Hello!!

Come find me over on my brand spanking new website and online shop.

www.redpegecostudio.com

Custom orders are so much fun.

Ive just finished this sweet custom order pendant for a lovely return customer out of some of her old broken pieces of jewellery.

I received a parcel with these damaged and pair-less earrings and an old favourite ring who's band had long since split and had laid in the bottom of the jewellery box for years.......

She'd seen my 'lucky lump' pendants and thought she might like something like that, but with the added bonus of setting the garnet from the ring into the piece.

Yay! Fun!
I really love doing this kind of thing!
I love that something old and worn out and broken can become something new and coveted again.

The broken and old bits.

After carefully removing the garnet, I smelted all the silver in the crucible
and was left with this lovely blob.

I cleaned up the blob 

Cleaned up and link soldered on.

Drilled out ready for the stone to be set.

Ready and set!

Isn't she gorgeous?

I love that the history of the silver and the gems remains present in its new form.

If you have any old bits and pieces, be it silver or gold and you'd like them made in to something new, please get in touch!

Rusty Roots!

Ive been getting back to my roots the last couple of weeks working with some rust!
A little different to the sculptures of old, less chunky and clunky and a little more refined.

The smell of oxidisation and the in-ground dirt on my hands that only rusty metal can produce had me reminiscing of  times gone by when Id be busting my moves with the arc welder.

Introducing, "Man Jewels" , but not just for the men!

Here's a bit of a look at how the magic happens......

Lovely rusty steel dots.
Getting my silver ready to surround them.

silver cut and ready to be soldered.

Silver surrounds soldered to the backs, ready for filing, sanding and cleaning.

Perfect fit!

Rings and pendants. Silver and steel, a match made in heaven.

The finished product!

In keeping with the rusty theme, Ive installed a new window display.

Look, see, here we are.......

Once again, its been awhile.

I admit it.
I'm a maker, not a writer.
There, I've said it.

As I don't (yet) have a website, I figured Id keep a blog for people to come have a look see, see what I'm about,  check me out. Which is why I decided to start this in the first place, but alas, I'm not much good at keeping you informed and remain as aloof in blog-land as I do in real life.

I went so far as to put the blog address on my swing tags and business cards and feel like I'm totally letting team RedPeg down by not being a more active blogger.

I'm not making any promises, but I'm really going to try........... Lets say, one post a month. Try to get a rhythm happening and hopefully surprise us all with maybe even two a month........we'll see.

So, Im going to ease my way in with a pictorial post of all the going on since last we caught up......

Here goes.

Had a little workshop at The Peg.
Stamping, texturing and mark making on metal.
We played with copper, aluminium and brass.
Fun!
Something Id like to do more of.

Got a little feature in the southcoaststyle magazine.
Check it out.
"Today in a workplace that would be quite at home in one of those tiny lanes of Paris or London, Gabrielle fashions her jewellery right in front of those who visit this unusual little space".
"A sense of intimacy and adventure".
You'll have to buy a copy to read the rest........

Add caption

I love working with people to create something new out of their old pieces of jewellery.
Here I refashioned a a wedding band into a solid gold lucky lump charm.

It started with the lucky lumps and turned into a mad desire to make little silver balls which in turn resulted in a new series of works, titled "Organica" here are a few pieces from the new series.
Anyone that follows me on Instagram will probably say, enough with the silver balls already.

Oh, the possibilities, I think Ill be going with these for a while yet.......

"Organica"

"Organica"

"Organica"

"Organica"

Well, this is where I love to be.
Best get back to it.....
Till next time........

But I'm RedPeg!

People often ask me how I came about the name RedPeg.
Well, here it is,
It was during the very early stages of my transition from Sculpture to Jewellery,
I was running a little cafe and the owner wanted to revamp the place, give it a new name, a new style.
He asked me to come up with something.
I played around with a few ideas......
It was always going to have Red in it. Anyone who knows me, knows I love Red.

Some early logo designs.

I was scribbling lots of different things in my note book and sketched a peg, a normal old clothes peg. I coloured it red.
Thats it!!
RedPeg!

I even came up with a bit of a gimmick in the lead up to the cafe's official opening by sneaking up on people and pegging them.
Attaching a peg in passing, that they'd find later, when they got home or when someone said, "hey you've got a peg on your back". Surprising them and leaving them wondering how it got there.
The pegs were dyed red and stamped with the words, "RedPeg you've been pegged"
A slogan I still use today!
While this random pegging was happening around town a huge Red Peg had been installed on the facade of the building and the red fit-out was happening inside.
People were anxious to know what the RedPeg was and when it was opening.

RedPeg cafe turned out to be a pretty short lived affair, while I did have a number or loyal regular coffee drinking customers the owner wanted to move on to another project and sold the premises to another young starry eyed couple. So, down came the Big Red Peg.

A write up in the local dining guide.

I took it home and we attached it to the external wall of our house, right outside my studio.
My Eco friendly studio............You can see where this is going, right..?
My RedPeg Eco Studio.

You can just see her poking out the top of my Sunflowers.
My studio is the window to the left.

So that's pretty well it.
I love Red and I'm fond of Pegs, simple, aesthetic, timeless,  little objects that they are.
Also, I should tell you that a peg in jewellery terms is  a small wooden extension that clamps on your work bench to make it easier for you to saw and drill on.......
Here are some examples, Jewellery pegs on Pinterest
It has been said, you can tell alot about a jeweller from their bench peg......

So anyway, what I really wanted to ask you dear readers is, what do you think of the name,
RedPeg Eco Studio?
Im looking at turning this hobby of mine into a "proper" business, which means registering my name officially as  a business and all the other whohaa, that goes with being a business. Yay, tax stuff. Fun!
Ive been thinking for a while to drop the 'Eco' bit.
Yes, I use eco friendly work practices and only recycled silver, but does that need to be in my title?
Its more of a descriptive word that I'd use to describe my work, in say a blurb or promo, I think.

My idea is to drop the Eco and say Jewellery.
RedPeg Jewellery Studio.
What do you think?
I'd like to keep the word 'Studio', as I'm always going to be working out of said space and first and foremost, that really is what I am, a studio based jewellery maker. (cant quite call myself jeweller, because  really I am still a sculptor who makes jewellery).


Honestly, the reason for this post came about over the weekend.
I was completely taken aback while searching RedPeg in my facebook feed, to find that there is, in fact another RedPeg Jewellery page.

I wonder how this person came up with the name RedPeg???

This is her present resting spot.
Shop 3/104 Carp street, Bega.
Pop in if you are ever in the area.

RedPeg's going's on.

Time gets away from me and I find I've neglected this little old blog once again.
When I do think about how I should log on and update this little guy, I'm stumped as to what I should say.

I've just been ticking along, working in the Studio-Gallery, submitting market proposals for the upcoming Christmas markets, crafting and sending off new works to my galleries and stockist as well as sending off contact sheets to potential new stockists and suppliers.
Quite busy really.

My social media presence is mainly through Instagram these days, its all the lovely photos. What do they say, A photo speaks a thousand words.............Its true, Im favouring Instagram over facebook and its definitely the visual stimulation, Im dazzled by all the pretty pictures.
For those of you who don't use instagram I thought Id share some of my photos for you here.......For those of you who do, please come and follow me and keep up with all the RedPeg goings on.

At the Studio:

The Gallery window installation for the month is suspended snooker balls.

The feature wall for the month is "Plastique Fantastique"

This is a relatively new addition.
This is what my visitors sit on, a round backed three legged chair.

And then this happened.
A 2am call from the police is never fun.

Nothing stolen, just an inebriated fool fighting with my plate glass window.
 Maybe his reflection annoyed him....? 

Not sure Ill ever get all the glass out of the carpet.

 At the workbench:

Been playing with some new hook designs.
 These guys have got the dangle without fear of losing them with the self closing backs.

And some more.

Native Plant pressed Bangles.

Not much of a Blog post, I know.
But, hopefully the language of my images speak to you in some way.

Til next time.............

From this............To this.

Just a quick visual post of how some old broken chain can become transformed into something wearable again.
I love recycling and I love working with old broken jewellery and turning it into something new that can be loved and worn again.

Old broken sterling silver chain.

I had to divvy it up into two equal weights so the earrings would be the same size.

Starting the melting process.

Melting, melting, melting.

Looking good. The chain has liquefied into a red hot silver blob. 

Once cooled the blobs are flattened with the hammer.

The flattened blobs are passed through the rolling mill with some textured paper.

Wire is soldered on the back for the earrings.

Ready to go into the tumbler for a good clean and polish and to harden the metal back up.

Out of the tumbler and the wires are cut down to size.

Cute, hey!

Stamped with the redpeg makers mark and the 925 silver mark.

Butterfly backed and ready to wear.

Once again.
I LOVE my job!!