How to Make Renaissance Jewelry
The elaborate jewelry styles of the European Renaissance period had a big influence on both the culture of the time and jewelry-making tradition, so much so that many design concepts originating in this time remain popular to this day. When it comes to making your own Renaissance-style jewelry for costumes, theater productions or everyday wear, it's easy to re-create the proper styles using materials still widely available. Portraits painted of nobility during the Renaissance feature large amounts of jewelry, so you'll get a sense of what's historically accurate.
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Things You'll Need
- Jewelry beads
- Faux gems and pearls
- Jewelry glue or epoxy
- Black acrylic paint
- Needle-nosed pliers
- Jewelry wire
Instructions
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Collect jewelry beads, gems and fixtures appropriate for the Renaissance style. Look for pearls (especially tear-drop shapes) and gems cut into cabochons (faceted or round) and settings with lots of filigree detail. Look also for jeweled crosses, cameos and large, ornate metal settings. Favor gold over silver.
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Create necklaces by making bead strings mostly of pearls, but with some colored beads of real or imitation gems. String beads on single cords or use rosary loops by threading short lengths of wire through each bead with loops on each end and attaching these loops. Create multi-tiered necklaces with joined strings of pearls, one hanging below the other. Attach large, central pendants as well as smaller hanging decorations from the bottom string. Join jump rings and make rosary loops using needle-nosed pliers.
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Design metal necklaces. Use long, thick chains with large links with large metal pendants, or join patterns of metal and gem settings to create a chain. Necklaces may be of almost any length, with several lengths often worn at the same time.
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Make earrings. Simple tear-drop pearl earrings were highly popular, as were metal gem fixtures with dangling beads attached below.
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Darken the recesses of any filigree items. Spread black acrylic paint over the metal, then wipe away with a damp cloth before it dries, leaving paint that works itself into cracks and recesses. This was a popular Italian Renaissance jewelry technique.
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Build unusual accessory pieces. Renaissance jewelry typically included items like head circlets (designed in much the same way as necklaces, though usually with smaller items), belt buckles and jeweled belts (glue flat metal and gem settings to leather). Brooches, a bar pin attached to the largest and most elaborate metal setting you can find, are worn in the front and center of a woman's bodice.
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