You can string synthetic clay shapes onto wire to make a necklace or roll a coil of clay around a cardboard tube or a glass bottle of a suitable diameter to make a bangle or armlet. If you need to create a hole for wiring, make sure that you pierce the bead with an eye […]
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Of all the materials available to the designer jeweller, glass and ceramics are not only the least expensive, but also potentially the most sophisticated. In the form of beads, glass and ceramics can be used to make anything from a simple one-bead pendant necklace to complex woven seed-bead bangles. Glass and ceramic beads have been […]
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Woodcarving
Paint is not the only decorative possibility for wooden jewellery — woodcarving is worth considering too. The best wood to use for this is a hardwood like beech or sycamore which, although it is more difficult to carve than softwood, will survive more wear and tear. Small tools are essential for carving pendants and brooches […]
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Perhaps the best-known item of wooden jewellery, whether painted, hand-carved or simply cut and varnished, is the crucifix. Since wood has not been used extensively for jewellery-making, its history is not as easy to chronicle as that of jewellery made from other materials. It appears, however, that wood has been used both for mass-market pieces […]
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Papier mache is an art which redefines the term artist- jeweller. Many of the designers contributing to this section see themselves as mini-sculptors and have gone on to work in sculpture. This is true of Julia Manheim, whose papier mache pieces are featured. Julia constructs her jewellery by building layers of papier middle around a […]
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Paper is inexpensive, versatile, easily accessible and, above all, lightweight, which is why it is fast becoming such a popular medium for contemporary jewellery designers to work with. Today, there is renewed interest in paper-making generally. In the past, the paper-making process was a means of recycling a material whose time-consuming and limited production made […]
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Gold is a beautiful metal to work with. It has a special quality and really comes alive as it is bent, stretched and moulded into shape. Golds above 14 carat are both malleable and resiliant, and the quality of colour makes them unsurpassable.
Pure gold, like pure silver, is generally too soft to use for any […]
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Using thread
Yarn, thread, cord or rope are frequently used in fabric jewellery and are available in a wide choice of colours from department stores. The coarseness or smoothness of a thread will dictate the ways in which you can use it — it can he knitted, crocheted or knotted to form sturdy foundations or decorations […]
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The flexibility of “soft” jewellery components like fabric and leather makes them particularly well-suited to the concept of “body sculpture” as they can be moulded to fit the contours of the body. Many decorative finishes can be applied to fabric and leather to give them definition and interest. For example, padding or quilting will give […]
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Casting
There are various techniques for transforming metals into shapes. Casting is one such technique and involves pouring molten metal into a mould or crucible where it is left to harden. This technique was first mastered in Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago, when moulds were chiselled from stone or baked clay and filled with molten […]
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