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Making Settings
for my Handmade Artisan Jewelry
by Diana Kirkpatrick
My
handcrafted jewelry story began years ago when I was designing
jewelry from stones that I had tumbled to a high polish. Although
I was creating interesting pieces of artisan jewelry, I tired of not
being able to determine the size and shape of the final finished
stones.
The desire to
control the design and the size and shape of the stones I was using
encouraged me to learn more about gem cutting. I learned to cut and
polish cabochons from both semi-precious and precious stones such as
agates, turquoise, jasper, etc. Once I had all the lovely stones to
work with, I had to find suitable settings that would fit and work
with the stones I wanted to use. Standard settings you buy are just
that – standard. They come in fixed sized and shapes and don’t
always fit hand cut stones.
In order to
be able to create my own settings for the stones I cut, I studied
silversmithing and worked with wire wrapped designs. I’ve been
working with wire, beads, and gemstones in the process of creating
my handmade woven and wrapped silver and gold art jewelry for some
time now.
This is the
type of handmade art jewelry I want to create, but I want to add
details to my work that require designing and making my own
frameworks, settings, and pieces from silver and gold. Handmade
mountings and settings for my art jewelry allow me to include a
variety of gemstone shapes and sizes in my designs.
The handmade
gemstone settings that I cut from silver and gold sheet and solder
myself will be made specifically for the particular stones I’m using
in my designs. These settings will become a part of my new woven
one-of-a-kind silver and gold designs as I continue to move forward.
I include lots of gemstones and beads in my unique handcrafted
bracelets and my handmade necklace and earring designs. I love to
work with crystals – clusters of crystals as they occur in nature or
individual crystals wrapped in silver and gold. I place crystals
in handcrafted silver or gold settings then mount them in my
one-of-a-kind pendants or weave them into exotic earrings or my art
jewelry necklace designs. Each piece of jewelry is handmade –
lovely handcrafted jewelry using gemstones, Swarovski crystals, and
freshwater pearls in hand-woven silver and gold settings.
Some of my bracelet designs involve yards and yards of coiled
silver wire which is wound around a silver bracelet and accented
with gemstone beads. I create handcrafted wound silver beads for my
necklaces and some earrings, too. My handcrafted artisan jewelry is
high quality jewelry that will last a lifetime.
What do you look
for in handcrafted jewelry? Quality? Beauty? Elegance? My
artisan jewelry provides all of that and even more. My handmade
jewelry is all unique one-of-a-kind designs. The handmade jewelry
for sale on this site is guaranteed to be handcrafted from the
finest materials. I use sterling silver, pure silver (called fine
silver), 14/20 gold-filled and karat gold along with precious and
semi-precious gemstones.
Why would you prefer handmade artisan jewelry? Handmade
jewelry is one-of-a-kind – you won’t see two pieces that are exactly
alike in any of my designs. Many people believe that handmade
jewelry has a certain vibe that mass-produced jewelry cannot match.
You see the “soul of the artist” in every piece of my unique
handcrafted jewelry.
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