Finishing touch of the signetring I posted June 16th: I’ve added a gold collar and blackened the silver dog. While polishing the very tiny collar, I almost lost my thumb in the machine.

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I loved my ‘kleine oma’ (little grandma). My mother gave me her wedding ring (reading J.d.K.) to melt and create something new. But I loved this memory of my grandparents, and decided to turn this 14k ring inside out. The outside is sandpapered, the inside high gloss. And I gave it back.

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Most of the time it takes me days-to-weeks to make a special piece of jewelry. This is a ‘quick & dirty’ attempt to create cheap jewelry with real 18k gold, nice light grey pearls and blackened silver.

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From a Facebook friend – came a ‘Blah blah blah’ suggestion for a jewel, which I turned into this bracelet. Material 13 x 42 mm rhodium-dipped 1st grade silver with a blackened chain & lock with seed pearls (small natural pearls, formed in saltwater oysters)

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A bolder (15 mm wide) version of the brace with varioust chains and a little bright red precious coral.

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Experiment with 1mm indentation stamps.

When I make presents for friends I often just grap all materials around me and make something out of it. This time I’d just visited a stone setter who milled the square emeralds inside the pearls.

Doggy signeting for son Wolf (should I add stones for the eyes?).

My first bracelet, recycled from a Dutch antique golden headpiece and precious corals from 1900. Red corals are basically anemone-like animals that secrete a skeleton. They are rare and still grow in some underwater caves in Sardinia. This precious piece is for my precious mother’s 80th birthday. I first drew my father’s face, melted the 18k gold into square wire and soldered 22 parts together. Since it was the first time I worked in gold, the nose melted twice and I had to change the eyes and moustache a couple of times to really let it become my father. I searched the internet and travelled far to get those perfect large corals, strung on 14k gold. Exhibited at De Pioen @ Kunst10Daagse, Bergen until Oct 23, 2016

My first ring, made of two flat pieces of silver. Hillary’s quote fitted perfectly and fits me too. Since I had to shape the ring before sawing, it was hard to get the type right. Brussels soil between the letters helped keeping the type sharp during soldering. At the end I’ve blackened the silver inside. Next time I’ll try water cutting and I’ll skip the double layer.