Hello, I just wanted to show off my first attempt at ring making. Hopefully this will inspire others to have a go. There was a little learning curve, but it wasn't that bad. I guess I was lucky because I had a good teacher.

I actually joined a evening class in a local school, after hours, once a week. It was fun, everyone was friendly. There were some people there who were clearly more advanced and they just sat in a corner on their own and got on with it. But there was another group, like me, that were completely new.

We all sat around a big table and the teacher, a lovely lady by the name of Janice, gave us a little talk each week on some basic principles. She also tried to inspire us, chat about our ideas and throw other ideas at us.

It was actually nice to be in an environment of really creative people. Or in my case, a person who wants to be creative, but struggles sometimes.

So I knew I wanted to do a ring and wasn't quite ready to set a stone or anything like that. Janice explained the basic principles of setting stones and I felt that was a bit too much for my first go. So we came up with an idea to do something more decorative and just follow the basic ring making principles.

I actually bought some silver. You actually buy it in strips and then wrap it into a ring shape and then braze the ends together. But I wanted to do a little leaf design, so I actually bought a little sheet of silver metal. It was a little pricy, but not too bad. I actually found a place where you can sell back the waste you don't use.

Then I drew out the design and cut it out. Then I filed all around the leaves to give them a 3d effect. Then I finally bent it around a ring mandrel to get the right size for my finger. Then I brazed the ends together, cleaned everything up again. And then finally buffed it up to a nice shine.

It was a lot more work that it sounds, but it was fun going on the course and learning something new, and making a few new friends.

I've always been a bit arty and I hope this inspires someone else to try something out of their comfort zone.

Thanks
Judy