Caring for Freeform Pendants
Posted by Leah on Sep 15, 2006
I make a lot of sculptural freeform pendants out of sterling silver wire.
Because my designs are ‘open’ in structure, I make a point of using fairly thick wire so that the jewelry won’t easily get pulled out of shape. I have a few other tricks to make the pieces durable, but it is possible to bend them out of shape if they are not properly cared for. A few tips:
- My jewelry won’t bend out of shape if it’s dropped, but it will if you step on it, and might if it snags on something while you are in the crawlspace underneath your home and it’s too dark to figure out how to unsnag it (this actually happened to one of my customers!).
- Store your jewelry in a box when you aren’t wearing it, so that if something heavy happens to fall on it, it won’t get crushed - this is a good idea for all jewelry, by the way, not just sculptural pieces.
- Don’t wear jewelry you love during activities like wrestling and gynmastics, where the possibility of it being squished under you, or worse, pulled off of your body, is high.
- Don’t wear jewelry while showering or using chemical cleaning products or hair products - a lot of people don’t know about this, but the chemicals in household cleaning products and beauty products such as hairspray can react with silver and cause it to tarnish very rapidly. Put on jewelry after you finish doing your hair, and remove it while cleaning, to keep it shiny longer
- Wipe your silver jewelry with a polishing cloth now and then. Besides removing light tarnish and dirt, this helps prevent tarnish from forming.
- If the piece contains pearls, browse the “jewelry care” and “pearls” sections of my blog for tips on caring for pearl jewelry.
Accidents happen of course - but if you use common sense and remove your jewelry during strenuous physical activities, it should last for many years. And if you do accidentally damage a piece of sculptural jewelry that I made, please let me know so that I can fix it for you. I want you to be able to wear my jewelry and enjoy it for a very long time, so I don’t mind helping out occasionally with maintenance.
