If you've checked out my Etsy shop at all, you may notice that I offer a lot of different choices in metals. I thought I might take some time and explain why. First of all, I love sterling silver. I love how it looks, I like that I can polish it to a high shine, or give it a brushed satiny finish. I love the bright whitish color it has. As for working with, it's a dream. It's generally kind of soft, so stamping and finishing is pretty easy to do. The downside to sterling is that the cost has gone up tremendously in the last few years. When I first started beading jewelry, I could buy sterling beads at around $3 a oz. Yeah, now it's up to around $30 a oz. Luckily, there are alternatives which I will discuss later. For now, here is a bit about sterling...
Fine silver is 99.9% pure silver. Pure silver is quite soft and marks very easily. It is used in some jewelry applications, like metal clay (which I hope to add eventually), but most often when you see silver jewelry, it is sterling silver. Sterling silver is 92.5% pure silver mixed with other alloys, mostly copper, in order to make it strong. Because of the copper content, the downside to sterling is that it will tarnish. Don't mistake tarnish for a jewelry piece being of low quality! It's actually quite the contrary. Fortunately, silver jewelry is easy to clean using a soft jewelry cloth or polish pad. Polish pads are small white squares that have a micro abrasive that helps to remove tarnish. It also shines it up beautifully! I don't recommend using silver cleaner to clean your pieces from my shop, because in the stamping process, one of the steps is oxidation to darken the letters. If you use jewelry cleaner, it could remove the oxidation. To store your piece when not wearing, you should keep it in a small ziplock bag and keep it as airtight as possible to keep the tarnishing to a minimum.
Another newer type of silver on the market is Argentium silver. It is alloyed with germanium. Because of this, it does not tarnish at all. It stays beautiful and shiny and it is every bit silver as sterling is! I use argentium wire for many of my earrings, so that you don't get that blackish look on your earlobe that sterling can sometimes cause, yuck! However, I don't use Argentium silver in my jewelry creations (as pretty as it is) because I need to oxidize it for the letters to stand out. Also, I often give my pieces a rustic, oxidized look and that doesn't work with Argentium.
So, there's a little about silver. Beware when buying on websites. I so often see items marked as "Silver" when they are clearly NOT sterling. You do get what you pay for!
Here is a recent silver item from my shop:
Thanks for reading, and I will have more info soon on other types of metal and silver alternatives!
Andrea :)
