Handmade and old jewelry

This time I want to show you some new pieces of jewelry that I made in the last weeks and some that I made in the very beginning. When I started learning with my Latvian teacher I “wasted” a lot of fine gold. We melted a thin layer of fine gold on a Sterling silver undercoat without soldering it. You can still see the work marks on my elder pieces.

Some weeks ago I met a wonderful woman who wanted to have a piece of jewelry out of an old knife-handle from silver. It is a very beautiful art nouveau handle from Denmark made by a famous goldsmith named Evald Nielsen. No jeweler wanted to do this work and it would have cost a lot of money. But I did it and it worked out perfectly. She was extremely happy about it and wears it ever since. It looks like an extraordinary pendant, not like a knife handle and many people have asked her about this piece of jewelry, which makes me very proud. Then I showed her all my handmade jewelry and she fell in love with some pieces. As I do a lot of brooches and she only wears pendants I had to change 2 pieces to become pendants. And these pieces fit her perfectly. I got 3 old silver brooches from her in return which are from art nouveau time with floral design which I like a lot.

The pieces you see below have been made out of Sterling silver, partly coated with fine gold and the following semiprecious stones: labradorite, cyanite, moonstone, lapis lazuli, amethyst, onyx as well as coral, mammoth tooth, horn, beach glass, ebony, a black stone from the beach and old coins. And on top you can see the 3 beautiful old brooches I got.