Materials Packs? But why?

So, the price of everything is going up right? And we all know it sucks. And of course, our materials are no exception. We held off raising the price of sterling silver as long as we could but had to put it up a couple of weeks ago, super gutting as we know our students and renters are already facing price rises in every other corner of their lives.

So amongst all our raging and gnashing of teeth, we realised we had to make materials simpler and easier for our students - especially beginners.

We think it's important that when you sign up for a class as a beginner, it includes all the stuff you'll need to make the project, no hidden extras. It's different for advanced students because they begin to understand what's required to make a piece of jewellery. They may scale back their design or seek alternative materials to silver, but for beginners, simplicity is key. So we've decided to make materials packs for all our beginners classes. Here is the silver pack for an 8 week beginner block class:

They are given a 5mm wide ring strip, a generously sized base plate, a 3mm wide fine silver bezel strip and a cabochon stone. We have a great selection of stones in the studio they can choose from, it doesn't have to be a Rainbow Moonstone!

They also get a copper and brass materials pack - also with a stone - so their first stone set rings are copper or brass as a practice piece.

This makes it so much easier for the students, they can see what they have to work with from the outset and can make their plans accordingly. They can of course buy extra silver if they want to, and make a more complex final ring!

I made this Rainbow Moonstone ring from the beginners pack as an example, and cut down the 5mm ring strip to 3mm wide (so there would be extra for another ring) and used a hammer texture on the ring shank.

It's pretty cute! (I think so anyway).

This practice ring below is a student one with a Pounamu cabochon.

The word "cabochon" is French (like a lot of jewellery terms) and simply means a stone that has a flat bottom and a curved top. We start our beginners off with these because you learn a number of jewellery making techniques in one project. The measuring skills are crucial as students learn to size their fingers and their stones. They learn to use all the grades of solder as they ramp up their soldering skillset. Patience when setting yields the best results as does taking their time with sanding and finishing.

So yeah, it's not really about making a ring because you want a ring, but more about building a foundation of jewellery skills to carry you into Level 2 and beyond!

On my bench:

Today I finished a couple of wedding rings for some super lovely folks:

The one on the left is 9k yellow gold, and the right is 9k rose gold. They're a classic half round or "wedder" profile - honestly there is nothing like the classics ;)

The gold price has also gone nuts over the last few months, but precious metals do retain their value (and increase) so customers are still investing in gold. Luckily, because I just love working with it!

Annie