Celtic Jewelry Making: Step By Step
With any arts and craft project, be it for personal or business purposes, you have to love what you’re doing and fuse it with historical knowledge. Before we give you the basics on Celtic jewelry making, you need to learn to appreciate the roots of these fine jewelries.
Celtic jewelry making has been known to exist since the first century B.C. The Celts strongly believed in reincarnation and so these influences have been incorporated into their jewelry making. Celtic symbolism is all about the immortal as well as the priceless gift to human civilization.
For Instance:
The symbol for the Holy Trinity was represented by the Latin Triquetra.
Man’s progress was symbolized by the Greek symbol Triskelion or “three legged”. Notice how the knots are like three legs running.
Another interesting thing the Celts did was the concept of the five fold. The fifth fold was an intersection of 4 others. Spring, summer, fall, and winter made up the fifth fold of transitioning.
The infamous Crosses: represents the connection of heaven and earth. This was considered to be our link between the physical and spiritual.
Typical Celtic designs are made up of the complex and abstract, together with a couple of interlaced spirals, crescents and knots. To begin making Celtic Jewelry, it is best to start practicing with copper wires or bronze.
Check out sample designs and patterns available for Celtic jewelry making and choose which among them you would like to follow. It is good to start with the simpler ones and look for designs that have personal meaning to you. This way, you are keeping the tradition of Celtic jewelry making.
Practice your desired pattern on a piece of paper. Graphing papers are good tools for Celtic jewelry making to exact the sizes of your curves and distances.
Look for the appropriate wire gauge for your jewelry. If you are making a brooch, choose the chunkier lower gauge ones; and for the bracelet or the ring, select the thinner ones with higher gauge.
Make sure that you cut your wires long enough so you can simply trim off the excess instead of having to throw away expensive wire.
What you are going to need after you have your cut wire are chain nose pliers and round nose pliers. The round nose pliers are useful for smaller loops while the chain nose pliers are great for larger loops
When all of your bends are done fasten them down with metal clasps or simply form a hook at the end of your wire and use that to secure your jewelry.
Learn about mens celtic jewelry over at fine celtic jewelry.
