Making Jewellery - August 2016

92 makingjewellery.com

IT’S A JEWELLER’S LIFE

We share life behind the scenes with blogger Anna Mcloughlin, who is a gold

and silversmith with a passion for using environmentally friendly and ethically

sourced materials in her designs.

F

or this month’s blog, I thought I would

write about how I turn a design into a

fi nished piece of jewellery. I will also

be giving some advice on putting together a

jeweller’s toolkit.

The fi rst thing to think about is where you

are going to get your materials. As we now

shop for everything online, this is a pretty

good place to start when sourcing materials to

make your jewellery from too! I’ve come across

some people who don’t like to share where they

get their raw materials from, but as an ethical

jeweller I like to be transparent about this.

When I’m not remodelling a client’s old

jewellery, most of my metal comes from

Cookson Gold. I’ve used them ever since I

started on my fi rst jewellery making evening

class. They didn’t have their fabulous easy-

to-navigate website back then, so you had to

either phone them or go into the trade counter

(Birmingham or London) with a list of what

you wanted. I don’t really need it so much now,

as I generally know exactly what I want, but I

do fi nd the website really helpful for working

out quotes for my clients as I can just enter in

the measurements for each piece of metal and it

will tell me how much it costs. They also refi ne

and recycle their own gold and silver, which

in my opinion is much better than digging up

tonnes of earth in order to wear something

shiny on your fi nger or around your neck. The

disadvantage is that a silver or gold order can

fairly often end up with an order for some shiny

new tools too – oops!

The other main place that I buy precious

metals from is Betts Metals who are just around

the corner from Cookson in Birmingham’s

Jewellery quarter and they too have a great

website. For gemstones, I’d recommend

Rubyfair or Fair-Trade Gemstones. There’s

currently no offi cial ‘fair trade’ gemstone

certifi cation but these companies both go much

further than simply saying that they adhere to

the ‘Kimberley process’.

I usually work with sheet and wire and make

each piece from scratch so that’s what I’m

basing my blog and this advice on, but there

are also plenty of companies out there that will

create your piece of jewellery for you from just

your drawing if you so wish.

Once you have your raw materials, you’ll

need some tools to be able to turn your design

Finished silver rings set with fairtrade emerald and reusing clients own diamonds

MJ96_P92-93_Blog SHSF.indd 92 23/06/2016 11:33