Here is the New Spring Jewelry display that I created for Garden of Silver Jewelry and Janet Schroeder Jewelry at Susan Rodgers Designs in Port Jefferson, NY.

I wanted to convey garden elements and still have the jewelry show well on a bright white background. I sketched butterflies, dragonflys, lotus flowers, lilypads, and daisies in pencil then carefully cut into sections of them with a knife. I make a large colorful watercolor painting that I placed behind the white paper then popped sections of my drawing out to hang the jewelry from. Fun! I think that I will use this display technique for my next trade show display.

Take a peek of the video on our Garden of Silver Instagram page. Thanks, let me know what you think!

Here is a quick video of the behind the scenes process of creating jewelry using the ancient Keum Boo technique. This is originally a Korean technique of fusing pure 24k gold foil to pure silver, fine silver, through the use of heat and burnishing.

Starting with a sheet of fine silver, which is very soft and takes embossing beautifully, sandwich it between two textured brass sheets. The metal sandwich is then put through my rolling mill and the textures of the brass are transferred onto the fine silver through the pressure of the rollers.

The leaf shape is traced onto the embossed silver and then each piece is individually cut out with a saw. The silver leaves are then drilled with holes and sanded on the edges. Now they are ready to be heated up on the little hot plate.

As the silver is heating up, I cut out a tiny hydrangea flower shape from a sheet of paper thin 24k gold. Very carefully the gold piece is placed with tweezers onto the silver piece that has been heated. This process is a little stressful because the gold can easily tear or get blown off the silver at this point. The gold flower is then gently burnished down onto the silver with various metal tools using a circular motion.

The metals are permanently fused together through this process. It will usually take about a minute or two, depending on the heat which is between 500-700 degrees. There isn’t any glue or adhesive of any kind used, the fusing is done through the heat and burnishing.

I am in the middle of creating a series of new Keum Boo jewelry pieces. Some of them I will leave as is with the silver and gold combination and others I will dip into a silver blackening solution to create a gold and black combination. Here are some examples of the finished jewelry. As you can see through this video, each piece is a one of a kind original creation. No two pieces are alike.

Grasslands Earrings, Dogwood Earrings, Raven Earrings.

Hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes peek as to the magic that happens daily in my studio! Be sure to ‘Like’ Garden of Silver on Facebook and sign up for our VIP list to stay updated about new jewelry, events and secret sales. Thanks!

A special thank you to my Advanced Computer Graphics student, David Garcia, for editing this video!

Save the date! I will be bringing in many new one of a kind pieces in all price ranges. There will be something for every taste! Bring your friends, refreshments will be served. I will also have a collection of my fine art drawings and paintings available.

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Today in the studio I have been working on some new jewelry that was inspired by the Hydrangea flowers in my garden and the Lily Pads in my pond.

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After making sketches of the flowers and lily pads I hand carve them out of wax and then cast the wax sculptures into solid sterling silver pieces. The silver castings need a lot of cleaning up and polishing, so I am currently covered in silver dust.

I decided to solder various arrangements of the Hydrangeas to resemble a natural looking cluster that you would see in the garden and the same with the lily pads. It's fun to come up with different ways to use each casting. These images below are the lily pads being soldered together with the torch and then a soak in the pickle which gets the pieces clean after soldering.

The various soldered arrangements will be made into earrings, necklaces, rings, and bracelets. And, the fun part...tiny blue diamonds are going to be added to the center of some of the Hydrangeas and tiny green diamonds will create a 'frog' on the lily pads! 

Another fun day in the studio.

My husband and I just had all new carpeting installed over the weekend in our house. I was forced to get everything out of my studio, clean it all up, and put it back in order. Here are the results!    

Nice and clean and ready for the new spring Garden of Silver jewelry collections to be born!