Jewelry: New Year, New Techniques

Santa was very good to me this Christmas and brought me a butane mini torch and a shiny new Dremel rotary tool. So I have big plans to learn to solder and expand my jewelry shop to include more diverse types of jewelry. I love wire wrapping, but I have always been fascinated with more heavy duty metalworking techniques. My new rotary tool and torch will let me try out soldering and fusing.

As an introduction to my new toys, I re-polished a few pieces of jewelry - the Dremel is so much better than the little cheap rotary tool I had before. Polishing will go much faster with the better quality tool. I also familiarized myself a little bit with the new torch by making a bunch of handmade sterling silver balled headpins and earring wires.

Here's my first piece with the new handmade balled headpins and earring wires:

Oxidized Sterling Silver and Garnet Drop Earrings - available in my Etsy shop

So now I get to look forward to making a huge order from a couple jewelry supply shops to get some soldering supplies and more silver. I always love the anticipation of getting a big box of shiny wire!