5 Things to Consider Before Choosing a Jewellery Making Workshop
Taking a jewellery making workshop can be an incredibly rewarding experience. Whether you’re looking for a fun creative day out, interested in learning a new skill, or hoping to eventually make jewellery on your own, there are more workshop options available than ever before.
But not all jewellery making workshops offer the same experience.
Class sizes, instructor involvement, techniques taught and even how much of your jewellery you actually make yourself can vary considerably from one studio to another.
Before choosing a jewellery workshop, it helps to think about what you want from the experience.
Here are five things to consider before booking a jewellery making workshop.
1. How Large Is the Jewellery Workshop Class Size?
One of the first things to look at is the number of students in the workshop and how many instructors will be available to help them.
Jewellery making is very hands on. When you’re learning techniques such as sawing, soldering, filing, forming and finishing metal, having an instructor nearby to demonstrate a technique, answer questions and help troubleshoot can make a significant difference.
A larger class can be a fun, social experience and may be exactly what you’re looking for. But if your priority is learning new jewellery-making skills, consider asking about the student-to-instructor ratio before registering.
At Bliss Jewellery Studio, we intentionally keep our classes small so students receive plenty of individual instruction and time at the bench.
2. How Hands On Is the Jewellery Making Experience?
The term jewellery making workshop can describe many different experiences.
Some workshops are primarily about creating a finished piece of jewellery in a relaxed, social environment. Others focus more heavily on teaching traditional jewellery making and metalsmithing techniques.
Neither approach is necessarily better; it depends on what you’re hoping to get from your workshop.
If learning the process is important to you, ask how much of the jewellery you will actually make yourself.
Will you be cutting and shaping the metal?
Will you learn how to use jewellery-making tools?
Will you solder your own piece?
Will you file, sand and finish it yourself?
Understanding exactly what you’ll be doing during the workshop can help you choose an experience that matches your expectations.
3. Will You Learn to Solder Your Own Jewellery?
Soldering is one of the fundamental skills used in traditional jewellery making and metalsmithing.
It can also be one of the more intimidating techniques for beginners.
For that reason, some jewellery workshops may have the instructor complete some or all of the soldering for students. This can make it easier to complete a project within a limited amount of time, but it also changes the learning experience.
If you’re taking a workshop because you genuinely want to learn how jewellery is made, ask whether you will be doing your own soldering.
At Bliss Jewellery Studio, our goal is to teach you how to do it yourself. Your instructor will demonstrate the process, guide you through it and be there to help; but whenever possible, you are the person working on your jewellery.
There is something incredibly satisfying about looking at a finished piece and knowing that you made it with your own hands.
4. Are You Making the Jewellery From Scratch?
Another question worth asking is how much of the piece has been prepared before the workshop begins.
Some jewellery making experiences use pre-assembled or partially prepared components. This can be an excellent option when the goal is to create something beautiful within a shorter workshop.
Other classes start much closer to the beginning of the jewellery making process.
If you’re interested in learning traditional metalsmithing skills, find out whether you’ll be working with raw materials and learning how to transform them into a finished piece.
Starting with sheet metal, wire or other basic materials gives you an opportunity to understand how jewellery is actually constructed.
That process, measuring, cutting, forming, soldering, filing, sanding and polishing is a large part of what makes metalsmithing so rewarding.
5. What Jewellery Making Skills Will You Take Home?
A beautiful finished piece is wonderful.
But if learning is one of your priorities, consider what you’ll leave the workshop knowing how to do.
A good jewellery making class can introduce you to skills that build upon one another and can eventually allow you to tackle increasingly complex projects.
Depending on the workshop, these might include:
- Sawing and piercing metal
- Filing and shaping
- Soldering
- Texturing
- Forming
- Stone setting
- Wax carving and casting
- Finishing and polishing
If you’d eventually like to make jewellery independently, look for workshops that don’t simply teach you how to complete one project but help you understand why you’re doing each step.
That knowledge is what allows you to take the techniques you’ve learned and apply them to your own designs later.
So, Which Jewellery Making Workshop Is Right for You?
There isn’t one type of jewellery workshop that’s right for everyone.
Some people are looking for a fun afternoon with friends and a beautiful piece of jewellery to take home.
Others want to get behind a jeweller’s bench, pick up a torch and learn the same fundamental techniques used by professional jewellers and goldsmiths.
Before booking, consider what matters most to you:
Do I want a social experience or a learning focused experience?
How much individual instruction do I want?
Do I want to make the entire piece myself?
Do I want to learn soldering and traditional metalsmithing techniques?
Do I want skills that I can continue building upon?
Once you know the answers to those questions, comparing jewellery workshops becomes much easier.
Jewellery Making Classes in the Springwater Area
At Bliss Jewellery Studio, our jewellery making workshops are designed around hands on learning.
Located in Springwater, our studio offers small group jewellery and metalsmithing classes where students have the opportunity to learn traditional jewellery making techniques at the bench.
Rather than simply walking away with something beautiful, we want you to understand how you made it.
For complete beginners, our Introduction to Metalsmithing course is a great place to start. Students develop foundational skills including sawing, filing, forming, soldering and finishing while completing projects designed to build confidence at the bench.
From there, students can continue developing their skills through additional workshops, including more advanced metalsmithing, wax carving and casting.
Whether this is your first time making jewellery or you’re looking to expand the skills you already have, choosing the right workshop starts with deciding what kind of experience you want.
And if getting your hands dirty, learning traditional techniques and being able to say “I made this” sounds like your kind of experience, we’d love to welcome you to the bench at Bliss Jewellery Studio.