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Last night I learned a very valuable lesson when attempting to make a pendant, not all metals are the same.  Seems like an obvious observation.  I made a model of a pendant out of base metal to make sure I could do the correct design.  It worked and looked great and exactly as I would expect.  I made several test pendants just to make sure I had the wrapping technique down before I started using sterling as silver is not cheap these days.  I then was confident that I had the technique down and used sterling wire to make the pendant.  I was surprised to see that the wire was not bending like the base metal wire and I was unable to recreate the same look as the sterling was less forgiving and more challenging to keep in place.  The wires seemingly looked exactly the same gauge and same hardness, but the sterling was much more difficult to work with while making this pendant.

I am off to give it another try once I get a different gauge wire and hopefully this wire works with me because the pendant is adorable.

I have been working with beaded jewelry for sometime now and felt it was necessary to start broadening my skill level.  About a year ago I started the Cape May Jewelry line and started doing wire wrapping of stones and beach glass.  I have become quite comfortable with wire wrapping and recently felt like I need to take the next step as I was now interested in drilling into the stones and setting them in bezel settings instead of wire wrapping. 

I got this bug when a friend of mine asked me to fix her earring that had the post fall off.  I was hesitant at first because I never soldered jewelry before, but I took my time and was able to replace the ear post by soldering a new one back on to her earring.  And even more surprising was that I actually did a good job and she couldn’t tell which earring was repaired!

That got me thinking that maybe I can actually start trying to solder and create settings for my Cape May stones that I have been collecting and polishing each time I go down to Cape May Point.  So for Christmas, I set myself up with a bunch of supplies like solder, sterling silver sheet, bezel wire, polish, new dremel bits and a few other borrowed items from my husband’s tool bench.  I decided on New Years Day to give it a try…mind you I have NEVER soldered anything except that earring and definitely have not worked with any fine metals.

I took my time had had made a beautiful bezel cup for a selected Cape May Point pink stone.  I was especially proud because I figured out how to solder using different types of solder that melt at different temperatures.  I also wanted the bezel to be flush with the base of the pendant, so I learned how to grind using the dremel.  Now I am not sure if this is the right way to do it, but the bezel cup looked pretty good.  I gave it a good polish and soldered on a bail and it was ready for the stone.

That is where it started to fall apart.  See I thought that putting the stone in the bezel was the EASY part.  Turns out I was REALLY wrong.  After I put the stone in and tried using my new bezel tools (that kept falling off the bench because they are completely round!) it seemed that I could not get a tight bezel and each time I pushed the wire in, another gap appeared.  I am sure I did something wrong.  I also really dinged up the silver bezel and the base because I got frustrated and started using a hammer to gently tap the bezel in place around the stone.  It worked, but the bezel is still not tight and i ruined the beautifully polished bezel cup (as you can see from above).  I am going to try to figure out how to buff out the scratches and I am hoping this new polish compound will do that, but I guess I need to find out how to do a tighter bezel for next time.

This was a great experience for me and I was suprised how much fun I had making this bezel, even though it took me quite sometime on New Years Day!

In the beginning of December, I decided to start a new line of jewelry called School Spirit Jewelry.  The purpose of this line was to figure out a way for ladies to show their school spirit for their favorite school in the way many women like to express their style…through jewelry.  I was excited about the great football season that the University I attended was having and made the College “R” Letter Bracelet out of Swarovski Crystal and sterling silver.  I had such a positive response to the bracelet with the help of my husband and brother-in-law so I also created the College “R” Letter Necklace to match the bracelet.  I wanted to thank everyone who purchased necklaces and bracelets and hope everyone truly enjoyed them.

Please feel free to pass along the links to others to help spread school spirit.  I can also do custom colors and charms for other schools, so please feel free to contact us with any custom requests!