Wedding Anniversary Commission

In July 2017 two of my lovely customers decided that they would like to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary with an individually hand crafted bracelet and bangle for each of them.The bracelet could be feminine but the bangle had to retain a masculine feel so we decided to place the aluminium inside the bangle where it would remain partially hidden.

Aluminium is the metal to celebrate a ten year anniversary and it was decided that we would use July's birth flower the Larkspur to decorate the aluminium. The blue colour chosen suited both of my customers so I used some aluminium I had dyed a beautiful sky blue.

Here are a few photographs of how I made the bangle.

Soldering on the ends of the bangle wasn't easy and was a little bit messy too! The green substance masks off the areas you don't want to heat up with the soldering torch. This prevents any previous solder from melting and any bits you didn't want to fall off fall off - if you know what I mean.

 I had printed some aluminium with a blue Larkspur drawing and was ready to utilise it for the job. Both the bracelet and the bangle were to have the Larkspur printed aluminium added to the design. I chose the most attractive parts of the design for the job.

The aluminium needed to be the correct length and width to fit into the inside of the bangle. This would have been easier to calculate if I had studied harder at maths in school.

The two layers of metal had to be riveted together so the bangle had to be placed on an oval piece of wood - I didn't have any at the time so used the handle of my hide mallet to get the job done. Improvisation is essential when you are a crafts person.

The rivets were made from softened silver wire and had to be hammered with a riveting hammer on a steel surface. Without an oval mandrel I improvised again and used a doming punch instead. I am now the proud owner of an oval bangle mandrel so future bangles will be easier to make.

Both bangle and bracelet were finished off by filing, sanding and polishing and looked very attractive. And although different styles the blue Larkspur aluminium really brought the concept of matching wrist wear together.

 

The clients were delighted and sent me this picture of them wearing the jewellery.