All That Glitters Challenge – Making a Sweetheart Brooch

Another week and another episode of “All That Glitters” – the second week gave the viewers the chance to get to know the remaining seven jewellers a little bit better. It was a tough week, with the jewellers set a “Bestseller” challenge to create a chain collar. And yes, the first thing I did was google “chain collar” as I’d never heard of one before (more on that in a moment!). The “Bespoke” challenge found the jewellers creating a sweetheart brooch – again, not something I’d ever heard of, so I’m learning a lot!

https://youtu.be/TUKWzKq3ASc

A Chain Collar

Earlier in the day, I watched a trailer for that evening’s episode of “All That Glitters” and it showed that the jewellers were going to be asked to make a chain collar (in 4 hours, no less!). As mentioned, I’ve never heard of a chain collar before. It turned out that Google was no help! After I sifted through a lot of pictures of dog collars, and added the word “jewellery” to my search criteria, I was shown some pictures of a necklace chain attached to two brooches that clip or pin to the collar of a shirt. It made total sense… And excitedly, I did some sketches of things I could make:

But, after watching the episode, it turned out that Google was wrong! (How can that be?!)

A chain collar turned out to be interlinking chains that rests on the neck. Ok, I don’t really understand the difference between a chain collar and a necklace. According to the programme judges (Shaun Leane and Solange Azagury-Partridge), a chain collar cannot have the chain links joined together with a jump ring! The chain links have to be interlocking. At least, that’s what I think they were saying! Online debates have run riot since the show aired last week! Anyway, I think a shirt collar decoration looks really interesting and it will be something I come back to!

A Sweetheart Brooch

For the second challenge, the jewellers designed and made a sweetheart brooch. Again, I must profess ignorance, again, as I’d never heard of this one either! (Who knew reality TV could be educational?!). The sentiment behind a sweetheart brooch is actually quite lovely – I’m not sure why this tradition has died away. According to the programme, a sweetheart brooch was given by a soldier or serviceman to his loved one, usually his wife or girlfriend, when he was posted away. The sweetheart brooch enabled the person left behind to keep a token close to them. What a sweet way to remind yourself of a loved one. I’m pretty sure the brooch will be making a comeback soon!

This Week’s “All That Glitters” Challenge

For this week, I chose the “Bespoke” challenge for one of my own sweethearts – my 8 year old daughter. After I’d finished watching the programme, I spent hours trying to design a suitable brooch! I had a lot of ideas, but found it very difficult to tie everything in coherently – if you’ve got suggestions about how to incorporate all of my daughter’s favourite things into one brooch, I’d love to hear them. We’re talking about a little girl who loves unicorns, Taekwondo, singing, Minecraft and Star Wars, to name just a few!

Concept

On the show, the jewellers were briefed on all the things that were most meaningful to the client and his family. There were some lovely things like penguins, travelling, their daughter named Holly, music… I wanted to emulate the challenge as closely as possible, so I pondered how to incorporate the things that my daughter loves. I’ll spare you the worst of my designs – suffice to say, the solution was not to add a Taekwondo belt to every design, just to tick the box to say I incorporated more than one of her interests!

It turned out that less is more, and eventually, I came up with this concept:

Hopefully, if you’re a Star Wars fan, then you’ll recognise a representation of Ahsoka Tano there. And if you’re a Star Wars fan and you don’t recognise Ahsoka Tano there, then I can only apologise for my horrific drawing! In the end, I decided to keep it simple and did an abstract of my daughter’s favourite Star Wars character. The four hearts in the circle represent the four members of our family (and I’ve got a thing for hearts…)

New Techniques

I cannot begin to tell you how challenging this project was! Aside from the fact that I’ve not made a brooch in 10 years, in the programme, the jewellers were required to add an element of colour through enamelling. As if that wasn’t enough, the jewellers were also required to include one element made using cuttlefish casting. I’ve not done either of those things before!

Not being one to shy away from the challenge, I decided I’d give both a try. I wanted to add some blue enamel to the outer edges of the Ahsoka’s headdress, and to cast the two lightsabers using cuttlefish casting.

Cuttlefish Casting

I was really excited to attempt cuttlefish casting. It’s completely new to me, so as usual, I watched a lot of YouTube videos about how to do it (there was a flurry of social media links to cuttlefish casting immediately after the programme aired!). I learnt that cuttlefish casting is not suitable for small, detailed pieces. So, I was a little dubious whether cuttlefish casting would work for making silver lightsabers. But, I tried it anyway!

I managed to get a cuttlefish from our local pet shop, after forgetting to add it to my basket from my usual jewellery supplier. Carving the lightsabers was really fun – I really enjoyed the gradual process of building up the shape that I wanted. So, after 4 attempts to melt the silver and pour it into the cast, including the final attempt where I had to get my husband to do it, I made… a lump of silver…

Not very successful. Never mind, I went back to the drawing board. Sometimes, it works out for the best to go back to the drawing board. I ended up sawing two lightsabers out from a sheet of 2mm silver and was able to add a lot more detail than if I’d cast them.

Enamelling

I really wanted to add Ahsoka’s trademark blue markings to her headdress, so I bought some enamel. I knew that I had a lot of solder joins on this piece, and so I was really worried about when I was meant to add the enamel and torch fire it. After a lot of research, I bought some Efcolor enamel, which can be fired in a conventional oven up to 180 degrees C. I figured this was a good option as there was no way I was going to inadvertently melt one of my solder joins!

Etching

To make sure the enamel went to the right places, I decided to etch my silver sheet. This is another technique that I’ve only ever done once – 10 years ago! Luckily, I still have all the etching equipment from my 1st attempt. I picked up some fresh ferric nitrate, just in case my one was no longer effective. Since I had all the etching stuff out, I also did a little experiment, which I’ll share in the next couple of weeks.

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After 3 hours, this was the effect. I was reasonably pleased with the piece at this point, but little did I know… after I’d assembled the piece, I realised that the etching was not as deep on the right hand side. You’d think I’d have learnt my lesson to leave things alone, but no… I stupidly decided to paint the whole thing in black out varnish and etch it, again.

Well, that was a disaster! Even though I’d painted the whole thing in black out varnish, the ferric nitrate still reacted with the copper disc. The acid managed to eat its way through one of my solder joins. Suddenly I noticed that I’d had some solder seep out of my sweat soldered seams. I really should learn “less is more”! The photo on the left shows what my piece looked like before I etched it again. The photo on the right shows the mess I made. No amount of filing and polishing seemed to be helping me. Boo.

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After all of that, I didn’t bother with the enamelling… Instead, I plopped the brooch in a jar of warm Liver of Sulphur to give it an antique (ish) look. The patina helped to enhance the etched design. I finally learnt that “less is more” (at least until my next project).

Reflections

Overall, I’m really happy with the things I’ve learnt:

• Sweat Soldering – this was my first time using the sweat soldering technique, and it seemed like the right technique to use to keep those pesky hearts and joins in the right place. If you haven’t checked it out before, take a look at Andrew Berry’s YouTube channel – he’s a really great teacher and is now my “go to” channel for jewellery instructions.
• Rouging a Join – It was like magic! I mixed some rouge powder, water and white spirit into a paste and spread it on the piece, wherever I wanted to stop the soldering from flowing. And it worked! I need to figure out how to get a better consistency that actually spreads, but the theory works!
• Cuttlefish casting – ok, so I didn’t actually manage to do any cuttlefish casting. But I did manage to carve a mould, and melt some silver. It’s half a point there!
• Etching – it was great to do some etching. For me, it opens up a lot of creative possibilities and I’m excited to keep practising this one. And I’ve learnt to make sure I’m truly happy with the etch BEFORE soldering everything together.
• Multiple Solder Joins – managing to solder multiple joins in a complex piece was my biggest triumph. I’ve always been critical that my work is rather flat. In this brooch, I feel that I managed to add some depth.

My Final Word

So four days after I started making the brooch, it’s done! In the process, I broke four saw blades, melted one heart, made nine solder joins and lost one to complete the project. But I have succeeded in making a sweetheart brooch!

Could I have done it better? Yes, most definitely.

I’m pretty sure my brooch pin is on backwards and the wire is too thick. I also need to learn to control the torch temperature better, as I managed to cause one of my soldered hearts to move out of position later on.

I gave the brooch to my daughter this afternoon – she loved it! Which was the most important thing, out of all this. She’s waiting until this post and my YouTube video go live, so she can watch how I made it.

Incidentally, the timing of this brooch couldn’t be better with May the 4th, just around the corner. So to all the Star Wars fans, there’s only one thing left for me to say: “May the 4th Be With You”!