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Thursday, September 26, 2013

My Large Citrine Silver Flower Ring


Have I told you  before? I love using the Repousse technique when designing and planning a new  piece of jewelry. Somehow I prefer this to making models in wax, which is what most designers do these days. Instead of using wax  I like to simply pick up a piece of flat silver and hammer it to a certain form . I carefully hammer to my heart's delight, measure, cut etc. until I am satisfied with the result. This flower ring is one example.
Giant Citrine Silver Ring by Rioritajewelry
Giant Citrine Silver Ring by Rioritajewelry
For this ring I hammered two pieces of silver separately. I gave the larger piece a shape of a flower, to  the smaller – A shape which would be able to embed an oval bezel for a stone. I soldered them together,one facing the other, and finally soldered the bezel on top and set the Citrine stone in it, a silver band ring was added on the back.

I find the result is not bad at all. Don't you agree?

On the back you will find the Sterling silver hallmark and my personal signature. 

It is a One of a kind (OOAK)  item.

As for the Citrine stone - it belongs to a mineral quartz group. The Citrine colors range from yellow , reminding us of the  more expensive Yellow Topaz – to brown which resembles Smokey Quartz.  There are orange variations too.

Citrine is also known as the “stone of the mind” because there were ancient cultures which believed that when placing this stone on  a human's  forehead,  it would increase his psychic abilities. Well, as I have a few Citrine stones, and am not so very young any more, only at heart that is, I will try this on myself. Perhaps I shall even let you know the results...(Laughing Out Loud).

Getting serious again - When  Citrine crystals and  Amethyst stones are formed together by heating,  a  bi-colored gemstone is created - the Ametrine.

And more – most Citrine stones in the market today, are heat-treated Amethysts and mostly arrive from Brazil Although Brazil  sells natural stones too. More  Citrine stonescome to us from The Ural Mountains in Russia,  France and Madagascar.  The brown stone in my ring is a NATURAL Citrine stone.

Lower grade Citrine stones result from being heated at  high temperatures.  By using this process we receive a variety of orange,  and Cherry  colors.  The darker they get - the more valuable they are.

Thank you for watching!