Sapphire Trilogy Ring

I've been working on a new ring design for the past few days. It's a sterling band, with three tube settings I crafted from sterling, and then set with 3 colored sapphires. The sapphires are all genuine, and so sparkly and pretty.

I've recently bought a new camera, the Nikon D3000, and it's a sweet piece of hardware. My photography looks so much better. It's a digital SLR, the first I've ever used, my old camera was a trusty point and shoot, which met a tragic end when it leapt to its death off the desk during a download.

The ring is a sleek, minimalist design, that showcases the dainty little sapphires. They're 2 mm in diameter, and as you can see, they're one each in pink, yellow, and white. I'm going to do some more work with sapphires -- they're a really hard and strong gem, which takes some of the pressure -- for me, not the stone, :) -- out of stone setting.

Hope you're having a great week, and thanks so much for dropping by.

Sterling Celtic Earrings

My latest design at Dalkullan Jewelry is inspired by Celtic symbols. I'm part Irish, and would love to visit the ancestral homeland someday -- some of my ancestors are from County Cork. But in the meantime, I have a lovely new pair of earrings to remind me of my heritage.

I made numerous drawings of the design before I settled on the one I finally crafted in sterling. I'd originally thought to put a cabochon in the center of each of the 3 silver swirls per earring, but that would have been too heavy. I toyed with the idea of using nephrite jade for the cabochons, but genuine jade is a darker green than I wanted for my design.

Aventurine is a lovely, spring green, with some darker inclusions. It reminds me of green connemara marble. It has such a wonderful contrast with the brightness of the sterling, I think they go very well together.

This is the first design I've crafted where the earwire is soldered to the earring -- it just flows from the main part of the earring. It's a graceful look; I like all the swirls and curves to the design.

If you would like to add Sterling Celtic Earrings to your jewelry wardrobe, I'd be happy to craft a pair just for you!

Etsy Gift Guide

A pair of my wire wrapped sterling earrings were picked for an August Etsy Gift Guide -- Shades of Peridot. Peridot is the birthstone for August, and my Silver Cherry Tree leaves come already wrapped in beautiful Swedish paper. If you know any ladies with an August birthday, they'd make the perfect gift!

I crafted the Silver Cherry Tree Leaves earrings from sterling silver, and embellished them with genuine semi-precious Peridot and the soft gleam of freshwater pearls.

Please drop by my Etsy shop, Dalkullan Jewelry, to see more pictures of these gorgeous earrings, and also my complete line of handcrafted, original designs.

Moon and Stars -- Mixed Metal Earrings

Just listed these at Dalkullan Jewelry.
The lovely color variations on the brass disk are the result of heating the brass.
I made the shiny balls by melting sterling with my trusty torch, and then soldered them onto the disks.
I've been thinking about this design for months, but needed to get the right tools, and hone my torch skills, so that I could make them. Thanks for dropping in and taking a look!

Sterling Disk Earrings

These earrings were fun to make, with the added plus that I learned a lot. They're the first pair of post earrings I've made, and soldering on the wire took a bit of doing.

But, first things first. I started by using my trusty disk cutter to punch out .5 inch circles from sterling stock, and then textured the disks with the sharper end of a riveting hammer. My sweet hubby was kind enough to file and smooth the rivet hammer so it makes a nice impression on the metal. And first impressions are so important, don't you think?

I marked the center and drilled a hole part way through the back, to provide a little pocket for the tip of the earwire to fit. This makes a stronger join than just soldering the wire tip to a flat metal surface. I fired up my little torch, and soldered on the earwires to the disks, and also melted a couple pieces of sterling into nice round balls.

Alas, the little round balls didn't stay round for long! I put them on my bench block and pounded and textured them, too. Then they were sweat soldered (that sounds a bit disgusting, but it's just melting the solder on the back of one piece, laying it solder-side down on another, and then heating it to soldering the two together) and I followed up with a bit of filing and sanding.

Then a few hours jostling in the tumbler, and they were ready for their photo shoot. Hope you enjoyed reading about how the Sterling Disk Earrings were made, and thank so much for stopping by!

Fabricating Metal Earrings

I'm working on a new earring design, and it's one that I'm fabricating from sheet metal and wire.

The picture to the right is a piece of brass sheet metal, and you can see the holes where I've punched disks out. Using a disk cutter, I slide the sheet metal into it, strike a couple blows with a household hammer on the cutter, and out pops a lovely round metal disk. It's a lot easier and more accurate than the way I used to make circular metal disks, using a jeweler's saw.

Next I cut an addition hole out of the first disk, this one off-center. Then I hammer the metal with the ball end of a ball pein jeweler's hammer, to texture the metal. And finally I give the metal a rounded form, using a dapping block and punches.

A dapping block is a heavy piece of steel with hemispherical depressions tooled into it, and the corresponding punches are bars of metal with spherical steel ends that mate up with the holes in the dap. Using a dap makes it possible to evenly round a piece of metal.

The earring still needs to be filed and polished, and have an earwire attached.
I'm going to use a sterling earwire, and maybe a bronze colored freshwater pearl. As you can see, it's a work in progress, but I hope you've enjoyed getting a little glimpse into how I make jewelry.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Soldering Class

Last week at the Milwaukee Bead & Button Show I took a class in soldering. I've done some soldering before, I've made a couple pairs of earrings for myself and one of my daughters, but wanted to improve my technique. And this was definitely the class to do just that.
The class was taught by Mr. Joe Silvera, you can reach him online. He crafts amazing jewelry, and also teaches jewelry making classes. Joe is very patient, encouraging, and explains things clearly. He provided a lot of demonstrations in different aspects of soldering, which I really enjoyed. It's always fun and relaxing to watch someone else work, and to learn something too is a definite plus.
We melted sterling wire to form little balls of silver, learned to solder jump rings closed, and to solder jump rings together. In class we completed a pair of soldered sterling earrings, with a hammered and soldered motif at the bottom. Unfortunately I was a couple hours late to class, but I did manage to finish the project during class time. Overall I'm pleased with the outcome, I met my objective in learning more about soldering, and saw some wonderful demonstrations. The hammered motif on the bottom of the earrings has some symmetry issues, but the soldered joints look really good, and they're strong, which is what I was focusing on. With more practice I feel confident that I'll soon be incorporating soldering into my designs for my shop, and that's exciting! There are so many ideas I have which I really need to solder to execute. Jewelry crafting is a creative adventure, one that I'm enjoying immensely.
The earrings were a lot of fun to make,and I'm looking forward to crafting my own designs, and perfecting my soldering technique.