DIY WEDDING RINGS!

We finally booked Studio 925 for a wedding ring class!

Studio 925 is located somewhere in Malingap, QC. They share a space with Soul Flower, Co., a leathercrafting studio. We really wanted to document this whole thing so we went with a friend who agreed to photograph us throughout the entire process! <3  We were 15 minutes early so we grabbed lunch first.

When we entered the studio, we were welcomed by familiar faces; Mai of Fake Alchemy and Kris of Thingamabobs Art Jewelry, the head metalsmiths of Studio 925, are actually fellow crafters who also sell their products in the same art fairs we go to! "Ikaw pala 'yan, ikakasal ka na pala!", they laughed as Kris, our teacher for the day, lead us to the room we'd be using.


We chose sterling silver (from what I can recall from the class, it's 92% silver and 8% copper, copper is what makes the material sturdier) with a flat band style. Also for cheese, we decided to make each other's ring. So he did mine, and I did his. Lol.

Kris began her class with a manual teaching us some terminologies and introducing us to the tools we'd be using.


The first step was to heat our silver sheets through a process called annealing. This softens the silver and makes it easier to bend. The bending part was the hardest step for me because my arms are weak. Haha! Eventually, we were able to bend the silver sheets into D-shaped rings. To connect the ends of the strips, we then proceeded to soldering. Believe it or not, I had an experience with soldering irons back in high school and I was crazy bad at it. Good thing I nailed soldering our wedding rings today.


The next step was perfecting the rings to it's round shape. To do this, we hammered the shit out our rings as they were inserted in ring mandrels. We were allowed to reheat the rings whenever it gets hard to shape them.


And then, my favorite part... filing and sanding! At this point, the rings were almost done. Just final polishing to remove dents we've made, and further softening the edges of the rings. We'd try the them from time to time to make sure they still fit us perfectly despite the sanding.



After 5 hours of intense crafting, our wedding rings are finally done!


Kris was kind enough to even allow us do a process called mirror-polishing! It's where we used a wax-like material to further polish the rings making them extra shinier! They're so pretty! Especially in this box the studio provided.


Overall, it was such a solid experience and I'd recommend soon-to-wed couples to do it. I mean how freaking cool is it to make your own actual wedding rings instead of buying them from a store! A story to tell to your grandchildren, if in case you decide to live that long lol.

My fiance was ecstatic when we were finished with the rings. They turned out more beautiful than what we expected! With our clumsy hands, we couldn't believe we made the rings ourselves! So glad Kris was really patient with us, even provided us with Hany and awesome music!


Excited to wear them on the big day! :)





Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Off the rack

This is crazy!