Pebbles and balls

Recently I have been exploring the technique of adding balls (or as I like to call them 'pebbles'!) to my jewellery designs.

I started by adding little silver balls to wire as in these Ethnic Heart Earrings:

The process of soldering the balls to the hammered wire was quite a challenge and in the end they became fixed by a mixture of soldering and fusing.  I do like the final look but realised that controlling the heat of my torch was very important to whether the balls or the wire ending up fusing together.  This technique will need more practice!

Following on from the soldering/fusing idea, I then added pebbles to a ring as in these Pebble Trio Ring:

 

And more pebbles added to this Labradorite Pendant (love this gemstone!):

 

 

On to the next challenge... I wanted to create a frame of pebbles around a gemstone.  Using labradorite again, I created this Pebble Frame Ring.  NB. The cabochon in the photo is not yet set as I decided to wait until I know the final size of the ring:

 

 

And my most recent 'pebble' adventure was to hammer the balls before adding them to a jewellery piece.  In this Aqua Chalcedony Pebble Framed Bangle, I used two different sized pebbles to create the frame around the bead: