Jewelry Blog ~ Earring Wires that go to the Next Level
So its been a year and half since I closed my jewelry and Art Gallery in Owen Sound. This time has been filled to the brim with caring for my bunny muse, my Sweet Girl Trinket. Its just not the same without her here now that she has passed away; I’m finding it so strange to have so much time on my hands. I never knew I could miss things like changing diapers, syringe feedings, all the trips to the vet and of course all the worry. But I do. So its time to finally get back to work and easing myself toward that in this blog will be a big part of that too.
So Talking Work~I’ve finally ordered a kiln, the first major element to my plan to teach myself Metal Clay jewelry forming. I am very excited to get going, but as usual life gets in the way. We had to replace a vehicle and a stove this month so it might be another month before I get in all my supplies. I have to keep some momentum going so I’ve decided to get back to basics.
I’ve owned a butane torch for a few years now and for some reason when ever I tried doing any real soldering with it I couldn’t manage to melt the silver solder I bought. Why I’ll never know, I gave up there and went back to using a solder iron and solder used for stained glass. Well its fine on mixed metal pieces, but not suitable if I want to maintain an all Sterling Silver product and a professional product suitable for resale. So I’ve finally put aside my reservations and hit the books to read up on some basic techniques. For some crazy reason I thought my torch couldn’t reach the temperatures needed to melt the solder, but I was using a low temperature solder all along. After researching metal clay I have since learned my little torch exceeds the temperatures needed to fire the clay and that is enough to melt my wire so silver solder will not be a problem.
I decided to begin with a simple task such as annealing my wire for better bending and then I tried my first stab at melting the end of my wire to make that sweet little silver ball on the end. Woo Hoo I was so excited making my first head pin, then I quickly decided to make my first sweet little S hook earring wire. Why have I not been doing this for ages I do not know. I’ve always been annoyed at purchasing affordable sterling silver ear wires and never really being happy with them. Now I’m bending my own and getting the exact size and graceful design I want. I even did the hammering bit to re harden the wire so it keeps it spring. Its a pretty basic metal smith techniques and I have to say as basic as you can get, but I am so happy as beading jewelry artist to finally make that first tiny step toward developing the skills I’ll need to make jewelry of the quality and unique design that I have been imagining.
The first few bits of wire I put to the torch came out pretty darkened and I had to polish the first ones with a metal polish to get them shiny and clean, but i have since gotten myself some Alum to mix with water for my own pickling solution to remove the flux and darkening from the silver. Works like a charm. I took two tablespoons of alum and mixed about a cup of water. I warm this up in the microwave and leave my torched wire to soak for half an hour or so. Then the wire just needs a light buff and of course some hammering to re harden and strengthen the wire. My next investment is a tumbler so I can do large batches of wire and then toss them in the tumbler to harden up. I’m pretty pleased with this major increase in the quality of my work!
Swarovski Sterling Silver Earrings
My work can be purchased at my shopping site at
My plan is to teach myself a new technique regularly and bring up the quality versatility of my work. I’m excited to try out larger gauge wire and get into bending some intricate creations. I’ve learned this way, just read what I can and give it a go. I love to learn through my successes and mistakes.
Cultured Freshwater Pearl Sterling Silver Earrings
Tags: bunny earrings, soldering silver, soldering torch, sterling silver cultured freshwater pearl earrings, sterling silver earrings, sterling silver swarovski earrings, wire bending
Posted on September 30th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
These earrings are beautiful. It’s great you can read something and then do it. I usually need someone to actually show me. I love this new web design. At first the darkness kinda made me feel sad. But everything looks really good against the black background.