Jewellery or Jewelry Making

By John Volney

Jewellery or jewelry making is a very satisfying pastime. You can make presents, you can make your own pieces and there’s even an opportunity to sell what you create. The fascinating thing about jewellery or jewelry is that there is so much to learn and even when you make mistakes and blunders, which you will at first, these mistakes are a wealth of knowledge in themselves. The main thing to remember with making jewellery or jewelry is to be patient; losing your cool and getting frustrated will only make it more difficult for you to concentrate and do a good job. So don’t be hard on yourself; take a deep breath, focus and enjoy.

There are many different forms of jewellery or jewelry making. You can make jewellery or jewelry out of Fimo a colourful putty that you bake. You can make it out of silver wire by using fine pliers to bend and hammers to forge the wire into elaborate pieces complete with clever ways to hold the stones in place.

But for the purposes of these articles we’re going to look at the more traditional way of jewellery or jewelry making that we’re all familiar with which involves techniques such as soldering, forging (similar to how a blacksmith would hammer something into shape), filing, polishing etc.

There is lots of help out there in the form of books or evening classes and private tuition – one-on-one help with an experienced jeweller. With this kind of guidance your skill level will improve in leaps and bounds making the process all the more enjoyable and fulfilling.