About The Silvery
A passion for nature and unique jewellery combined using a spot of alchemy!
About The Silvery and Jules Ellis
I first discovered the weird and wonderful world of electroforming 23 years ago when I was employed as an outworker by a small local company to do all the prep work on seashells before they went through the silvering process. A year later I was upgraded to fulltime workshop assistant and then in 2009 I bought the whole business lock, stock and barrel. I changed the name from Silverseashells to The Silvery as I wanted to expand the range to include other organic items such as leaves, feathers and seeds. I also wanted to start offering a commissions service where people could get their own special items coated in silver and ‘The Silvery’ sounded like the place one might go to get that done!
The last 16 years have been quite an adventure, from the early days of mainly supplying my work wholesale to shops, it has gone on to include 2 bricks and mortar shops, many hundreds of events, markets, open studios and many thousands of items silvered for off-the-peg jewellery and customers own special treasures they have entrusted me with. I still find the process as thrilling and magical as the first day I saw it in action and can’t imagine life without my little silvering set up on the go.
Today me and my Silvery have settled in Hastings where I now do all the making at the home I share with my husband Ian (AKA Mr Silvery!), our 3 cats and 2 tortoises. I find the local woodlands, beaches and the South Downs an endless source of inspiration and beautiful pieces of nature to coat in silver!​​​​
About Electroforming
Russian physicist, Moritz Hermann Jacobi is credited with inventing the process in the late 19th century. Electroforming is essentially depositing metal onto non-metallic surfaces by electroplating. The items to be coated are made conductive with special paints that allows the metal particles to bond to them. There are many small stages to the process during the preparation stages, followed by a long time in the plating baths, at least 24 hours for something soft and fragile like a leaf or feather. They then go through a rigorous cleaning and polishing process which as well as making them beautifully shiny, also ensures they are coated in a thick enough and tough enough coating to ensure they will stand the test of time.
Items can also be supplied in copper. I use a base later of copper plating on most items as it quickly lays down a protective base on the item which makes a nice foundation to layer up the silver on. Items can be supplied electroformed in just copper on request.
A very thick layer of silver is layered on each item to make a durable skin that with the correct care (i.e. taking off for bathing, swimming etc) will last indefinitely. You can clean them with any normal silver jewellery cleaning product if needed.
It is also possible to have layer of 18 carat gold vermeil plating on top of the silver, prices available on request.
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