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Kinetic Ornaments

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This is where it all started for me, at least my venture into things other than buying and selling precious metals and things made from them. It even predates my jewelry manufacturing. The current designs can be found here.

Jewelry and other items were better sellers so I devoted more resources and time to them. Eventually, I will have 40+ kinetic ornament designs available along with clever holders. The craft show displays for them will have to fill empty spaces as opposed to removing existing products. Thank god for tents with spaces to hang things and ornaments designed to be hung!

It happened by accident, this idea. One day I was turning on a spigot at a friend's house and saw a windspinner-type thing that was sitting in the garden. Then a flood of inspiration hit me. Funny how it's taken some 14+ years of blogs and 20+ years of making them to finally give them some written lovin'.

The first versions were small static ornaments cut from pure silver sheet with a razor. You might think silver is soft but you wouldn't say that afterwards! Eventually I incorporated moving elements into the designs, and then moving elements within moving elements, and so on. They're innovative and nifty. Can't wait to supersize some of them.

Primarily designed for copper, they can be sterling or fine silver as well. A 5" square copper sheet (at retail) is only a few dollars but silver is closer to $150! (If you have to ask about gold or platinum, it's far too expensive!)

Producing them en masse, at least in my initial assessment, would require third-party machining (EDM, chemical milling, laser, perhaps other technologies). None of those would allow me to fine-tune the designs in real-time without spending a small fortune on every revision. Eventually, I created a process that allowed inexpensive modifications within my shop.

The equipment I originally planned on using - my CNC plasma cutter - didn't have a small or clean enough kerf to cut the metal directly as I had hoped. Plus, I wouldn't have been able to call the finished products handmade. The handmade part was not imperative. It's a nice selling feature though slower with numerous drawbacks.

The concept evolved as I experimented, incorporating elements of kirigami and origami. I made a computer program to model new designs and create CNC files should they be necessary. Couldn't have done it otherwise, that's for sure.

Now that I have CNC laser cutters, other options for manufacturing and designing are possible. Whether I supplement or replace handmaking remains to be seen. It would improve efficiency and create better products, possibly lowering prices. Won't know until I try.

Posted by M: July 20, 2026

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