Hand Made Jewelry

A new wave of handmaking fine quality jewelry

Most of us relates the word “jewelry” with expensive diamonds, gold and materials like silver; well, the thought is not wrong but as time went by, jewelry suffered many changes, it perhaps keeps the meaning as a personal ornament that human beings used to wear such us necklace, bracelets or rings. But it is also true that the word jewelry has its origin in the word “jewel”, what we know as precious metal or substance. Why do we say that the word jewelry has changed?, because with the time, the precious metals that were part became more and more expensive, this situation started to open new doors or alternatives for “jewelry”, we are talking about hand made jewelry. This type of ornament, has as main characteristic, to be a jewel made by the hands of any human being with or without using (as elements of construction) precious metals, or diamonds.

Pomander hand made jewels, middle-age design

tuareg (african) handmade jewelry designed for men

Hand made jewelry is sold today around the world in the same way than the traditional jewels, but as everything in our history, the spreading of this kind of jewels has a history. Although many people ignore the fact that this type of ornament comes from ancient time, we can affirm that the first jewels in many countries were hand made. We don’t have to forget that hand made jewelry is one of the oldest forms of using body ornaments. It’s also true that in early time the handmade jewelry was created to please other kind of needs that’s why it had different applications; since the aim of this object was the decoration of a place. The first pieces of hand made jewelry were made from natural materials, we mean with this, elements such us: shell, wood, bones, stones, etc. The difference between hand made jewelry and the traditional jewelry was that the first one was designed for the use of ordinary people, meanwhile the second was designed by and for people of importance with a high position or economic levels, the aim for the, by the use of this precious piece, was to show their status and in many cases they asked to be buried with them.

Handmade earings

The composition of hand made jewelry concerns many different materials that can be wore by many parts of our body: from toes rings to necklaces; some of this ornaments are designed with expensive gems and high-quality material, and some others only with wood or ordinary stones, in this case this type of hand made jewelry is called “less-costly” or “less-valuable”. The main characteristic is, due to its cheap price, can be mass-produced. Other part of the hand made jewelry history concerns its applications, although many individuals believe they were designed only to decorate the body we must say that idea is wrong; the uses of his elements were many: as currency, it also had functional use (pins, buckles, clasps, among others), as protection (many people used hand made jewelry as amulets) and it was also a way to display people ways of arts.

My own handmade jewelry

In the world of this type of jewelry there are many methods and materials that anyone can use to design their own hand made jewelry; to create rings, or ear rings or necklaces we can use materials such us wood, glass, shells, among others; we can also take advantages from animal substances, for example ivory or bones, natural substances: polymer clay and plastics. The handmade jewelry has given birth to an fantastic industry, today many of us consider this branch of jewelry as another way to make a living. Craftsmen and craftswomen are in every town, showing proud their home made work; we can find from jewelry to pictures, shoes, towels, furniture, etc. Most of the artisans choose to design home made jewelry since the cost is less expensive. They “build” their work by using cheap means and cheaper materials than the traditional jewelry use. But is also true that this activity has more fans in third world countries, we talk about Latin America and Africa, this is the consequence of a long and rich tradition that used to involve home made jewelry.

This kind of jewels changed part of our history, and is still evolving, years ago only a few methods and materials were used to design a necklace, today we can make one of it by using, almost everything that surrounds us; a piece of glass, or wood, will be enough to make our won body ornament. But, although homemade jewelry has increased its popularity it doesn’t mean it will fade away with the time, stores like Cartier or Tiffany and Co. are still very strong in the market but their products are only available for those who have a more expensive taste and the money to afford it.

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