THE PRINTS & BOWS PROCESS
One of the things that we love here at Prints & Bows is that we work directly with all of our customers throughout the whole design process to create truly unique pieces. Nothing we have ever made is the same, which makes every single item not just special to our client, but also to us.
We've worked hard to perfect our P&B Process: with hand & foot prints, we use a special inkless wipes kit which takes perfect prints that we then use to make tiny photopolymers to set into silver clay; with thumb or finger prints, we have some magic putty that captures all the tiny details; and with our memory / art / writing charms, we can take a treasured drawing or writing & set them into silver in a similar way to the hand & foot prints.
Once you have your P&B piece, we like to offer a little care advice. Our charms, pendants, cufflinks & gifts are hand-sculpted using 99.9% fine silver (unless otherwise advised) & with sterling silver fixtures & fittings.
Fine silver is a little softer than sterling silver so just requires a little extra special care. The silver will naturally tarnish with wear but this can be polished up with a silver cloth or with a little washing up liquid & warm water. Make sure you keep your item somewhere safe & a useful tip is to keep it wrapped in a piece of tissue. Usual advice regarding avoiding chemicals, bleach, perfume or wearing whilst swimming or similar activities applies to keep your piece looking its best. Please note that tarnishing is not a manufacturing fault.
This is the journey that your imprint charm goes on, each stage is lovingly handmade by Jen & Carrie
STEP 1
As soon as we have your order, we will send you out our inkless wipe kit complete with instructions. All you need to do is use the magic wipe and wipe it across what you are printing and place it on the piece of paper provided. We will mark which side - it is magic after all! You then need to take a photo of the print - preferably in natural light and no shadows please! We then work with the print and edit it on the computer - we never change the prints, just tidy up the edges - and revert the colours and re size it to make an image that we can then convert into a little plastic version. We make this using a photopolymer under a UV lamp.
STEP 3
Our final stage is the polishing, finishing and packaging! We turn the white charm into sparkling silver with hand polishing techniques. We attach any fixtures and package it up using our bespoke packaging from our lovely local supplier Barb, A Bird From Abroad. We will then let you know when its either ready for collection or pop it in the post to you!
STEP 2
We then use this print and pop it into fine silver clay. This clay is then cut to shape & left to dry. Once dry, the charm is then hand sanded to be totally smooth. This process takes time and a lot of care and attention! We don't stop sanding until we think it is perfect. Which can take days! We then drill holes and personalise. When we are totally happy we pop the charms in a kiln and fire it at 900 degrees for half an hour.
Once out - the charm is white!
