Recently I wrote about melting down your old gold to make new items of jewellery. (Part 1 of Melting Gold and making charms). With no sign of gold prices decreasing it’s a handy way of reducing the cost of a new piece jewellery and also gives you the chance to do some spring cleaning.
I have been making gold charms for a customer that wanted to add to her existing charm collection. The idea of these charms is that they would act a little decorative gold spacers between the larger charms to give the bracelet a two tone look.
After rolling the wire to the correct thickness and cutting it into the required lengths I begin shaping the charms on a stake.
As working the metal can make it quite hard it is important to anneal the metal regularly. This involves heating the metal to make it soft and more malleable.
Here’s a picture of some of the charms that I have made. As they will be sitting with lots of other more ornate charms I kept the designs quite simple. I’ve also incorporated some silver into the design to highlight the two tone effect. It’s amazing what can be done with some odd earrings and broken chain!
