Keum Boo is a jewelry technique originating from Korea. It is attaching gold leaf to another metal, usually silver or copper. Most on-line directions say to use fine silver. However, with a little preparation, sterling silver works fine. The preparation process involves slightly melting the surface of the sterling then putting it in jewelry pickle. Directions on-line say to do that process 5 to 7 times but I found that just once works.
I’m not going to go into the process of keum boo, a good book with instructions is Heat, Color, Set & Fire, by Mary Hettmansperger. It’s in the Austin Public Library. The book also has instructions for several other interesting jewelry techniques, I’ll be trying them as well. Keum Boo was the most interesting to me so that’s where I started.
Here are a few photos of my new work that was inspired by Ms. Hettmansperger’s book.
