Jewelry crafters : recommend adjustable ring blanks that don't suck

September 30, 2018 12:42 AM

My mom is a hobby ceramist and makes all kinds of little beads and baubles from clay and porcelain. She likes to mount them into necklaces, earrings (pendants) and rings. I want to gift her with good quality supplies for her birthday. What are your favourite ring blanks to work with? for reference she uses something like this a.t.m.

Needs to be adjustable but not look cheap/pinch fingers at the adjustable part. Does not discolor on skin or causes rashes. Needs a flat part where she can glue her porcelain onto.

If you have links for other types of jewelry blanks you love like earrings posts or pendants, i'm all ears. As long as she can glue her ceramics onto them.

Thanks!

posted by PardonMyFrench to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (4 answers total)

I've always been really happy with the quality of stuff from the Fire Mountain catalog. The selection is constantly changing and there are great deals if you are willing to scroll through pages of stuff. There is a *lot* of stuff of varying price levels, but they're really transparent about material and quality, so they are my go-to for this kind of thing. The phone line and customer service is also excellent.

There is a paper catalog, too, if she'd like looking at the pages. One of my favorite things is that it features employees wearing their own creations.

They also sell gift certificates if you want to let her pick out her own stuff.
posted by Alison at 4:07 AM on September 30, 2018 [2 favorites]

I’ll see your Fire Mountain and raise you a Rio Grande Jewelry Supply. They have several adjustable rings that meet your criteria in silver/gold-plated and in bronze. I love Fire Mountain but am not always thrilled with the quality of some of their findings. You’ll need to create an account to see Rio Grande’s prices but I have always found them to be very reasonable, plus they have an enormous selection of jewelry components that could easily meet your mom’s needs.
posted by corey flood at 4:54 AM on September 30, 2018 [4 favorites]

My favorite source for these when I was making jewelry to sell was Hippos Eating Alligators - definitely a pricier option as they're all sterling or gold vermeil, but really excellent quality.
posted by polymath at 11:04 AM on September 30, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, I'm going to order the catalogues and let her choose :-)
Also good to have them at different price ranges, for when she gets a commission from someone who wants to spend a little more $.
posted by PardonMyFrench at 10:37 PM on September 30, 2018