Author: Jewel Envy

A busy Sunday @ JewelEnvy!

For those of you that don’t know, Jewel Envy’s owner, Gillian got married a couple weeks ago! The wedding was as beautiful as the sunny day, and almost as beautiful as the glowing bride.

I’m sure you know that jewellery is pretty much always on our minds, so I thought what better chance will I get to play photographer and find out what jewels everyone chose to adorn themselves with. Here are a few of Jewel Envy’s goldsmiths and their guests at the wedding.

Hyewon Jang of H Jewellery was perfectly elegant in pearls. She designed this sterling silver and freshwater pearl jewellery herself.

Lauren Hanham and Jamie were a perfect pair with their matching Art Deco inspired jewellery, designed by Lauren Hanham Designs.

Mark was as daper as they come, sporting his custom made rings and studded tie clip by Amanda Henderson of Jewelust, and gear ring by Kinekt.

Young Ko of Koko Bijoux looked fabulous wearing her Cherry Blossom jewellery, and some one of a kind pieces, like her gorgeous amethyst pendant.

That’s all for this installment! Check back for part 2, coming soon, featuring the beautiful bride and some of her lovely bridesmaids!

Ever wonder what the difference is between white gold and sterling silver in appearance? These two metals often get confused with each other. The game gets even more confusing when rhodium plating is involved (all that bright white metal at Tiffany & Co, sterling and white gold, is rhodium plated) making them almost indistinguishable. The best indicator to look for is a stamp.

Stamps for gold karats

Sterling stamp for sterling silver

925 stamp for sterling silver

Another good indicator is the weight. Something of equal size in gold will be heavier than its silver twin. Gold is a denser metal than silver.
The final thing to look at, if it is not behind rhodium plating, is the colour. Silver is whiter in colour than white gold. White gold has a bit of a warmer steely grey colour to it.

10k white and sterling silver ring by Zsolt Szekely

Now you know 🙂

This May we did something a little different at Jewel Envy. When a customer purchased something with a value over $100 from our showroom we gave them a little extra gift. These “little” gifts were tokens of our appreciation for our customers. The jewellers here each made a unique piece with a retail value of $65 and then we wrapped up the pieces and let you be surprised with the box you chose.

People seemed to really enjoy this so stay tuned for future give aways. We may announce them or just surprise you on the spot with something!

Below are the pieces generously donated and some of our winners.

Sterling silver studs by Amanda Henderson of Jewelust were a big hit. Now the big decision is if they should be a treat to keep or another gift for people overseas.

Sterling silver and enamel petal pendant by Gillian E. Batcher of PASH Jewellery Design. This was a luck of the draw choice as was is a perfect colour match to the bunny earrings (by Alexis Kostuk) he chose for his lucky girlfriend lovingly nicknamed “Bunny”.

 

 Sterling silver pendant by Sasha Oda of Archerade. It was a two for one necklace day for this customer!

Wood cufflinks by Zsolt Szekely. Lucky man, came in for a gift for his wife (earrings by Hyewon Jang) and chose a pair of cufflinks by Zsolt, who incidentally made his wedding band years ago!

 Sterling silver and leather pendant by Helena Perez Lafaurie of H.P. Jewellery Design

 Sterling silver and resin pin by Alexis Kostuk of Glaciale Jewellery

 Sterling silver and pearl earrings by Hyewon Jang of H Jewelry

Sterling silver earrings by Young Ko of Koko Bijoux. 

There is always something interesting going on at Jewel Envy so drop in to see the work and check things out.


Gillian

Lilypad ring is done! It’s my first time trying arctic fox silver. It works pretty much the same as sterling silver. However, the fancy part of arctic fox silver is that it is anti-tarnishing!! It’s a wonderful idea; especially, it will save me lots of time on cleaning tarnished jewellery. And also, I no longer need to worry about polishing stones away.
This lilypad was originally carved in wax and cast with a wax ring on the bottom. It was a bit of challenging on finding the right spots for sprues in order to make sure the whole thing is cast. There are several different types of gems that were set on. The big oval stone on the bottom right is tourmaline. The rest of small gems are topaz, peridot, tsavorite garnet, rhodolite garnet and white sapphires. White sapphires are tiny, which is to express water drops on the leaf.
Here is a quick snap shot of it to show everyone.

 Cheers
Ellen Tsai @ ellolite.com

I went and bought new equipment! All jewellers love the thrill of acquiring new tools and equipment. We love the process of making and our tools are cherished and protected as of result of this. Oddly enough the main techniques for making jewellery have not changed in centuries but new tools are constantly invented to help us streamline production and achieve greater accuracy and precision.

With all of the resources at our disposal it can be quite an eye opening and humbling experience to ee what jewellers in other parts of the world accomplish with the bare minimum of what we think is necessary for successful creation.

All that being said and having seen mind blowing detailed work myself while traveling, I am still seduced by the idea of having more and more tools and equipment for work I may want to make in the future. Thankfully for me this habit is supported by the fact that I have a studio to run and equipment purchases are helpful to the current jewellers in the space as well as being attractive incentive to new jewellers considering applying to the space.

After repeated requests from jewellers interested in working here I finally set up a Mega Minor Glass torch with a new kiln for annealing glass work in. As I got some of the pieces in the set up second hand I was also able to purchase old stock of glass rod in amazing colours which is available for sale at the studio.

Many years ago I took glass bead making classes at Bead FX so it may be time to return to some lamp work in my designs….or not…just having new equipment can sometimes be enough to satisfy the new tool buzz!

These new supplies may also inspire us to start teaching glass bead making classes so stay tuned for details!

Gillian