Jewel Street Fine Designer Award

I am delighted to be presented with the much coveted Fine Designer Award 2014 from Jewel Street, the online marketplace where I display my jewellery.

 

This award is 1 of 6 awards selected not by the site themselves, but by the customers who visit it. With 250 jewellery ‘boutiques’ to choose from, showcasing over 12,000 items(!), My designs from my Swan, Kerensa and Stella collections must have stood out for the 90,000 monthly visitors.

 

 

 

For more information about my Jewel Street 'boutique' please visit: http://www.jewelstreet.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=Erica+Sharpe

 

 

 

Visit Erica's Website: www.ericasharpe.co.uk

Follow Erica on Twitter: twitter.com/ericasharpe

Find Erica on Facebook: facebook.com/erica.sharpe.96

Follow Erica on Instagram: instagram.com/ericasharpefinejewellery

Midnight Pendant

Midnight pendant - platinum, diamond and tanzanite

 
The beautiful tanzanite is at the base of the ‘midnight’ pendant. I have set it in platinum with two round diamonds and wanted to keep a simplicity to the design to show of the stones. I gave a soft satin finish to the platinum which reminds me of a still warm evening and the feathers of a barn owl!

Tanzanite was discovered in 1967 near Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, and is a form of blue / purple zoisite. It was named Tanzanite by Tiffany & Co after its country of origin. It is a fascinating gemstone as it is trichroic (displays three different colours depending on which angle the crystal is viewed in) and its colour often varies depending on the lighting it is viewed in. The most valuable tanzanite is a deep velvety purple colour, and It can be prone to being fragile, so a pendant is an ideal way of wearing it: rings can be more vulnerable and have to be worn with care.

 

Midnight pendant in its hand painted display box

The night was clear and frosty, all ebony of shadow and silver of snowy slope; big stars were shining over the silent fields; here and there the dark pointed firs stood up with snow powdering their branches and the wind whistling through them.

~L.M. Montgomery, Anne of the Green Gables.

Visit Erica's Website: www.ericasharpe.co.uk

Follow Erica on Twitter: twitter.com/ericasharpe

Find Erica on Facebook: facebook.com/erica.sharpe.96

Follow Erica on Instagram: instagram.com/ericasharpefinejewellery

Engagment Rings

With Christmas and the new year being a popular time to 'pop the question', now is the time to start the process to create the perfect engagement ring.

 

I have a selection of unique engagement rings that can be viewed on my website ericasharpe.co.uk and in my gallery in Wedmore, some examples of which are...

 

The Sakura ring with Aquamarine 

18 carat yellow gold 4mm band ring set with a central 5mm round aquamarine.

 

 

The Swan Ring

 

18 carat white gold or platinum ring set with a central stone of your own choosing, this one is a marquise diamond.

 

 

The Wedmore Ring



9 or 18 carat gold ring that can be made in yellow, white and rose gold or a combination of two colours, this ring is 18 carat rose gold.

 



A popular choice for an engagement ring, I made a blog post about a surprise proposal featuring the Wedmore Ring: 'She Said Yes!'.

 

Along with creating rings for the gallery, I also specialise in a bespoke service to create the perfect individual engagement rings. The pictures below are some of the bespoke rings that I have created in previous commissions.

 

 

 

If you want to know more about the process of making the rings, visit my blog post: Making a Bespoke Engagement Ring.

Because hand crafting one-off pieces takes time, it is worth making enquiries sooner rather than later. For further information on lead-time please contact us at the gallery.

Visit Erica's Website: www.ericasharpe.co.uk

Follow Erica on Twitter: twitter.com/ericasharpe

Find Erica on Facebook: facebook.com/erica.sharpe.96

Follow Erica on Instagram: instagram.com/ericasharpefinejewellery

 

Hare Bangle



On the first day of its first exhibition, my Searching for You hare bangle proudly wore its red 'sold' dot. It was my first piece to be sold at Celebration of Craftsmanship and Design 2014 and as it was unveiled only minutes before its sale, I would count that a successful first showing for the collection.
 

After its success at C.C.D., the Hare bangle has attracted a lot of interest. The 

bangle itself is created from reclaimed silver with 18ct yellow gold hares' heads at either end of the piece.

 

At Art in Action this year I was lucky enough to meet fellow artist Jackie Morris, whose beautiful words and illustrations in her book 'The Song of the Golden Hare' resonated hugely with my new collection. After meeting her and explaining about the collection, Jackie has very kindly agreed to let me accompany the display of my hare bangle with some words from her book.

“Now the children, brave and still,
began to sing. At first only his sister,
a high wild note, free as a lark. Then the boy,
joining his voice for the first time with hers,
weaving and winding the hares’ speed
and the twilight dancing with the threaded
memory of the hare’s music, and fear and love and beauty.
They sang until their song brought the hounds
to a halt and the huntsman to his knees.”

“As the hare’s song ended
there was a texture to
the silence held in every leaf
of every tree
in the wild wood."

Excerpts from 'The Song of the Hare' by Jackie Morris

To find out about the inspiration behind the bangle visit my previous blog post about the research behind my newest collection, Searching for You.

Hare Bangle in decorated box - pencil drawings

Along with the bangles, I am currently creating the Hare necklace. The necklaces will show the whole animal in a classic running pose, racing around a cable necklet. Starting life as a wax carving, the basic hare shape is formed...

The original wax carving for the Hare pendant

Then it is cast in silver and I do further work to ensure it is as I want it to be...

Rough silver version - lots more work to do!

Finally it is ready!

 

The finished silver hare on a cable necklet

On a leather cord







Visit Erica's Website: www.ericasharpe.co.uk

Follow Erica on Twitter: twitter.com/ericasharpe

Find Erica on Facebook: facebook.com/erica.sharpe.96

Follow Erica on Instagram: instagram.com/ericasharpefinejewellery