The Art of Keum Boo - Layered Gold Flower Earrings

Learn how to add beautiful 24k gold to your silver jewellery, and use a patina to make the gold pop!

About the Class

This class continues my series on Keum Boo, an ancient Korean technique that literally translates as “attached gold”. In the first class I taught you how the technique works and kept the design fairly simple so that we could concentrate on process of attaching the gold - this time I'm going to show you how a rich antiqued patina really makes the gold pop!

A quick search through Pinterest will show you many beautiful examples of Keum Boo jewellery with silver so dark it is almost black and bright 24k gold as a shining contrast. It's a popular look, and one that is created through one simple fact - Liver of Sulphur does not affect gold, and the same is true for it's substitute patina solutions.

This class will teach you how to apply the patina and also the best method of protecting the finish. And of course I will also teach you how to create the earrings themselves! They are a great way of using small pieces of foil left over from other projects, and also an illustration of how malleable the Keum Boo gold. The project design also works brilliantly for stud earrings and pendants, as I will show you!

An understanding of the information in the first class in this series, the Golden Butterfly Pendant class, is useful. All of the Keum Boo classes can be found in The Art of Keum Boo course bundle

You will need:

Materials:
* sterling silver sheet approximately 0.7 - 0.8mm thick for two 7.9mm discs and two 11.1mm discs
* small pieces of 24k gold Keum Boo foil left over from other projects, enough to cover each of the smaller discs  
* 12cm 0.8mm sterling silver wire for the earwires
* Liver of sulpur patina

Equipment: (all the jewellery making kit listed here can be used for many different projects)
* Soldering kit - see here for more details
* Ultralite kiln or hot plate
* Steel or agate burnisher
* Wooden coffee stirrer (or similar) and small pot of water
* Disc cutter
* Doming block and metal punches
* Steel bench block and leather cushion (or folded tea towel!)
* Old hammer for tools
* Emery paper or sanding pad
* Medium silicon rubber wheel in pendant drill (optional)
* 6" flat file and needle files
* Flat nosed pliers, round nosed pliers and wire cutters
* Small mandrel
* Ruler and sharpie

An explanation of all the tools and materials that you need is included in the videos, and a downloadable equipment and materials list is available with the class.

This project is quite flexible as regards to the materials. If you only have a little gold foil available you can make smaller earrings, perhaps a pair of studs. Alternatively you can use the class to help you make a larger pendant!

1 hour 35 minutes long, 17 lessons

Course Curriculum

Joanne Tinley

Tutor and Founder of The Jeweller's Bench

The Jeweller's Bench is run by Joanne Tinley. She has been making her own jewellery for as long as she can remember and left her first career as a school teacher to set up business as a  jewellery designer and tutor nearly 20 years ago. She is
self-taught and like many people started with wire and beads. Learning how to solder, however, opened up a whole new world of jewellery making,  one that she is keen to share!

Legal Disclaimer: Every effort has been made to show safe working practices and to discuss health and safety aspects of jewellery making, but in the end I cannot take responsibility for how the tutorial information is used and how safely you work. Take the effort to set up your work area safely right from the start!
All Rights Reserved. No part of this course may be reproduced or shared without express, written consent from the author.