Jewellery has been used for personal adornment, at least among the upper classes, for centuries. Styles and types have always gone in and out of vogue, leaving modern collectors with an enormous variety from which to choose.
The value of jewellry depends on several factors, ranging from the current fashions to the precious metals and gemstones [...]
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The design sources of many of the jewellers whose work is illustrated are as diverse as can be, but their inspirations derive from four broad categories: the materials they use; historical influences; looking at what is around them with an open mind; or a strong commitment to a concept that they want to encapsulate in [...]
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Although many beads are worked on string a surprising amount of bead jewelry is made using metal pins or wire, and once the basic principles of wire jewelry are understood, necklaces, bracelets, earrings and brooches of apparently complicated natures become as easy to work as the simplest design. Furthermore, old jewelry can be re-styled or [...]
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To fix a jump ring
When your stone is firmly secured to its bell cap and the glue has thoroughly dried, open wide a suitable jump ring by twisting both ends of the ring sideways with two pairs of jewelry pliers. Now hook one end of the ring through the eyelet of the bell cap and, [...]
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The traditional art of enamelling has been practised for at least two thousand years and may have originated in Western Europe : early Greek writers describe the colourful designs of the enamel- decorated weapons and armour used by northern barbarians.
In early examples of Greek and Celtic enamel work, only opaque enamels were used, and it [...]
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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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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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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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Although many of the materials used for contemporary jewellery-making are new and revolutionary, the art of metalwork often follows the basic rules set out by early craftsmen thousands of years ago. Apart from the advent of electroplating in the 19th century and the more efficient techniques allowed by today’s machines, many of the basic metalworking [...]
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