If you’ve been with me for a while you know that I started a long time ago with painting and then paper crafts / mixed media. I moved into jewelry making about 8 years ago or so. Now I’m finally starting to put myself out there and do some shows and fairs. It’s fun and so nice to meet people in real life versus the blogosphere!
However, for those of you that are new to my work, I’d like to talk about some of the information I throw around about my jewelry making process.
But first let’s talk about how I price things. If you have made anything by hand – food, sewn clothing, knitted items, just about anything that doesn’t come from a box or bag, you know the time, money and effort it is to make nice handmade items. I put my heart and soul into the pieces that I make. Sometimes literally it takes my entire body to press an image in metal 😁. So when I price my jewelry pieces I take into account first the material and how much it cost for me to procure it. Base metals, like copper, brass, stainless steel, and pewter are less expensive than precious metals like sterling, fine silver, gold and platinum. Those last two I don’t even attempt to work with 😂. I then take into account the time and effort it took to make the items. I generally price in increments of $5 and some items may be similar, but there is a little more work involved in one piece vs the other. For instance, there may be upgrades like the bail that I used, adding additional stones, or the “stones” themselves because they may actually be fused glass that I made by hand. I take all of that into account and hopefully arrive at a price that is fair for you to get unique, handmade pieces of jewelry and fair for me so I actually make some money at this 😉. Again if you’ve made anything by hand I’m sure this makes sense to you.
Some of the terms I throw around maybe new to you. So let’s cover some of those…
A cabochon is technically a gemstone that has been shaped for use in a jewelry piece. I tend to use that term not only for gemstones, but also for anything that I place in a bezel.
A bezel is a setting used in a piece of jewelry that typically surrounds and holds or traps something like a stone, a piece of glass, a piece of resin, etc. I tend to be a little more general with my interpretations of cabochons and bezels. I think of the bezels as the thing that holds whatever I’m trying to feature, and the cabochon as the thing I’m trying to feature. Hopefully that makes sense!
A bail is anything that can attach a pendant to whatever stringing material I am using so that it can hang around your neck. Sometimes I use jump rings, sometimes I use a split ring, and sometimes I use wire or metal that is hammered or textured or impressed with an impression die.
Sometimes bails are “hidden” meaning you can’t see them from the front so as not to distract from the design. Here’s one example:
When I talk about soldering I generally mean soldering that utilizes a torch, not a soldering iron. That is not always the case, but in general that is the soldering I utilize. Some people call this brazing or hard soldering. Soldering requires clean metal, a steady hand, heat and generally multiple iterations to achieve a piece of jewelry. Fusing is similar, but typically involves applying heat to two pieces of metal so that they become one solid piece. I do this sometimes with Fine Silver and Argentium Silver, but some folks are able to fuse other metals as well.
Jump rings are small pieces of wire that are generally used to attach one piece of metal or glass or stone, etc. to another through a hole in the pieces. They are typically round but actually could be other shapes. With tougher metals that melt at a higher temperature, jump rings can be soldered closed which adds security so that the jump ring cannot be torn open and cause a potential loss of the piece parts of the jewelry item. For pewter, jump rings can sometimes be soldered to the piece or a jump ring can be soldered closed through a bail. Soldering is an extra step that I usually do with the more expensive silver, but don’t necessarily do with the base metals. It generally depends on the design, the weight of the item, etc. Soldering jump rings closed is one of those upgraded things that I take into account in pricing.
This is an example of a jump ring used as a bail:
Split rings look pretty much like two jump rings that have not been cut apart. If you’ve ever had a key ring, I’m sure you’ve seen a split ring. Sometimes I make my own split rings by making a coil of jump rings and then instead of cutting only a single ring off to use, I’ll cut two. That can be wound through a hole in the jewelry piece, or another jump ring or bail. I personally like the look of it and it adds a little bit more reassurance that the jump ring will not open if it’s not soldered closed.
This is an example of a Split Ring used as a bail:
Many times instead of using a jump ring, the design calls for a piece of wire with a loop. There are generally two types of loops that I utilize – an open loop and a wire wrapped loop. An open loop is pretty much like it sounds – the wire stem usually comes out of something like a bead or a piece of metal and I form the wire into a loop and I use the excess wire from the loop to wrap around the stem. This effectively closes the loop and is more secure. And open loop is quicker and easier and typically looks like a piece of wire coming out of a bead or metal and it is formed into a loop where the end of the loop just touches the stem of the wire. This loop is actually closed by the wire resting against the stem, but it just rests there. There is a potential of the loop getting caught, twisting and opening and losing whatever it was holding in the loop. I do make pieces with open loops sometimes and the price will be lower, but you might opt for pieces with wire wrapped loops because they will be more secure.
Here’s some screen shots of wire wrapped loops vs open loop connectors:
Hope you enjoyed my small behind the scenes view of jewelry making terms and more importantly how I go about pricing. I always tell people that sometimes the jewelry making is actually the easiest part of the process 😉
