The cost of sterling silver has skyrocketed over the last few years so I started to look at and work with mixed metals. Copper, brass and bronze are easy to work with but I particularly like the way copper and silver look together. Copper can be given a patina changing the colour with heat that will give a wide range of colours yellow, orange and red or with a few household ingredients for example burying copper under a layer of salt and vinegar crisps will create green hue, ammonia and salt create blue. This enables me to create colour into my designs without having to resort to chemicals.