Upcycleing seems to be a pretty popular trend lately both in jewelry and other forms. I have been thinking about doing a collection based on this but with a slight twist. I have a metal detector that I haven’t had an excuse to use much lately and was thinking about making jewelry with items I find with it. I feel comfortable enough with my jewelry making skills now to feel like I can make something both well made and interesting from just about anything. I’m not planning on abandoning my silver work (I still really enjoy that), and the elegant items I can make with that medium (and the copper as well). However I think a change of pace from time to time will be a good thing.

I’m sure many of you have seen the jewelry made from silverware that has been popular for a while now, but that’s not what I am talking about here. I saw a really nice pendant made out of antique square nails that were bent and bound together with silver, and the play from the iron to silver was a nice contrast. I’m thinking more along the lines of pendants and rings, maybe some bracelets too with whatever I can find in the back yard. I might even take the metal detector around to some other places if I’m happy with what I am able to come up with.

This will among other things guarantee one of a kind pieces as everything is dug out of the ground and you never know what you are going to find. I couldn’t order more parts and make a duplicate of anything even if I wanted to. I also haven’t seen any of these upcycled pieces with stones set in them so far and am excited to experiment with that possibility as well.

The challenge will be that different types of metals heat at different rates when soldering them. To get a good solder join I will have to manage to make both pieces reach the flow temperature of the solder at the same time, so it will be difficult from a technical perspective. It may prove to be more of a challenge than I am anticipating, or to not hold together well enough for me to be comfortable selling it (I always make prototypes of untested designs and make my wife or sister in law wear them for a while to make sure they hold up before making anything for sale).

This may turn out to be a complete waste of time but I feel it will help me grow as a jewelry designer either way. Worse case scenario I get some new ideas on how to arrange things in an aesthetic pleasing way that will carry back over to my silver work. What do you think, are alternative metals in jewelry interesting to you, or do you feel it’s more a fad then a trend?