Tribal Jewellery

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am very much into ancient cultures and mythology. So I have decided to start a new range of jewellery created by Lynwood Jewellery called our Tribal Jewellery range.

The range will be mainly necklaces with some bracelets (I’m currently working on a bracelet at the minute). I want to work in earthy colours and have chosen stones such as dusty pink rhodonite and the beautiful brown hues of brecciated jasper, to incorporate into the range.

I am also, of course, using silver for central pieces such as hearts and chains, but I am augmenting this with greek leather and suede thongs to complete the piece.

The bracelet I am working on at the moment has a silver heart accented with a silver and leather chain. The next piece will use a mixture of turquoise and brecciated Jasper stones as the necklace and a rare Biggs Jasper pendant will complete the tribal feel.

The overall effect is to give the wearer a very distinctive and individual piece of jewellery, that uses tones and colours that touch on the whole tribal trend being seen in jewellery  minute.

You can see some of our tribal pieces on our website here.

Here is a look at that Biggs Jasper piece before I set it:

Our latest rhodonite tribal necklace:

Rhodonite tribal necklace

I think we need more jewellery!

My jewellery escapades, have been sorely neglected on this blog for a few weeks, due to presenting the fine work of other handmade artisans. So, to amend this situation, I will show you my latest creation, entitled:

“I am finding myself becoming more and more abstracted”

I am currently working ona range of statement necklaces which I am calling ‘Totem necklaces’, mainly because they are formed from several parts, that are connected to form a pendant. This piece started out as sterling silver wire and sheet silver.

Part 1:Making the basic parts

I created semi-circles from the silver wire, soldered them, pickled them and then tumbled them.

I then formed several silver discs from sheet sterling silver

Part 2:Starting the construction

The first part of constructing the pendant, involved soldering the semicircles to each other, to form a  weave. This become more and more difficult as the piece grew, because of the heat sink effects of a larger surface area of metal. I created 2 sections of the weave, the smaller of which would be attached to the large, so that it hung below.

Once the soldering was complete I picked, cleaned off excess solder and tumbled the two sections.

Part 3:Doming the silver discs

While the two weave sections were being tumbled I used a doming block and punch to dome the silver discs, creating a concave surface. I then drilled holes into each disc to allow them to be hung from the main pendant.

Part 4: Joining the parts

Once the main two weave pieces were cleaned, I attached them using some sterling silver rings, that I had previously created (I usually make a load at once as they always come in handy).

Part 5: Completing the pendant

To complete the pendant, I attached the domed discs to the main pendant to create dangling discs. I added a Swarovski crystal to the bottom of the pendant to finish it off.

Part 6:Finishing the statement necklace

I attached the pendant via a sterling silver wire hanger to a leather necklet. In fact I am going to make 2 different length necklets to use with the pendant.

So, here is the finished piece. It’ll go on sale once it has returned from the hallmarkers:

Abstract statement necklace in silver

Abstract statement necklace in silver

The Sun God Has Risen

At last, I have finished the necklace ‘Homage to the Sun God‘, see earlier post.

The final stages included soldering the rays to the surface of the Sun – ironically you seemed to need temperatures that normally are only found at the centre of the Sun to get the things to bond!

The problem being that the disc is made from thick sterling silver and so was acting like a heat sink, allowing the heat to flow away from the solder. Took some doing, but eventually the solder flowed and the rays became part of the Sun.

In the meantime, I also created a bezel cup in which to sit the heliodor beryl gemstone. I decided that I would sit the beryl unconventionally, upside down, to have the effect of the sun’s flames coming out from the belly of the Sun. The bezel cup was slightly sunk into the Sun disc to house the beryl.

After that the next most difficult part was to clean up the disc, as I couldn’t tumble it, as the bezel housing for he beryl is quite delicate, so it became very laborious and took a number of goes with varying grades of wet and dry and then finally very fine wire wool and soap, to make the Sun shine.

I then drilled a hole into the Sun disc from which the Sun hangs via a silver hook to the chain.

After that the beryl was fitted into the cup and the necklace was complete and the Sun finally rose.

Here are a few images of it. I’ll be listing it on Etsy and Folksy very soon. What’s particularly nice about this necklace is that it can be word with the Sun pendant or without a chain on its own. So you can have your crazy pendant days or your much quieter chain only days.

Homage to the Sun God

me wearing the Sun God

A Different View of the Sun God Necklace