silver

Forty and fabulous – a very special bracelet

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We recently completed a commission to create something extra fabulous for a 4oth birthday present.  We were delighted to be asked and the completed work is one that we are particularly pleased with and happy to able to share with you.

The request was for something extra special for a 4oth birthday gift that would commemorate a very special friendship.  The birthday girl has been living in Australia for the last 5 years but retains close ties to her New Zealand heritage.      A bracelet was decided on and we were delighted to incorporate a special design in each of the eight segments.

 A koru was incorporated in one of the segments to represent New Zealand and a gecko represents Australia.

The finished piece was posted to Brisbane and the birthday girl was ‘absolutely thrilled’.

If you are interested in having something created for yourself or a friend we would love to work with you.  We are happy to discuss your ideas to help you come up with something to suit the occasion or personality.

Use the ‘Contact Us’ link on this page to send any questions and enquiries, we look forward to hearing from you.

Learning some basic filigree techniques

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While I have been attempting some SEO for this site Doka has been carrying on with creating some new jewellery for our 2012 season.  Yesterday I offered my ‘help’ with some of his work… My mission was to turn some of these (left) fine silver threads into some of these…

It appears so easy, especally when Doka experienced fingers are involved.  I feel so clumsy but determined to get the threads rolling in the right direction.   The threads that we are using are only .4mm wide, and my fingers do not yet ‘feel’ the silver and roll it like an expert.  I like instant results, I like my current knitting project on 20mm needles and I so want to get this right.

The initial roll is started with a pair of tweezers and tweeking the silver very slightly to start circular pattern. Once the beginning of the circle is formed it is then rolled between finger and thumb.

Of course I want my rolls to be perfect and they didn’t always co-operate but after some time I ended up with about 40 of these; (they’re tiny!!!)

They are being used to help fill in the framework that you can see above, and these pieces will become part of a new bracelet.  Although I am often here and able to observe the work that is involved in creating our filigree jewellery it was a great for me to be more involved and gain even more appreciation of all the work that goes into each of our completed pieces of jewellery.  The bracelet will be made up of 6 of the rectangular pieces that you can see above and will be ready to load onto the website sales section shortly.

 

 

 

An unusual request

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A diving friend asked Adolf to create something unique for his mask handle.  Here at Seba Silver we love a challenge, below are some photos of the process and finished piece.  The central D is for Dino – our customer, he was stunned by the beauty of the finished piece that was beyond what he ever imagined.
Soldering the silver framework for dive mask art work.
Inserting the coral in helmet art

 

All the coral is in place.
Completed dive helmet handle art.
What do you think of the finished piece?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How we create our stunning Filigree balls – Part 3

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Last week I started writing about how we create our Filigree balls, here is the follow up…  We had just soldered the dainty silver pieces into their frames and given them a polish as we wrapped up Part 2 of this filigree photographic journey.

Now the balls must be very gently tapped into shape – we have a bronze mould that we use to ensure the bead pieces are the same shape;

When the beads have been shaped to their desired size a small silver band is created to join the two halves together, the use of a band to connect the halves is not necessary but tends to make a design look more complete. The band may be plain, or several small pieces of silver linked together, incorporate or a twist of have room for pieces of coral or turquoise to be inserted into the band – the choice is ours, or yours as the customer.

Balls and bands waiting to be joined together

Here you can see balls being soldered together – a small piece of wire is used to hold the halves of the balls together while they are joined.

A selection of band options.

After the pieces are joined together we must clean and polish each one – each piece is cleaned and re-heated many times to ensure a shine and polish that we are happy with.

The image above shows beads being heated, a clean and polish will follow.

A selection of completed Filigree Beads from Seba Dizajn

It continues to amaze and fascinate me that there are so many things that can be done with tiny silver threads, some basic jewellery making tools, and a lot of patience and imagination.  We hope you have enjoyed this photographic journey and learned something about the work involved in creating our very intricate pieces of filigree jewellery.

If you would like to see some more examples of Seba Dizajn Filigree balls please visit our facebook page, www.facebook.com/SebaDizajn – and look in the ‘Balls’ Album.

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