Art Jewelry magazine Editors' Blog : silver

New free fine-silver earrings project from Art Jewelry magazine, featuring water casting!

Addie Kidd — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 15:00:00 GMT

We just released Art Jewelry magazine's newest free downloadable project – in it you can learn how to make a pair of really fun mismatched Serendipity Earrings (click here to download the project). In the tutorial I walk you through all the steps necessary to solder and assemble the oxidized fine silver earrings you see at right.

I created these earrings to showcase one of my favorite (low-stress, non-fiddly, imprecise) jewelry-making techniques – water casting. I'm telling you, this technique is fool-proof! Even if you've never done a casting of any kind before, I guarantee you that you will make one-of-a-kind, artistic, and organic-looking components with water casting.

The result are instantaneous, which satisfies my instant-gratification streak. AND, if for some reason you don't like the components that you've made, you can remelt them and try again. You can't beat that!

[I added a teeny-tiny 2mm 24k solid gold accent ball to each earring. Little splashes of gold like that are a fantastic and inexpensive way to add color and panache to a jewelry piece. No seriously, this gold's not expensive: you can buy a pair of these little gold balls at Metal Clay Findings for less than 17 bucks!]

To see just how little time it takes to make a water casting, check out this video. (You need to be registered to view it, but registration is FREE!) Follow along as I pour molten fine silver into a bucket of water, and then immediately check out the results.

To learn all the particulars about water casting, read my article "Goof-Proof Water Casting" in the May 2009 issue.

And if you're mixing your own alloys to use with that water casting, you should check out our alloy calculator here. Just plug in the metal alloy you'd like to make and the calculator will instantly figure out the exact ingredient ratios for you. (Maybe it's just me, but here's a big whoo hoo for less math!)

Speaking of calculators, we also have a gold karat calculator for you too. Just plug in whatever karat of gold that you already have and the calculator will tell you what you need to add to your gold to change it to another karat (either higher or lower). How nifty is that??

If you give water casting a try, please post a comment and tell me how you like it.
I'd be surprised if it's not one of your new favorites.

Take care,

~Addie~

P.S. Click here to download our free desktop wallpaper for the month of March – a necklace by John Wik featuring a chain mail bezel around a guitar pick. How cool is that??

Send in the results from your creative jewelry experiments with fine silver flakes!

Addie Kidd — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:03:00 GMT

On page 25 of the July issue of Art Jewelry magazine, I reviewed a product intended for metal clay —fine silver flakes.

You can read my review here. In it, I asked our readers to send me photos of any pieces they've created using the flakes. These photos are being collected for a special online gallery section of our Web site designed to inspire other readers' creativity.

I've gotten a number of fantastic responses so far. I had no idea there were so many unique ways to use simple fine silver flakes!

But here's where you come in. I'd love even more photos. So delve into your creativity a bit and see what you can come up with. Then email me photos of your designs and tell me a bit about them. My email address is akidd@artjewelrymag.com.

I look forward to seeing what you make!

~Addie~

The Olympic Games in Beijing begin in a week. Have you seen the medals?

Katie Streeter — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 18:02:00 GMT

The Olympic Games start in a week, and I'm really excited. Gymnastics and aquatics (swimming, diving, etc.) are my favorite events, but the other thing that I love about the Olympics is seeing how each host country adds elements of their culture to the games. One way they do this is through their medals.

Inspired by Chinese culture, this year's medals feature jade insets along with the familiar gold (in actuality, gold-plated silver), silver, or bronze metals. The global campaign to find a design for the Beijing games began in early 2006, and the final design was completed in early 2007. Read about the Beijing medals here.

If you want a refresher on what medals have looked like in the past, check them out here. I'm so impressed by the creativity that has gone into each medal design. The medal of the 2006 Torino, Italy, games was unusual because of its donut-like shape. The medal of the 1998 games in Nagano, Japan, featured lacquer, embossed gilding, and shippoyaki (a cloisonné technique). My favorite is the Lillehammer, Norway, medal from the 1994 Olympics, which uses granite for the main part of the medal, with a frame of metal surrounding the granite.

––Katie

Pop-Out Jewelry by Melissa Borrell Design: prefab jewelry that gets the wearer involved

Kristin Sutter — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 19:57:00 GMT

I generally avoid buying anything that needs to be assembled — not because I doubt my ability to assemble things, but because I associate "needs assembly" with "made cheaply in a faraway land." Of course, that's not always the case. But since I already have a propensity for antique/vintage/timeless/handcrafted things, I rarely buy big box.

But, I think, mass-produced items can have a soul, too. I'm intrigued by well-designed, well-made items that are successful on a large scale because they were so well thought out that a large number of people find them both useful and beautiful. In that way, there seems to be a connection between designer and consumer that we don't generally associate with mass production.

Melissa Borrell's Pop Out Jewelry is an example of a designer consciously trying to connect with the consumer. As her Web site describes, "the shapes come still attached to the metal from which they are cut. Just pop the shape out and hang it on the enclosed chain or ear hooks to make it into a piece of wearable art." So, while a piece arrives looking mass produced, it requires a personal touch from the wearer in order to be useful. It's an interesting way to try to share in the creation of an art object. But is it that different from buying and having to assemble, say, a coffee table? Does it all rest on the designer's intention?

Do you intend for your work to connect with the people who wear it? How do you achieve that connection?

—Kristin

You can have your gold and eat it too?

Katie Streeter — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:46:00 GMT

I love cooking and baking, and I generally make everything from scratch. I've never followed a recipe that calls for biscuit mix, refrigerated dough in a tube, pasteurized process cheese food, or other "convenience" foods (I never found them convenient or tasty). I don't make brownies from a box, I make homemade pie crust, and I don't think anything with Jell-O in it should ever be called "salad."

But am I a gourmet? No. In fact, I was completely shocked yesterday when I stumbled on edible silver leaf and edible gold leaf and gold flakes. I had no idea that people ate gold and silver, and of course the first image that came to my mind was of wealthy Hollywood actors and actress sprinkling gold on their dinners, as I might sprinkle salt and pepper on mine. My coworker Addie Kidd corrected this image, mentioning that she's eaten both gold and silver before, so apparently those of us who don't have chauffeurs and maids can also partake.

Supposedly, gold and silver leaf and flakes are popular on wedding cakes and other special-occasion desserts. Although the gold and silver are probably beautiful on food, I can't image eating a precious metal. I love how recyclable gold and silver are. When a piece of jewelry becomes worn beyond repair, the metal can always be reclaimed and reused. But let's be honest, once you eat it, no one will be reclaiming it.

I won't be adding gold or silver to my diet anytime soon, but if you're interested, the edible leaf and flakes can be purchased through several online suppliers, including Edible Gold.com and Mister Art.com.

––Katie

How to Make a Bezel: NEW 5-part instructional video series from Art Jewelry magazine

Addie Kidd — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 14:49:00 GMT

Yet more videos, everybody!

A few weeks back, we released the How to Set a Cabochon in a Bezel 3-part video series.

Well, now we've posted a 5-part video series teaching you how to make that bezel to fit your selected cabochon.

Go to www.artjewelrymag.com, click on the "Videos" tab, and scroll to the Metalsmithing section. You can't miss the bright red 'New' next to each video link! Or you can just click here.

And again, you don't need to be a subscriber to view the videos, but you do have to be a registered user – meaning you have a screenname and password.
It's free to sign up. And once you've got your screenname, you can watch all our videos and also comment on our blog here to let us know how we've done.

Enjoy!

~Addie~

Check out the Scottish silver exhibit at the National Museum of Scotland

Katie Streeter — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 18:38:00 GMT

Last Thursday I returned home from a wonderful two-week trip to Scotland. While there, I visited the National Museum of Scotland, which is an outstanding museum in Edinburgh. There are exhibits on art and industry in Scotland, the early people, science and industry, and more. Some of the exhibits include jewelry, which I was able to take pictures of and plan to show in a future blog (after my husband and I have sorted through the more than 1000 images that we took while in Scotland). In the meantime, I thought I'd mention a special exhibit on view there until April 25th. The exhibit is Silver: Made in Scotland, and it includes over 350 pieces of Scottish silver. If you live in the UK or are planning a trip there, check it out.

––Katie

Today in jewelry history...

Addie Kidd — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 21:31:00 GMT

Do you want to know what today is???

Well on this day way back in 1848, gold was first accidentally discovered near Sacramento by James Marshall and Johann Sutter, thus starting the California gold rush.

I know this, and now you do too, because my co-worker Kristin Sutter (perhaps she's related to Johnann...?) shared with me her Forgotten English word-of-the-day calendar. And today's word, thematically inspired by that historical fact, is a fantastic word: clinquant.

I was a bit sad that I'd never heard of this old French-based word before (And 20 bonus vocabulary points to you if you already had.), because it means "glittering with gold." What a cool adjective. I'm huge fan of specificity like that, especially with jewelry-related words.

Now I just wish I had some glittering gold to play with in the studio for the rest of the afternoon. But with the price of gold any more ($913.00 USD/oz. as I type this – Ouch!), I think I'll make due with some sparkly silver instead.