If you’ve been following my work for a while, you’ve probably noticed that I talk about sand casting a lot.
There’s a reason for that.
I’m completely obsessed with it.
In fact, around 95% of the jewellery I make is sand cast, and what started as a bit of an hobby/experiment has somehow become my entire career.
Which still feels slightly ridiculous to say.
Because I never actually set out to become a sand casting jeweller let alone a jeweler.
So, How Did I Get Here?
My background is actually in science.
I studied Environmental Science and spent years working in a completely different world before jewellery came along.
I first started getting interested in jewellery making as a hobby, and somewhere along the way I discovered sand casting.
And I fell hard.
There was something about the process that just clicked with my brain.
It was technical and unpredictable at the same time. It involved materials, heat, pressure, chemistry, problem-solving and a little bit of controlled chaos.
Basically, everything I apparently needed to become completely obsessed.
What started as a hobby quickly became something much bigger.
And now, years later, sand casting is the foundation of my full time jewellery business.
What Actually Is Sand Casting?
Sand casting is an ancient technique that has been used for thousands of years.
The basic idea is surprisingly simple.
You create a model of the piece you want to make, press it into specialised casting sand(rec lay or delft clay), remove the model, and then pour molten metal into the impression you’ve created.
Once the metal cools, you break open the mould and reveal the casting.
And here’s the really important part:
The mould is generally destroyed when you remove the piece.
That means each mould is essentially made for one piece.
One mould.
One casting.
One piece of jewellery.
I absolutely love that.
It means there is something inherently individual about the process.
Why Do I Sand Cast?
The short answer is:
Because I love it.
But there are actually a lot of reasons.
I Can Make Things Myself
One of my favourite things about sand casting is that I can do so much of the process myself in my own studio.
I can design and carve the wax, create the mould, cast the metal, clean it up, finish it and set the stones.
I’m not sending a design off to a factory and waiting for a finished product to arrive.
I’m physically hand makin making your jewellery.
And I think that makes a huge difference.
I Love the Texture
Sand casting gives my jewellery a texture that I find incredibly beautiful.
It’s organic.
It’s slightly rough.
It’s imperfect.
You can see little details in the surface that are created by the casting process itself.
And I don’t want to remove all of that.
I actually want to celebrate it.
I think jewellery is much more interesting when you can see evidence that a person made it.
Not everything needs to be perfectly smooth, symmetrical and perfect.
Sometimes the little imperfections are the best part.
And Then I Started Putting Beach Sand Into Jewellery…
This is where things got even more interesting.
Because once I started sand casting, I realised I could actually incorporate someone else’s sand into the process.
And suddenly the technique became so much more than just a way of making jewellery.
Imagine someone proposes to their partner on a particular beach.
That beach becomes part of their story.
They collect a tiny amount of sand.
And then that sand can actually become part of the jewellery I make for them.
So you’re not just getting a ring inspired by the beach.
You’re getting a ring made using sand from the actual beach where that memory happened.
I think that’s pretty incredible.
The sand becomes part of the texture and character of the piece, and every time you wear it, you’re carrying a tiny physical piece of that place with you.
Then Came Ashes
After experimenting with sand, I started thinking about other materials that carried meaning.
And that’s when I began working with ashes. A client came tome with the idea and I had never seen it before and had no idea how it would look.
At the time, I wasn’t really sure where it was going to go.
I couldn’t find many people doing what I was doing, and I certainly didn’t have some huge business plan for it.
I just thought:
Why couldn’t this work?
So I experimented.
And it did.
What came from that was something incredibly meaningful.
Being able to incorporate a small amount of someone’s loved one’s ashes into a piece of jewellery completely changed what sand casting meant to me.
It meant I wasn’t just making jewellery.
I was helping people turn memories into something they could physically carry with them.
And that’s something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to.
Why I Think Sand Casting Is So Special
I think the reason I’ve become so passionate about sand casting is because it gives me the ability to make jewellery that feels personal.
Not mass produced.
Not identical
Not perfectly manufactured
Personal
The process leaves its own marks on every piece.
And when you combine that with someone’s own gold, their own stones, sand from somewhere meaningful, or even a tiny amount of ashes, the result becomes something that could never really belong to anyone else.
That’s what I love about jewellery.
It’s not just the finished object.
It’s the story that’s built into it.
Sand Casting Has Become My Whole World
It’s funny to think that something I discovered almost accidentally has become such a huge part of my life.
What started as a jewellery-making technique I was curious about became something I wanted to understand better.
Then something I wanted to master.
Then something I wanted to teach.
And eventually, it became my full time business.
I now make the vast majority of my jewellery using sand casting, teach other people how to do it, and spend an honestly ridiculous amount of my time thinking about sand, wax and molten metal.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Because for me, sand casting isn’t just a technique.
It’s the way I make jewellery.
It’s the reason I can create pieces in my own studio, with my own hands, using materials that already mean something to the person I’m making them for.
And after all these years, I’m still learning.
I’m still experimenting.
I’m still finding new ways to push the process.
And I’m still completely obsessed with it.
Which, considering this all started by accident, is pretty cool.