Jewelry, inspired by Nature
What can be more frustrating for a jewelry maker (next to jewellery not selling) than losing hours of work just for a futility? The smaller the processed pieces the easier they get lost somewhere in the atelier, never mind how … Continued
The cute little kitty in this blog has grown up into the sweetest young cat I’ve ever seen. Smokey loves to kiss and to hug, sometimes his affection is out of every proportion. He also jumps on my lap when possible … Continued
Springtime, time for cleaning up one’s closet. Everybody has somewhere a piece of antique silverware… wow, it rhymes 🙂 But is the precious grandmother’s piece real silver? One can always go to the specialist to have it tested, but as … Continued
Is PMC Standard really THE most difficult silver clay to solder? If you like challenges, try to solder PMC Pro. Soldering is inevitable if you want to integrate (semi)precious stones into your pieces. Or even larger CZ stones, because owing … Continued
The RTFM (“read the f..abulous manual”) instruction is sometimes given to people who look for easy answers. But the opposite can also be true: the manual provides a seemingly easy answer, which – if you think a bit – is … Continued
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. By comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin. Brass is used for different applications such as locks, gears, bearings, zippers, doorknobs and electrical applications; and extensively in musical instruments … Continued
Soldering fine silver from precious metal clay to sterling silver can be quite tricky. Metal clay silver is porous and it sucks… literally, it sucks solder. Instead of flowing along the weld, solder just permeates through fine silver surface, contaminating … Continued
Tumbled gemstones are magical. They offer such a variety of size, shape and color! And last but not least they are inexpensive too. I have written about tumbled gemstones before, in this blog. The “raw” beauty of these stones has … Continued
At present my jewelry is put for sale in 3 different internet shops: etsy.com, dawanda.com and – since a couple of months – bonanza.com. The bonanza site has not been a bonanza so far, actually I doubt whether it is … Continued
Silver clay is a wonderful material, but it has its constraints. It is difficult to avoid cracks. In my opinion main crack causes are shrinkage, porosity, and contamination. Shrinkage manifests itself mainly in small cracks around the stone (or other … Continued