Jewelry Software

Africa has been making jewelry crafted by hand for a very long time in keep with their traditions and they use African beads which come in a wide variety of colors and shapes as well as textures. You can now make your jewelry yourself using inspiration from the African styles and the raw materials like trade beads that the African jewelers themselves make use of. You can make simple African jewelry like necklaces or pendants or something as complicated as the pieces that are normally used by Africans for their rituals in healing and their spiritual ceremonies. All you require is the African beads or trade beads, a clasp, some jewelry cord or wire, crimping pliers and crimping beads. If you look at pictures or piece of African jewelry you are sure to draw inspiration from these and be able to create your own designs. Tribal jewelry from Africa includes the bone necklaces from Kenya, the coconut disc necklaces from Nigeria, crosses from Ethiopia and the Mali wedding beads. Settle on a particular style. If you would rather make a necklace with a lone pendant, then search for a bead that has an attractive color or pattern. If you intend putting together several African beads, put them against a neutral background like the black velvet that most jewelers use to find out how they combination looks. A pendant can also be put together with smaller trade beads. Get hold of some good African beads. There are quite a few sites on the Internet that deal with trade beads and other African beads and jewelry supplies and these companies buy them directly from families who make them in Africa.  Some of the pieces might be very old or of limited versions and be sold at a very high price while the other trade beads are more affordable. Measure out the required length of beading thread that you will require. The length should be ideally the length that you want your necklace of trade beads to be plus an extra five inches. If you would like to use bigger African beads then you might like to replace the beading thread with cotton cord or leather. If you choose to use wire to thread them, put a crimp bead on one end along with one part of the clasp. Pass the wire through the crimp bead, make sure you tighten it and then flatten the bead with the help of the crimping pliers. The extra wire should be trimmed off.   Start stringing the beads. If you are looking to have a pattern that is symmetrical, start with the center and keep adding African beads on either side. Add the other part of the clasp or a jump ring if you are using a hook clasp. Draw the wire through the clasp and cut off the extra. And then wear you beautiful necklace of trade beads and watch the heads turn.

Jewelry making has long been an art form passed on from father to son, all the way back to ancient times; people have adorned themselves in Silver, Gold, and Gemstone Jewelry,

African tribes, the Native American Indian tribes and numerous ethnic tribes have used Bone carved pendants, Animal Ivory, Bird feathers and Seashells, to fashion accessories to use as jewelry.

Today we give our Jewelry titles ,such as Ethnic Jewelry ,Tribal Jewelry ,Antique Jewelry, Fashion Jewelry and so on .In this article we are going to Talk about Designer Hand made jewelry ,How to make it either for fun or for those really keen students how to do it and make money from your hobby .

Right lets get going .You have two options to start with, you can either buy raw silver from your local distributor, or find a Jewelry Manufacture that will supply you with the materials, there is a choice between 925 or 985 in the grade of silver you buy, I prefer to work in Fine silver 985, but you may find this a little difficult to buy. For the purpose of this article we are going to choose the second option and buy our material from a reputable Jewelry Manufacture and we are going to start with making a simple Sterling silver 925 pendant with a Turquoise cabochon Gemstone.

The majority of tools needed can be purchased form a good hardware store and some of the more hard to find items you will be able to get from either a Silver Jewelry Manufacture or Supplier.

Your heat source can be either a gas bottle with extension hose and flame adjusting nozzle or as we use in our workshop a petrol bellows and hose set with adjustable nozzle, its important witch ever set you buy that you can regulate the flame and heat .Next comes the hand tools you will need a small brass hammer, tweezers about 7inches long, small tin snips, brass block 4inches by 4inches and 1inch thick ,rags,2part epoxy, battery acid, fine grade file , a flexible shaft grinder and a ceramic base to heat your silver on ,here is a handy tip a house brick and unglazed roof tile work just great. That should be enough for you to get started.

Step1 is to cut a strip of silver slightly wider then the thickness of the turquoise and long enough to wrap around the diameter of the gemstone, and carefully cut it so as the 2 ends meet tightly around the gemstone.

Step2, take your solder and place a small amount of flux on the two joins, heat the silver strip till red, apply the solder carefully, and it’s joined. If you haven’t done any soldering before try a few practice runs first, you will be able to use that silver later on.

Step3, take your sterling silver band and place it on a flat piece of silver plate, check that the turquoise still fits, then as in step 2 apply flux and solder the band to the plate.

Step4, remove the excess silver with your tin snips and sand off any rough edges.

Step5,decide on a shape for your bail and cut it out of silver accordingly, bend into shape .now solder that to the pendant ,and while hot dip the whole pendant into a small jar of acid ,rinse in a jar of clear water and dry.

Step6, Place your turquoise into you silver and carefully trim away any surplus silver. Once your happy with the fit you can sand the silver again with fine grade emery paper, give a small amount of epoxy to the inside of the pendant and insert the turquoise stone .Now take a spoon and using the back work it around the pendant to give a snug fit with the silver and allow to dry.

Step7, Using your flexi grinder insert a polishing cloth disc, add some silver polish and buff the silver to the required finish.

The principles above are applied to all silver work; no it’s up to the imagination of the jewelry designer and skillfulness of the jeweler.

How many times have you looked at a piece of your jewelry and wondered just how it was made. Is the meat carved? How is it created with such fine detail? The methods that are used to create the fine jewelry that you wear use the same technology that lifted civilization from the Iron Age to the Bronze Age.

In fact, many anthropologists theorize that ancient people stumbled onto the idea when molten copper melted out of chunks of copper ore that they had lined their fire pits with. Its called the “lost wax” casting method and its the same method that ancient peoples developed to make copper and bronze axes and tools with.

To create a piece of jewelry using the lost wax method, the piece is first crated in exact detail out of sculpting wax. The wax piece is then encased in plaster and allowed to cure and dry. After the chunk of plaster has been allowed to dry it is then placed in a hot kiln so the wax piece inside of it can melt and burn out.

When it has cooled, the chunk of plaster with the hollow shape of the original wax piece in it is placed in a centrifugal jewelery casting device. The centrifugal caster then spins around and molten gold or silver is forced into the hollow spot in the chunk of plaster by centrifugal force.

After the the metal inside of the plaster has been allowed to cool, the plaster is then chipped away. What is revealed is a whatever was originally encased inside the plaster made of wax, only now it is made out of metal. Even things such as bugs and leaves can be encased in plaster and then reproduced in gold this way as long as they can be burned out in a kiln.