little update about what's been happening since our last little tryst.

I've been teaching (alot), besides teaching 2nd year technique at the university, I've been offering drawing (3d modeling, Rhino) because 1 of our lecturers resigned and did a 3 week introduction to jewellery course for the foundation course. Been working on my body of work for Btech, sadly only 6 pieces done out of a minimum of 20, I want 30 to 40... Eish...

And last but not least also one of the coolest:

I have been collaborating with friends of mine who study at Red and Yellow.

They were approached by a band (Goodluck) to do the art direction and design of their branding and album art. So we've collaborated and I've made the patterned jewels that go on top of a statue for the album.

The band is amazing, I had the fortune of hearing their new material in studio when we went to have a meeting the other day. Seriously check them out. So excited to see the album done and to see them perform live as the opening act for Basement Jaxx on 3/4 September. Very very awesome!

SA jewellery news. January 2006

I was ambling about the internet when I found this article. I never knew this was published.

Anyway this was back in the day when I was still a young student.

I had entered the PlatAfrica competition and won the most creative design award in 2005.

This article was published after I had found out, but I never knew about it. So I had to share it. Have a look at the second page.

Inked...

I had to share this with you all. As it technically is jewellery related. This is my new tattoo, on my left forearm. It reads 925 AG and 75 Cu. To any goldsmith and chemical engineers out there it would make sense. This is the formula for sterling silver. Ag is the symbol for silver on the periodic table of elements and sterling silver is 92.5% pure silver. The other parts are allowed to make it wearable as jewellery. It has sentimental meaning to me, as silver is 1. My favourite metal and 2. the metal I learned to make jewellery in. Such a beautiful font as well.

Opening night

So these are just two snaps I could get from the opening night at The Cape Creative Exhibition. Managed to get these of my stand with my jewellery in the new Fringe Arts pop-up... The shop and show looks amazing, the curators (Chantal and Thessa) should be very proud, they really outdid themselves. Have a look at the facebook pages and see the schedule of the events at the exhibit. It's amazing!!!!

Sneak peak...naughty naughty

Well I've been hard at work doing commissions for clients and working hard on my latest stock for The Fringe Arts and getting it ready for them. As well as doing work for my degree... Which sadly has been going slower than I want it to.

So without further wait I can present a sneak peak of 3 of the pieces available from Fringe. Showing off the rest would be cheating... tsk tsk go have a look.

So these are the pics. Two pendants and a pair of earrings. I'm quite chuffed with how they came out. There are similar pieces at the shop as well. Hehehe, I know... Naughty

So go have a look folks, let me know what you think and check out my facebook page for the rest of the pics.
But after seeing all the hard work my fellow bloggers and tweeters have put in (Nina, Emma and Theresa) I feel I have to start doing more work... So hopefully next blog will have a few pics of my completed workshop... Let's hold thumbs

Some work for clients...

So I've been hard at work.... This has been a very busy few weeks for me. The fringe arts have opened a new store and I've been making pieces for them (but thats for another blog) and I've been teaching and doing commisions.

So in this post, I tell you this: These beauties gave me sleepless nights. Escuse the bad photo's byt the way. I need to take my camera for a service, anyone know of somewhere good?

So these rings are for two ladies I know. Very close to my heart. These are just very simple rings with each of their birthstones. The top one is a cusion cut citrine, the birthstone for Novemeber (Mine incidentally).

And this beauty is a star ruby (took me hours to photograph the star), which is the birthstone for July. They also asked me to make two pendants for the one's nieces. These are the little hearts.

The one lady has a similar pendant that I made, her nieces wanted ones aswell. But she didn't want them to have the same. So what I did was I painted the inside of the pendant with glasspaint (this is a new favourite of mine), each of their favourite colours. I am very impressed with these pieces.

and so the hunt begins

Amongst my work and my degree, I have also found myself teaching at CPUT. I tutor the 2nd year group and I have to say I enjoy it immensely. I learn a lot of patience from them and also learn from their enthusiasm.

So here I have to brag about my little monkey's. They are finishing off their 1st semester and at the time of writing this, are getting ready for their 1st moderation (exam) of the year.

They just completed a project I set them and here I have to show off 4 of my favourite pieces that they made.

The aim of this project was to carve a deers head out of wax and cast it into metal and then mount it on wood.

Impressive. Even thought they didn't think they could do it, they pulled it off beautifully. Just shows you what you can do.

The lazy blogger returns

So I've been a lazy blogger, I blame this on the winter months and being slightly incapacitated with sickness. But here's my latest news, besides that I seem to be healthier, before I was sick I managed to make a few rosaries. Of these I have one left, pictured below.

The Rosaries were all made of sterling silver and semi precious beads. The one shown here is white and red coral beads. The came out beautifully. Funny enough I found out that red and white are traditionally symbolic of death when combined... So is this a deathsary?

Also you all know this little beauty. Well he was the inspiration for the little black heart range and after making some pieces I am proud to say they have been made available for sale in the Fringe Arts Shop, in Cape Town City Hall, this shop is pretty damn amazing. They sell not only jewellery but also art, furniture and bags, etc... etc... I had a look around and found my friend's line, Inkheart jewellery design, amongst others. Go have a look, it's amazing and Inkheart has an amazing range of jewellery.

dangly dangly earrings...

Here are the latest earrings from the little black heart collection... These are chandelier earrings, the main body is blackened silver and the ends have little razorblades on them....
Now ready for order....

Got wood?

So being a bit bored during my holiday, by which I mean, I don't want to do design work for university; I started thinking about how to exhibit my collection of rosaries. I came up with frames in which to hang them.

So here I have the wood. I went to get skirting board which is used in bathrooms, when put together they make a beautiful frame.

So I started off by cutting the wood into lengths and then cutting the ends at 45 degree angels, to join them at 90 degrees.

Here are the unfinished frames, joined and having a back box without backing put on. I filled it with wood filler where needed to hide joins and screws. And then spray painted it black and added the centre rod for the rosaries to hang on.

So here are the finished, painted frames with my rosary collection, hanging on my wall... Came out beautifully don't you think?

I've been painting a bit...

So I've been painting a bit instead of doing jewellery...

Getting there but it's so slow...

Oil on canvas...

Subject is Alucard from Hellsing...

my best friends engagement ring....

So this is my best friends engagement ring... I made it for her... Yes I sound like a retard... anyway it was fun... 18ct white gold with a .50ct centre stone....

updates from my black little heart...

So my dearest monkeys... so here follows the latest update from the little black heart range... I have been getting requests from people about the pieces so here are the two latest available...
Unofficially the range isn't out yet, but I mean really, do I need a grand opening?

So this is the little black heart rosary... The beads on this one are black tourmaline and cracked clear quartz... Many variations on this piece are available, my favourite is red coral with black tourmaline... Price is dependant on the stones used...

This little beauty is my other baby... based on the claddagh rings of old, this is a promise necklace or for all intensive purposes, just something pretty... Available as a brooch too...

a bit reveal....

So here's a big surprise for you.... I'm showing off some of the renderings for the little black heart range....

This is a rosary, with semi precious stones, will be available in any colour beads.
A winged heart pendant. Thinking of also making a similar brooch....

Hoop earrings

Chandelier earrings

And a mens ring....

So what do we think? There are more in the range but these are my favourites....