I’ve been working a lot lately on the designs of my jewellery and find that the most tedious details give me the best results. I love the fact that it requires quite a lot of research because I’m learning throughout the process and discover new techniques and ways to solve issues. Also the treasure hunt for certain materials is an amazing way to find new basics or special items. I mostly work with leather, pearls, aluminium, gem stones and shapes or stuff that I find in nature.

I’ve bought really cool tiny mechanical clock parts which I’ve used in my latest designs along with a technique called wire wrapping. It looks cool and is a great technique to combine with rough materials and/or nonsymmetrical shapes like shells which I use a lot. Although it can be quite compelling at times, it is still a very intensive technique to work with and not as easy as it looks nor as complicated as chain mail either. As I have only started I’m sure I’ll learn soon enough.

Working on my designs puts me in zen mode and after a couple of hours -no matter how tedious things become- I find myself being either totally relaxed, singing or sighing. Not a sigh of frustration though, the opposite: a total contentedness kind of sigh. One that reoccurs regularly within a certain time span. Also the reactions I get from people around me are very rewarding, they seem to be really enthusiastic when I show them my stuff and encourage me to sell them at a store.

Which is something I’ll keep in mind for the future, for now it is ok to just explore all the different kinds of techniques and go treasure hunting for new and cool small items that I can use for my designs.