Category: Behind the Scenes

Inside the Ring Making Workshop

At A Silver Circle, our workshops highlight the fun creative process behind handmade jewellery. With positive, relaxed vibes and the support of experienced jeweller Corinne you’ll feel inspired to create more. Surprise someone special with a rewarding and unique experience or bring a friend for a few hours of laughter to get in touch with your inner artist and learn a new skill.

Our engaging and hands-on workshops will teach you the vital techniques involved in making silver jewellery, from hammering to soldering. Over the three-hour class you will make creative decisions about the details of your handmade jewellery resulting in a personalised and unique product you can wear yourself or gift to a loved one.

All materials, refreshments and snacks are provided allowing you to enjoy the experience and relax. You will leave feeling proud of what you have accomplished with your handmade treasure as well as some new friends. As classes are small Corinne is available for any questions and assistance needed to guide you, making the workshop a personal experience. It’s a great way to channel your creativity, ignite a passion for jewellery making or just enjoy meeting new people. Make sure to check out our new workshop dates for 2019 here, where you can also read more about the specifics of each different workshop.

Video shot and compiled by Rachel Abbott, Music by Trong Nguyen.

The Story of A Silver Circle

Having operated for nearly four years now, the A Silver Circle has endured the breezy highs and the stormy lows that come along with starting a new business. Regardless, the journey has been incredible and has unfolded into something special. In this blog post, we will get up close and personal with Owner and Designer Corinne, on how A Silver Circle has come to be what it is today.

Despite being an Honors Graduate with a Bachelor of Visual Arts in Jewellery and Object Design since 2011, Corinne was working full time in retail before it all began in 2013. She hit a standstill when she suddenly decided to quit with no idea what she was going to do. Little did she know, that this decision would lead to a number of things falling into place.

Corinne visited a careers advisor named Chloe. Completely by chance, she noticed the beauty in the Jewellery Corinne was wearing and asked where it was from. Of course, with such a budding passion for jewellery design, all of the pieces Corinne was wearing were her own work. Chloe was incredibly impressed to hear this and immediately was able to see Corinne’s future career, crystal clear. Chloe suggested that Corinne considered starting a business, and helped her enroll in a government funded small business course.

In November 2013, Corinne came to the point her whole life had been leading towards. She launched A Silver Circle. Instantly, it was a full time Job with Corinne working long hours to develop everything from websites to packaging, and learning how to set up market stalls.

“I was excited but very apprehensive because in terms of the business side of things, I was diving into something I didn’t have any real knowledge or experience in.”

Not only did Corinne deal with the internal fear that comes along with the ongoing risks of running a small business, but her friends and family also had their own doubts.

“Everyone expected I would want to do it but my family and boyfriend at the time were wary of it, they weren’t the most supportive because they didn’t want me to struggle.”

Today the focus has shifted, and Corinne looks at her business as being all about expressing herself and her values through her jewellery. The designs are created to be wearable, rather than appropriated from exhibition pieces.

Corinne now places a major emphasis on offering eco friendly jewellery.

“I was always using some recycled materials, although it was more out of an interest in the materials with the main focus being about creating interesting contemporary pieces. Today It’s a personal thing too, I want to be more sustainable as a person and as a business. It’s a personal exploration now of balancing those two elements.”

When thinking about the future of A Silver Circle, Corinne wants to expand so that her jewellery is available in shops near you. In saying that, she doesn’t want the brand to become too commercial. Its important to her that she keeps the essence of it being a handmade Australia brand. She would love to be able to hire up and coming jewelers and help them learn their craft.

“I get my jewellery interns to try quite a lot of different techniques so they have the opportunity to learn a range of things and start to master those skills.”

Moving forward, A Silver Circle hopes to embody its new focus of eco friendly products and continues its design of new and elegant pieces.

Celebrating the Geometric Collection

As the brand has evolved over time, Corinne has gradually developed the beautiful Geometric collection. This elegant collection is all about using different angles, contrasting open negative space with positive space from within the same piece of jewellery. Recently we added our brand new Geometric Pendent and Earrings to the collection.

In celebration of this new addition, we are going to take you back to the beginning with our A Silver Circle Ring. The A Silver Circle signature ring is a simplistic yet sentimental piece encapsulating the original essence of the brand. The ring creates a very delicate and beautiful illusion of a circle floating on the finger.

The process of making the A Silver Circle Ring is intricate and complex. We will now take you ‘behind the scenes’ with Corinne in our Studio and explain all of the steps we go through to create this signature piece.

Firstly, Corinne will take a piece of silver wire and measure it to the correct length. This will then need to be heated with a torch before it can be easily bent into the desired shape.

In the case of a circle, the wire is placed on a tapered cone-shaped mandrel. A rawhide mallet, made from a coil of leather, is used to even out the shape along the mandrel without denting the wire.

To get the two ends to attach, tension needs to be created in the wire. Once the ends are aligned, a small amount of solder is applied and melted with the torch. This helps the ends to permanently fix together.

To turn it into a ring, another piece of wire which will become the ring band needs to be attached. This wire is filed in a channel which matches up perfectly with the side of the circle so they hug each other securely. Again, solder is used to attach the ends.


Once this is done, the ring is now constructed and can be filed and polished to get that shiny finish.

The signature ring was expanded into a ring collection including the Hexagon, Square, Oval, Triangle, and the 9 ct. Gold Edition of the ring. We are now premiering the Geometric Pendant and Earrings which are quite unique and beautiful in their own way. With the two different shapes hanging independently on opposite angles, their gentle movement can really catch the eye.

To add the essential A Silver Circle Ring or any of the other pieces from the Geometric Collection to your jewellery box, visit our shop page.

Tools of the Trade

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The handmade jewellery industry is so diverse because of all the different effects that can be achieved with metals, jewels and wood. A Silver Circle design works with a range of tools in order to create delicate and fine jewellery, that subtly speaks of elegance. Some of the key tools used in the A Silver Circle studio are the saw frame, ring mandrel, rawhide mallet and file.

Jeweller’s Saw Frame

saw pierce

The saw frame is the first tool you learn how to use, because it is so versatile and can achieve a range of effects. The act of cutting with the saw is called ‘saw piercing’ and it is used to make intricate patterns or to cut lengths of wire and sheet. At A Silver Circle all our circle shapes are handcut, which is unusual, but it gives us greater control and precision over the circle form. For example, to create each of the Textured Studs, we have to cut the circle shapes out of sheet metal with the saw frame.

saw piercing

Ring Mandrel & Rawhide Mallet

Rawhide mallet

The ring mandrel is a steel tapered tool which is used to shape rings or bezels (framework that holds in a stone). The mandrel has various grooved marks which assist with sizing rings, but also which hold rings in place to be shaped by the rawhide mallet. The rawhide mallet is made out of a coil of leather, creating a firm mallet which is soft enough so that it doesn’t dramatically indent the metal but strong enough to move and manipulate it. We use it to form and flatten pieces, to create the perfect circle shape around the mandrel. The Hammered Ring Bands have been shaped around the mandrel with the rawhide before being textured with a steel hammer to get the indents and facets that make this piece unique.

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File

filing

Files are used by metalsmiths for a number of reasons. At A Silver Circle they are used to clean off excess solder, to smooth out the surface of pieces, to even out joins, to prepare metals for the polishing stage and at times to create texture. The finer the grade of file, the smoother the finish of the product. The file is what gives A Silver Circle products finished edges and finely polished surfaces, as showcased by our Hexagon Plain Ring.

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There are a number more tools used in the A Silver Circle Design studio, however these are some of the most frequently used tools for the effects desired by our brand’s collections. The extent of tools points to the scope of effects that can be achieved in the handmade jewellery industry. If you would like to have a go at some of these tools yourself, head over to the Workshops page to come into the studio and make your own piece of jewellery.