“Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.” – Dalai Lama XIV

One of my lovely costumers returned to me recently with a request to create a necklace stamped with the words “Love” “Courage” & “Compassion” What a beautiful idea for a piece of jewellery I thought. A tactile memento worn close to the heart; a reminder to give love and to receive love, to feel compassion and to be compassionate. A reminder to have courage or to find courage and to be courageous in the pursuit of ones dreams.

As usually happens when a client asks for a sentimental piece of handmade jewellery I got really excited. Especially since I would be using the customers own gold to melt down and craft the new necklace. There’s something magical about the process of creating anything, and creating using a customers own precious metal increases the magic, amplifies the sentimentality, and of course who doesn’t love recycling?!

“I learned that Courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” – Nelson Mandela

I began by melting the old gold: a collection of single earrings, chain links removed from a bracelet and a ring that was rarely worn. I then forged the gold bar to compress the metal and tighten the crystal structure to its hardest state. It then required annealing to soften it evenly prior to rolling it into a square profile.

Once I had the gold at the desired thickness I cut it into three even strips and bent them up into rings. Then it was time to hammer the gold to create a rippled texture on the exterior surfaces of each ring before polishing and stamping the words into the gold.

And after all the texturing, polishing and stamping, it was time to backtrack a little and cut open two of the rings so that I could interlock them through each other.

And then after I cleaned up the solder joins and re polished the surfaces, the necklace was ready.

This necklace is worn almost every day I’m told. It’s so rewarding to know I have made a piece of jewellery that is so very special to someone.

A big thank you must go to my customer, you know who you are: you’re amazing and I appreciate the trust you place in me to design & create for you.

If you would like your own collection of unworn gold jewellery remodelled into something new and precious, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

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