I am surprised by the amount of compliments I’ve gotten on my lotus necklace.  In fact, someone wanted to buy!  Thanks, Antoinette!

Since I sold the first one I made, I went to jewelry class today with the intention of making a second one to keep for myself.  Somewhere along the way I decided to make one without the gold accent.  Voila:

 
I also made a pair of earrings in this design, which I will blog about tomorrow.

The hand-fabricated lotus petal is made with 20g (.7mm) sterling silver plate.  I drew the design with a sharpie directly onto the metal, then cut it out with a jeweler’s saw.

Next, I filed the edges smooth and rubbed out any scratches with emery paper.  I then stamped the back with my initials and domed the piece so it is concave.

The hardest part of this whole project (and really, most of the projects I do) was soldering the jump ring onto the lotus petal.  It doesn’t seem to matter how much experience I have in making jewelry–soldering jump rings to something else is always a challenge.

 
I finished the pendant by burnishing the inside of the lotus petal with my flex shaft using a wire brush attachment.  I added a 16″ chain and a hand-fabricated clasp, and I’m very pleased with the result.