Thursday, May 30, 2013

Midnight Necklace and Other Tales of Metal Smithing



Midnight Necklace: Brass and Beads


The curse of the midnight necklace.... is that it is not made of gold, and all who wear it are instantly fabulous. I took a few jewelry/metal smithing classes in college and still make jewelry from time to time. For this piece, I began by designing a star shape and sawing that shape out of a sheet of brass. I used a jeweler's saw. The chain was crafted by bending brass wire with a needle nose pliers into an S shape and linking all the Ss. I added some black beads for a little pizzaz.


African violet inspiration


African violet necklace: Brass and Yellow Jasper


A few years ago I made my mom this African violet inspired necklace. I cut the African violet shape out of brass, again with a jeweler's saw. Then I put the brass into a mixture of salt, woodchips, and ammonia to achieve the purplish patina. Here is a helpful link for making a salt and vinegar patina. Make sure to handle ammonia carefully, wear gloves! The stone is yellow jasper and I set it with 5 prongs. The prongs are part of the cut out flower piece. Easy peasy!


Swarovski and silver

I gave this last necklace to my mom for Christmas this year. The chain is the same linked S chain as before, but this time I used silver wire. The silver was so pretty and nice to work with. I bought tiny light blue swarovski crystal beads to add some shimmer. I love how airy and sweet it looks. These necklaces are all finished with lobster clasps. What kinds of jewelry smithing tricks do you know?


3 comments:

  1. I like the linking "s" chains. I make quite a bit of jewelry but the only thing I tend to do metal smithing wise is solder things together!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Soldering is really cool! I did that in some of my metals classes in college, I would love to do it again.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love that Midnight Necklace! You have such talent in making your own jewelries. Those metalsmithing classes that you took during college really worked out for you. I hope to see more of your creations here in the future. Good day!


    Dexter Reynolds @ BelleFever.com.au

    ReplyDelete