Many of you who purchase from A&A
Products are using your talents to make jewelry.
I could probably learn a lot from each of you, but for those out there
who need a little
help, here are some ideas. This is not a how to course, simply a
record of some of the
things you can do to make jewelry.
The most obvious is fused glass jewelry. It
is certainly what we sell the most
materials for. I have met many glass fusers and each of them has
a different
style - in fact, their style is sort of their trademark. It can be
as simple as fusing
a piece of glass and then gluing a bail to the back. There are many
nice pieces
made that way - and they are being sold at trade shows and galleries around
the
country. In order to help you visualize products, I will try to add
some pictures
to show some of the possibilities.
When fusing glass for jewelry, there is no
absolute as to what kind of glass to
use. Plain Bullseye or Spectrum glass will make nice pieces - however,
it appears
from sales that most people are using dichroic glass, if not for the entire
piece, at
least to accent the other glass. With a kiln and some glass you can
make some
very decent pieces. If they are pendants, you will need a way to
attach a chain
to them. There are several ways: you can put a hole through them,
you can glue
a bail to the back of them, you can insert a bail into the glass when you
are fusing
the glass, etc. Some examples are below.
with hole for a chain
with bail fused into the glass
with bail glued on
If you are making pendants, you might
also want to combine some fancy beads with
the chain, or even make a special necklace to go with the pendant.
Fused glass pendants with beads added.
You can also decide to wire-wrap your jewelry.
This adds a new dimension to
the piece.
The first two are wire wrapped in a groove put in the glass by a jewelry
bit.
You could add some silver to your jewelry
or just make it out of silver, such as PMC.
solid PMC amphora
PMC with enamel and wire added
And while PMC is a nice way to make jewelry,
I prefer working with silver sheet
and other silver products. You can make elegant pieces that will
compete with
the finest jewelry stores - and it is not difficult. It is worth
trying.
Here are a simple heart pendant, a bird pendant and a combined glass and
silver pendant
enamel fired on silver
enamel
fired on copper
This by no means exhaust the supply of ideas
for jewelry making.
There are many techniques for you to discover. I only hope I have
stimulated your thought process and encouraged you to step out
and try something new. It just might be your thing.
Murray
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