Teaspoons and Toast Racks

Teaspoons and toast racks and old fashioned things. Given as Wedding presents, handed down as heirlooms. Sitting untouched in their cases somehow it doesn't seem right to put them in the dishwasher and anyhow who has the time to polish silver these days?

Today I was introduced to another use by the multi-talented Michelle Carpenter and we turned a silver spoon into a ring. Usually I would take photographs of the step by step process, but today was a rest for me after completing a difficult assignment. I had booked it before I had finished the final draft as an incentive and a promise of playtime. So I had been looking forward to giving the fingers which had typed twenty versions of an expanding academic essay a gift from the past.  Her studio is a fascinating workshop brimming with vintage finds, books, buttons, vases and so much more. We chatted over lunch in her sun trapped garden and shared a little history of our own.

By the end of the session in Michelle's studio, I had learnt a little history of my spoon from its hallmarks made in Sheffield by Edward Viner in 1931. Where it has been since then is a mystery, maybe it has been in a cupboard or a drawer. How many cups of tea it has stirred are unknown.But today it has been bashed, bent and heated with a blowtorch. It has also been bathed in acid and polished with ball bearings and now it is home with me and if I choose to use an old mustard pot as its ring box I think it will be quite suitable.

In the same way I use old toast racks as letter racks and I fill them with lovely postcards waiting to be written. Looking beyond the obvious has always been a passion of mine.

I would highly recommend this course as a present for anyone who loves jewellery, history or just being creative. Or for the person who has family silver which they don't like cleaning, learning how to make a ring is much more satisfying and can be rather therapeutic.

 A little spoonful of creativity 

In the heart of Tunbridge Wells 

 To find out more about Michelle here is the link: Twisted Silver Studio