Jewelry Making

I wanted to start a thread on Jewelry making for dolls. This is something that I have been playing around with for a while, and the basic skills are pretty simple to learn. A lot of things can be made with two pairs of chain nose pliers, some wire cutters, jewelry chain, and some jump rings.

I’d definitely recommend starting with stainless steel and gold and silver plated materials. Use craft wire if you decide to learn wire wrapping. You can get 50 feet of chain for $25 and that’s a lot to play with when making things for a doll.

 

A few of the things I've made.

Here is the detail on a body chain I made for my Sailor Mercury:

Ami Mizuno - Body Chain-12368.jpg by Cult-Of-Athena - Info Photos & Photo Stories, on Flickr

I wanted that chain to fit her top so the ring at the center shows through the ring on her top.

Ami Mizuno - Body Chain-12366.jpg by Cult-Of-Athena - Info Photos & Photo Stories, on Flickr

The blue stones in her jewelry are lapis lazuli, the green ones are malachite, the pink & white ones are coral, the bluish clear ones are aquamarines, and the green ones are emeralds. Those are D grade emeralds, so that's only about .50 cents worth of emeralds, but my Ami is wearing real gemstones, all of which were chosen to represent the ocean and the colors of sea water.

The chains and silver findings are sterling silver. Using B & C grade stones made all of those materials pretty cheap, except the silver chain which was about $40 for 5 feet. I think in total she's wearing about $40 worth of jewelry and considering that a string of plastic pearls will cost $20 from a bjd shop, that's not bad.

 

Makoto is wearing a stainless-steel body chain, and this one was intended to have more of a biker chick look to it. I do a lot with stainless steel because 50 feet of curb chain is $25, and it should last forever.

Makoto Kikuchi - Body Chain-12372.jpg by Cult-Of-Athena - Info Photos & Photo Stories, on Flickr

A much more delicate silver belt made with the leftovers from Ami's body chain. The drawback to silver is the rings really need to be soldered closed when you work with thinner gauge rings. Silver is very soft and at doll scales pulls apart easily. That’s another reason steel is nice, the rings don’t bend open easily.

Makoto Kikuchi - Body Chain-12373.jpg by Cult-Of-Athena - Info Photos & Photo Stories, on Flickr

 

Some pearl necklaces being modeled by my Elsa:

Queen Elsa - Necklaces-12384.jpg by Cult-Of-Athena - Info Photos & Photo Stories, on Flickr

Queen Elsa - Necklaces-12381.jpg by Cult-Of-Athena - Info Photos & Photo Stories, on Flickr

 

I've been working on some things for my Ariel for the Resin Rose BJD event. The theme is Adventure of the Seven Seas, so of course my little mermaid asked if she can go. Apparently, I am weak to eyelash fluttering, so she's going. I’ve been playing around with making her jewelry from seashells. In theory I could make her a bra from real scallop shells too.

Ariel - Necklaces-12376.jpg by Cult-Of-Athena - Info Photos & Photo Stories, on Flickr

I’m planning a necklace for her made with shells, brass, and sea glass. The kind of things you would find under the ocean. She should have some pearls too, but those will be fakes. You can get them in all sorts of colors, but the real ones, even tiny ones, are silly expensive. The long knotted ropes my Sapphire is wearing used about 240 two millimeter pearls, and that would have cost hundreds with real ones; plus they would have been pearl chips and not round.

Sapphire - Flapper-12244.jpg by Cult of Athena, on Flickr

If you learn how to use jump rings, you can assemble all sorts of custom items for your dolls. For doll earrings you can use resin clip-ons for people: https://www.firemountaingems.com/jewelry-supplies/findings/earring-findings/clip-on/?prefn1=material-detail&prefv1=Epoxy %26 Resin

I'd recommend using a jewelry supply company rather than amazon. I've had bad luck with any sort of consistency in the quality on amazon, and especially with plated metals. Some of it is fine and some is crap that discolors very quickly.

 

Anyone is welcome to post their own stuff in this thread. This is a fun thing, and you can make unique things for your girls that make an outfit pop.