As you may already know, I love making personalized jewelry - whether it's 50mm plugs, jewelry made from animal hair, custom name necklaces or wedding jewelry.
When the rough design is in place and I can roughly estimate how long I'll be working on the piece, I often hear an astonished "Wow, that's how long it's taking?!"
The time span is usually around the 4-8 week mark, depending on the effort, and that often seems to cause confusion.
What exactly happens to your piece of jewelry during this time and why does it all take so long?
First of all, you shouldn't forget that in addition to your piece of jewelry, I also make other individual pieces of jewelry and of course I also have to rework the jewelry for the shop. I'm often out and about at markets and trade fairs - all of this takes time.
Even if jewelry is comparatively small, a custom-made piece is basically no different than having a table made for you by a carpenter. Maybe you want Oompa-Loompa teak that has to be ordered first, maybe your wood still needs to be dried and impregnated, it needs to be sawn, sanded and oiled, it needs to dry again, it needs to be glued and dried again, etc.
It's no different with the jewelry I want - I usually build up your piece of jewelry in many individual layers and each one has to harden for several hours (sometimes days) before it can be processed further. Only through these elaborately crafted layers can I achieve the depth, the three-dimensional effect that makes my pieces so special.
Maybe you would also like a specific gemstone, a specific Swarovski color or a specific band, which I have to order for you first.
Depending on the order, I draw, paint and design your jewelry according to your ideas. Of course, it becomes particularly complex (but also incredibly exciting and interesting!) when I have reversible jewelry in front of me, because then the number of layers often doubles depending on the motif.
Finally, your little piece of jewelry has to harden for another 7 days so that it can survive rain, spontaneous jumps into the pool and a possible fall into the aquarium.
Your piece of jewelry will be imagined, designed, painted, mixed, shaped, cast, cut, burned, sanded, drilled, connected and polished by me - and that takes time.
But as the saying goes: good things take time and in the end you will hopefully find that the wait was worth it ;)
Best wishes,
tilly