Recently, we worked on designing and creating a pair of custom family crest design cufflinks for one of our customers. I took some photos of the design process so you can see what is involved from design stages to leaving the workshop when creating these Irish Family Crest Cuff links. These are a variation of one of my most popular pieces available through my online shop. You can see my original design of the shield here on Irish Family Crest Cufflinks if you'd like to take a look!
The customer got in touch with us through our custom jewelry page and sent us the artwork of their family crest.
From here, we got out our pencils and drawing pad to develop the design sketches before moving onto the workshop to start on handcrafting the two cufflinks. While we completed a number of sketches, so as not to bore you with too much detail, I've just shared the 'winning' design our customer selected in the end (shown above).
As you may already know from reading our previous blog posts, all of our jewelry is made by hand so once the design was selected, we began working on translating the design concept into silver.
After the cutting, hammering and soldering was done, we had our round silver cufflinks ready to begin the more intricate hand engraving work.
Initially, we began by outlining the design. The customer really liked the silhouette effect of our crest cufflinks so using this outline as a guide, we prepared the surface to carve in to the silver to create the desired effect.
Once the cufflinks were engraved, the next step was to oxidise which created a black effect within the engraved channels and contrasts beautifully with the polished silver. After the final polish is complete, the cufflinks are places in our solid wooden presentation box ready to be shipped. As a silversmith, I get a great amount of satisfaction in seeing our precious metal go through the various steps from rough and ready silver pieces to high polish and beautifully presented to be worn with pride by their new owners. Finally, here is a picture of the finished piece! I've also included an excerpt below of what our lovely customer wrote as a testimonial when he received their package.
I picked up the cuff links from the post office yesterday, and could not be more pleased--they are absolutely stunning! And the presentation box is also quite beautiful. I am sure to come back to you with more projects, and will be sure to recommend you to my friends and colleagues. I will be wearing these frequently and with tremendous pride. Well done!
It is always a privilege to work with our customers in making these very special pieces that I hope will be handed down through the generations of Irish families. Again, I am very proud to say we have another happy customer that we hope will always treasure one of my handcrafted pieces :)
If you are interested in ordering contact us here through our Custom Handmade Irish Jewelry and we will work with you to design the perfect cufflinks for your family crest or family shield