This is where it all usually starts...at the bench. Normally, I get my ideas from working on several pieces at once, and from that point you can´t help but see other possibilities for each piece..."how about just like this, but bigger or with a gold band or a second stone", etc, etc.

However, the piece that I am about to talk you through was a commission, so the first thing to be done is to locate the materials. In this case it was the stones that needed the most following up. Once you finally find what you are after, do they have enough of the correct size, is the quality good enough, do they all match, are they the right price? And so on...

With these particular stones, the size I wanted were very bad quality so my original idea for articulating the bracelet, had to be revised as the stones I was happy with were much bigger and heavier. So, after I had decided the best way to re-do that for the new larger size of stone, I re-ordered the metal. This included silver tube of 2 different diameters, silver sheet of 3 different thicknesses and silver jumrings of 2 different diameters. (Sometimes, you can´t be sure what will be work perfectly until you have it in your hands!) This is the challenge of one-off pieces of jewellery...no model to work from!

Contemporary Jewellery

the making of ... > Sandys rainbow moonstone surprise...