About Our Processes

Porcelain Jewelry: All of our pieces begin with raw porcelain clay. We roll it out and shape it with a needle tool, tiny cutters or even our hands. We then use the following techniques to add creative design elements...

 

METAL LUSTERS 

                                   

Using a small paint brush we paint on Duncan metal lusters that are yellow gold or white gold. The lusters are kiln-fired to around 1300 F and are permanent. The deposited yellow gold is 22 karat and the white gold is 18 karat.

 

WATER-ETCHING

   

We dissolve shellac chips in alcohol and paint the solution on our raw porcelain pieces using a tiny brush. We then take a wet sponge and gently etch away the exposed clay, leaving the raised design. 

 

GRANITE 

We make pieces that resemble granite by adding a colored stain directly to the raw porcelain clay and mixing it in gently. Another way we do this is by mixing a powdered stain with dry porcelain powder and rewetting it to make a solid color. We then mix this stained clay with uncolored porcelain and it also makes a granite look.  

LEATHER 

We take hand shaped porcelain pieces and shape leather pieces to fit in between them to create one of a kind pieces. 

 

WOOD

   

For the retired Branching Out line we used a local laser-cutting lab in Austin called MakeATX. We designed our pieces in Adobe Illustrator which then prints to an Epilog laser cutter. We use Minwax water-based stains and acrylic paints for color.

 

Photography: We use a Canon Rebel XS that was converted by LifePixel with an infrared filter of 720nm. We also use a Canon RP mirrorless camera and a DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone both converted by Kolari Vision with a full spectrum that allows for a UV filter, 560 nm, 650 nm, 720 nm, and 850 nm IR filters, and a hot mirror filter. The hot mirror filter allows us to shoot in the visible range. 

           

We print from American Color Labs and Holland Photo in Austin, TX.