Chrissi will be away!
I am very excited to be attending the New Approach School for Jeweler’s next week! I will be taking their Stone Setting Comprehensive course! This is a course I have been wanting to take for a very long time, and I will be learning some more advanced stone setting techniques along with some repair techniques!
I will be back in the studio on July 25th, so all orders placed between July 17 and July 24th will be sent out on July 25th.
I can’t wait to share what I learn from the class with all of you really soon! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook for some fun posts from Tennessee! (I may even go live!). If you haven’t signed up yet for our Insider program…please do! You will be the first to see and learn about new promotions, events, and get access to new jewelry pieces first! I will be expanding this program through the Fall and Winter, so you definitely don’t want to miss out!
I will see you all very soon!!
All the best!
Chrissi
New Approach School for Jewelers
I’m excited to announce that I will be attending the New Approach School for Jewelers August 2-6th for additional training!
I always love gaining new knowledge and skills, especially in the area of jewelry, and it has been a goal for a long time to be able to attend this program!
All orders placed between August 1st and August 7th will be shipped out the following Monday, August 9th.
I can’t wait to share with all of you what I learn and put my new knowledge to work!
More soon!
Chrissi
B Golden Jewelry School
View from my hotel in Austin, TX
This past Friday, I attended a Flush Setting Course at the B Golden Jewelry School in Austin, Texas. The course was amazing, and our instructor, Donnie Jarvis, was a fantastic instructor!
This was a one-day course designed to work on just one-skill. Flush setting is a skill I’ve done on several designs in the past, but not without a lot of difficulty. My goal for the course was to learn how to properly do the setting, but to also learn where I was making critical mistakes! I learned all of that and so much more!!!
Our tool kit
We were given a kit of 10 2.5mm cubic zirconia stones to set into a copper plate and then later, a brass ring as practice.
Along with lots of information on the mechanics of flush setting and why we take the steps we take to insure a proper stone fit. So much care needs to be taken in properly measuring not only your stones, but also your burs to ensure everything matches up. So many of my past mistakes have come from not having the proper size bur for the stone…along with also not getting my hole the correct size.
Our first step was to measure the stones. Both the height and width. it’s important to measure the height of the stone, so you are sure you have enough metal for the stone, and measuring the width, helps you know what the maximum sized hole you need to drill for the setting.
Once you have your stones measured, you need to drill a pilot hole. This hole allows the point of the faceted stone to have a place to sit. Next, you use incremental sizes of burs, to drill the hole out larger and larger until you get to just under the size of your stone.
It’s important to continually check your stone with the size of the hole, and this takes much longer than you would think! A hole that is too big, will allow the stone to wobble when you go to set. A hole that is too small, will not allow enough metal to be there to secure the stone in place.
As I wanted to really learn the technique, I practiced with half of my stones, and came up with this beautiful piece below. I think I may frame this one and hang it up in the shop! What do you think?
The course was so much fun, with so much knowledge shared! It was great to have a day filled with conversation from other metalsmiths, and to see everyone’s progress and work! I loved it! I am looking forward to really practicing this setting some more, and really perfecting the skill.
Creative Side Jewelry Academy
This past November I was able to attend the Hollow Form and Tube Setting intensive class at the Creative Side Jewelry Academy in Austin, Texas.
This amazing class gave me the chance to expand my skill set with the hollow form technique and work on improving my tube setting skills as well.
The class started with making a ring that is hollow in the middle. We started with flat sterling silver sheet, with some of the sheet cut into strips for the ring shank and sides of the hollow form. I opted to texture the sterling silver on the outside of the sheet to give the final ring a bit of light texture
The challenge was getting everything soldered correctly and without shifting. The instructor was great in walking us through all of the steps and every one of us finished up our projects with success.
The class was great! I learned so much in a short amount of time that will really improve my work flow and the quality of the pieces I make! It was really an invaluable experience! I will be adding some new pieces to the website this next year that will feature this new technique.