Snowdrop Silver Enamel Earrings

Sterling silver drop earrings with a sparkling white enamel snowdrop flower and light green enamel leaves on post and butterfly fastenings.

The earrings are 23mm long by 13mm wide

Sheila Fleet Enamelling:-

Enamel is molten glass... the enamel colours start as solid crystals of glass. These crystals are ground down to become tiny grains of coloured glass, a bit like sand.

Sheila Fleet's enamellers use quills made of swan, peacock, goose or even turkey feathers to apply the glass grains to the pieces of jewellery.

This sounds easy but requires a steady hand, very good eye and many years of practice! The quill is dipped into a pot of coloured ground glass and the tiny glass grains are then carefully applied to the piece of jewellery.

Almost all pieces require several colours. Our colours are blended by stippling from one colour into the next to create an almost imperceptible flow of hues.

Once the grains of glass are on the piece of jewellery it is ready to be fired. To create enamel the jewellery is put into a small kiln and heated until the glass grains melt at over 800° Celsuis. Only one piece is put into the kiln at a time and the enameller must take great care not leave the piece in too long. Each piece requires a different length of time in the oven. A small earring may require under a minute while a large pendant may take up to 3 minutes.

Creating the blended enamel colours by hand makes each piece of Sheila Fleet enamel jewellery unique. Only two people, one jeweller and one enameller, work on each piece of jewellery.