This particular story starts with a rectangular malachite stone, which I was lucky enough to dig out in one of the local mineral shops. It is not perfect for the design I had in mind as one of its surfaces is convex. Well, it is still better than nothing, right? Besides, it is not that easy to come across a clean straight rectangular stone these days. I decided to give it a try anyway.

As my camera body is going to be bright green, I though that the lens might also get some colouring. There was a rose quartz cabochon lying around waiting for a perfect project to come by. We all know that the world is far from perfect, hence we should grab the opportunities as they come.

I made a simple round cast with two prongs out of a silver strip for my camera lens. There was no need for any back support as the camera body will hold the cabochon in place.

The body itself consists of a rectangular frame and two horizontal bands running across the whole piece. In order to fit the malachite I had to make two identical frames and solder them together afterwards. Only after that I realised that it would be way easier to do the soldering first to get a wider stripe and then bend it into a frame.

After hours of bending, fitting and soldering the back stone finally got into its rightful place nice and tight. I then added few prongs on the back to make sure it doesn’t go anywhere. Actually one of back prongs is an imitation of an on-camera flash, which in the same time is a pendant chain loop.

After all the soldering I removed the excessive pieces of stripes sticking out everywhere and give the whole piece a rough grinding round. It came out a bit different from what I was having in mind, but it does resemble a camera look.

Although non-functional, there is even a shutter button added on top of the camera body. Once grinding was done I did a first iteration of polishing with rubber abrasive brushes (they are amazing by the way) and set the malachite into the frame. All the fitting efforts payed off and the camera body is now fits snugly with the curved green stone.

Simple things are usually learnt hard. I wanted to do some more polishing around the frame edges with the malachite in place. This is when I felt stupid not recalling that this mineral is not particularly stiff and scores only about 3,5 on the Mohs hardness scale. Luckily the scratches were not critical and I managed to buff them out so the back of the camera looks mesmerisingly smooth.

Setting the quartz was pretty straightforward using the two top prongs I set up at the very beginning. However, next time I’d rather spend few more hours to build a bigger cast for lens and set the stone from the inside as I did in my earlier Silver camera pendant. Even though it is much harder to produce I believe it worth the hustle.

The final result might not deserve a central exposure in an art museum (depending on a museum probably though), but it still looks good and instantly reveals its inner meaning.

Unfortunately, this item is not available for purchase. If you dream about something similar, please check my Etsy store or contact me through the form or on Instagram and let’s see what I can do

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The post Malachite and rose quartz camera pendant appeared first on Slavik LTD.

Selecting the right gift is a challenge by itself, let alone making one. Especially when gift receiver is a happy person. If you think about it – the hardest choice you make selecting a gift is for someone who already has everything he or she needs and happy about it. On top of that such person is usually so polite that you will never know if your gift was not good. My observation concludes that happier people need less stuff, therefore it is bloody difficult to surprise them with a proper gift. There are plenty of articles out there intended to help with this task, here is a recent example I stumble across surfing around.

Once I was desperately trying to figure out a special gift for my wife’s birthday, when it suddenly came to me – this is exactly what my concept of meaningful jewellery is about. So I just had to look closer for a thing which she relates the most to. It wasn’t too hard I must say: she is currently writing a post apocalyptic novel with a code name something about a drop of gold. Thus it came kinda naturally that the gift should represent a book with and reflection of its code name. I was so happy about choosing the concept that I didn’t realise that I’ve got less than 2 weeks to bring it to life.

Forging the gift

Not to linger any longer I started sketching. For quite some time I already had a nice golden tiger’s eye teardrop stone lying around and finally its time has come. It will play a main role in this project implying a reference to a future novel. Considering the stone size I decided to make a pendant as I figured that ring might be ridiculously large.

After few pages of sketching I got a bit frustrated. There were just too many design ideas and I have no idea how to proceed. At some point I managed to realise that I just have to get started and steer along the way. Sort of an agile production.

Naturally the first building block is a book frame. I wasn’t sure that I have enough square wire for this project, hence the common 1.0mm round one was the optimal choice. Once the wire was bent in square frame I soldered the joint and it gave me a feeling of a good start.

Then I flattened it out on my new Chelyabinsk made anvil that I’ve got from my schoolmate (thanks Yurko!). It looked all right even though it required a bit of pliers work here and there. Well, one side of the book (rather its wireframe) is done and here comes a second one. It took me few attempts to make identical one, but it was worth the effort.

Having two square rings (if you know what I mean) was an important milestone for me, but still it didn’t give me an overall picture of how it all should get together in the end. The centrepiece of this pendant will of course be the stone – golden tiger’s eye teardrop. I’ve got this one at a mineralogists fair in my town. I used a 1.2mm wide strip to make a bezel casting for it and I was looking forward to practice stone setting technique.

Second thoughts

Even though I was quite proud of myself completing the framework for the book, I got into a panic mode at some point. The deadline was coming down fast and there is still so much to do. Frustration was so intense that I even considered changing the concept to make a shortcut and make it in time. I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t.

It seems like my student spirit visited me and whispered “relax, there’s still time”. Only this was far from truth – there were only 2 days at my disposal. Luckily I managed to pull myself together and dove into the crafting. Unfortunately my phone got pregnant with a faulty battery and I couldn’t get any more pictures of the manufacturing process.

Photoshoot

After few spikes of high productivity the Silver Book was completed. I almost made it in time, slight delay even built more excitement around this mysterious gift. Finally it was well worth it – I am extremely pleased that I managed to pull this off and made my wife happily hopping around the house! She was so excited about it that she decided to make an artistic photoshoot for this book. Enjoy the gallery below!

Unfortunately, this item is not available for purchase. If you dream about something similar, please check my Etsy store or contact me through the form or on Instagram and let’s see what I can do

The post The Silver Book pendant appeared first on Slavik LTD.