What is hand-stamped jewellery?
MurrayandMe is a contemporary fine jewellery brand, specialising in luxurious personalised pieces that celebrate the loved ones in the wearers life. All of our jewellery is handmade in our studio in Manchester, UK using the artisanal jewellery technique of hand-stamping.
How is hand-stamped jewellery made?
Handstamping is an ancient form of metal work that dates back thousands of
years. You have probably seen many pieces of personalised jewellery, however some of these may have been engraved rather than hand-stamped. Most of the engraved jewellery you see today is done by machine, using a diamond tipped bit to cuts into metal, leaving an indentation from a templated design.
Unlike engraving, that removes the metal to create its desired effect, hand-stamping depresses the surface of the metal without removing it.
When a piece of MurrayandMe jewellery is hand-stamped, each letter, number, symbol, or texture is individually pressed into the surface using a hammer and steel stamp. Each steel stamp carries its own symbol, letter, number or shape. Using a heavy hammer we strike each stamp repeatedly to impress the design into metal until it reaches the desired depth. Each individual letter, number, or symbol is hammered into the metal one by one.
How can you tell a piece has been hand-stamped?
You can tell a piece of hand-stamped jewellery from an engraved piece of jewellery because of the uniqueness of every personalised character. An engraved piece of jewellery will be perfectly uniform with a light indentation. The beauty of hand-stamped jewellery is right there in its characterful imperfections. The slight variations in the spacing and depth of each character adds personality to each piece, it’s this that makes it beautifully authentic and truly unique to you.
Why do we love hand-stamped jewellery?
At MurrayandMe Jewellery hand-stamping holds a particular significance to Selina Murray, our founder. When Selina set up the company, it was only a few months after her daughter Lexi was Stillborn. Selina wanted to make a piece of jewellery that would not only allow her to keep Lexi close, always. But she wanted her jewellery to be as precious and unique as Lexi. One of a kind. That’s one of the beautiful things about hand-stamping, every piece of jewellery is authentically unique. No matter how many times we might handstamp the same name, date of birth or saying it will appear different every time. The wearer can truly say they have a bespoke piece of jewellery as unique and individual as the loved one it represents. That’s special.
What are some of our favourite pieces of hand-stamped jewellery?
We all have favourite pieces for different reasons, We love the daintiness of The Little O Necklace, it’s a perfect subtle necklace- if you’re not used to wearing necklaces or want something teeny tiny it’s a perfect choice.
The Sirius Necklaces is one of our most popular designs, they’re bold and make a statement. A decorative display of your loved ones. They're popular with celebrities like Stacey Solomon, The Unmumsy mum and Izzy Judd too.
I love The Starlight collection, its just mesmerising. I wanted to create pieces
that we’re luxurious and precious. Diamonds are an exquisite way of doing this by adding sparkle and glamour whilst still allowing people to carry their loved ones with them. They're pieces that can be worn everyday but also for special occasions, a lot of customers have purchased our Starlight Electra as their wedding band and our Starlight Maia necklace for their wedding jewellery. What an honour!
Whilst all of our pieces are made from recycled metals The Capella Collection is designed to look organic, it's truly charming. Eco conscious people truly love this range as its made form the scraps of metal left over from other pieces we’ve worked on. We melt them down to molten metal, when they set they produce a fascinating organic shape, that we then personalise with initials or set with sparkly diamonds.
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