New Endeavour, Jewelry : Project 1 : Filipino Christmas

February 13, 2025

New Endeavour, Jewelry : Project 1 : Filipino Christmas

Nostalgia Project: Parol Pendant

Starting in September to the 24th eve of Christmas, the Filipino Christmas experience is full of life and merriment. We have other unique traditions such as Aguinaldo, 13-month work-pay, and midnight masses leading to Christmas. But my favorite part of it all as a child was going from house to house singing carols with my cousins and getting money, it was my only source of income as a 9-year-old child. That memory is always accompanied with the making Star lanterns or Parol.

I ideated some designs in Rhino.

Until I decided to stay true to a more traditional design, a star made of bamboo.

Fun fact, these star lanterns used to lead people towards the church for midnight mass, this tradition also metaphorically represents the journey of three Kings who followed the North Star to get to baby Jesus.

Then I decided to make it 3d like the bamboo. For this, I adjusted the design with no circle a little bigger so it would theoretically balloon up.

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JEWELRY MAKING WORK TIME

I first Printed out my design and measured out the amount of brass I needed and cut it.

I glued my design down to the metal.

Using a center punch. I punched holes within the negative space of the design first. When working with complicated patterns with many negative spaces inside, it is wiser to drill and saw them first before the edges so sawing becomes easier.

I learned an easier and more effective way of Sawing in class but I can't stress these tips enough because it was really really helpful!

JEWELRY SAWING TIPS:

Center punching and drilling in multiple locations near the original center punch saves you time if your blade snaps and you're too far from your original hole.

Do not grip the saw or push forward as you cut. Keep it vertically straight. The blade is not perfectly vertical, the saw will naturally move forward if you just pull it down.

When turning in corners, pull the saw a little toward you as you pull down and turn the object. That sounded more complicated that it should but doing this present your blade from snapping in two.

Saw the edges last.

So I sawed and filed the jagged and awkward corners of my design.

Using the pliers from my tool kit and some hammer, I bent the design so the holes, which will become the rivets, became perfectly aligned on the circle.

I used filing sheets in different grit to to make the design better before doing the rivets.

Alternative Design, suggested by a friend.

I decided to stick with my original design because I wanted to go for the traditional Parol look.

I borrowed some stamps and stamped various radial designs to alleviate the texture and make the design more festive.

I used a fine tip sharpie to mark the holes of the first design to the second, center punched it and annealed wires for the rivets.

When annealing, I always forget to let the wax dry and then I wondered why it kept making the wire into reddish/charred color, it also made it the wire harder and brittle. So it took me awhile to get the proper fit.

Then, after 12 hours of work, approximately, I finally finished the main design.

The connector was a little too big and off center so I sawed it in half.

In here the markings from the stamps are more obvious.

I filed the areas where the hammer accidentally grazed it as I was mushrooming the rivets but that pretty much it from my main design

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Significance behind the container is simple. Coins for the amount of money I use to make as a child which meant a great deal for me and Paper stars in Christmas colors representing my childhood days, when all I could make was paper stars. In a sense, being able to work with Metal represented my growth.