Metalsmith Newsletter

The ring above by Derek Katzenbach was the winner of Best Use of Color and indeed this ring is an excellent example of that category.
The center stone is a bicolored tourmaline and the surrounding small gems are tsavorite garnets, tourmalines and diamonds.

Under the classical jewelry section Niveet Nagpal won the first place with this Spinel Halo Ring set with a cushion cut spinel accented by melee spinel and diamonds. A very elegant composition and an excellent example of high end craftsmanship.

It is easy to look at jewelry like this and think: " I'll never be able to make something like this".

You would be wrong, though, because everyone that can make jewelry like this started at the beginning, struggled to learn how to solder, struggled to learn how to polish and made mistakes and started again.

Never gave up and practiced the art until it became second nature.

The practice part is probably the most important part of success.



And speaking of practice and never giving up, we have been working on a new website for the last couple of months that is dedicated to only jewelry tutorials.

This website is made in the new 'responsive' format.

Responsive means that the website will display across all media platforms equally well.
So were you to look at it on your phone, it will automatically adjust itself according to your screen size, and the same applies
to a tablet and a normal pc monitor.

We will also be adding short videos that are relevant to our tutorials.
We prefer to keep the videos short and to the point, rather than a long video with a droning voice.

We created a redesigned informative section on Jewelry Making Tool Tips which we fully intent to expand and include postings
of the Jewelry Tutorial Newsletter so you can always refer back to them.

You are of course a large part of this newly interactive learning tool. We value your contributions, pictures and questions.

For those that do web design, we used CoffeeCup Responsive Site Developer.
We can recommend this program using to build your website.

We based our choices on CoffeeCup RSD because of:

-WYSIWYG ( what you see is what you get)

-Outright Purchase of the program.

-Super Support via Forum and CoffeeCup Team

The one thing is this program has a steep learning curve which no doubt comes with all responsive website building programs.


We hope you enjoy the newly formulated website and welcome any comments or requests.



We have published two new tutorial -

This Modern Folded Pearl Ring which is made out of one flat plate and one piece of wire. Two design options are shown

And then in keeping with the Halo Ring theme.
This ring is made on the exact same principle as the winning Spinel Halo Ring entry, with a slight variation on the design style.

This free Prong Setting Tutorial takes a closer look at setting stones in the same way that the shank of the Agta Red Spinel Ring and the Halo Ring above is set.

In this tutorial I use a silver ring and three 3 mm cubic zirconia as test stones.

This inspiring message came in from Ewa, who bought the Gem Carving Tutorial and sent pictures of this
beautifully carved Amethyst Flower Ring which she made.

In this tutorial I use a silver ring and three 3 mm cubic zirconia as test stones.

Happy working and less tool hunting!

My best wishes and regards,


Hans Meevis