Christine Peters’ Dandelion Brooch
Magical Botanicals
From scrap metal to a handcrafted tribute to the dandelion’s quiet magic
by Tina Snyder
(Originally Published by MJSA July 2025)
Christine Peters
Damariscotta, Maine
Christine Peters’ “aha” moment came during a jewelry class she was taking at Maine College of Art & Design. Having earned a degree in sculpture from Boston University, she realized she had a fondness for the art form in miniature and decided to focus her career on jewelry making.
“It’s essentially a little sculpture you can wear,” Peters says of the precious metal jewelry she hand fabricates in her Damariscotta, Maine, studio. The sterling silver and 18k dandelion brooch featured here is one example of how she continues to push her designs to become more three-dimensional.
The designer’s love of nature inspired the brooch, though she admits to taking some artistic license. “My desire was to represent the actual flower but to render it with more flair and essence rather than Mother Nature’s perfection,” she says. “I wanted to incorporate the flower’s whole story—from root to growth to flower.”
The 3.5 inch sterling silver and 18k yellow gold brooch was hand fabricated from scrap, sheet, and wire. Peters began by melting scrap silver and forming the root. She shaped and fused the metal, then carved it with her Foredom hand tools to achieve the desired form. She cut the leaves from sheet and used wire for the stems. Rooted in her training as a sculptor, her approach is both additive and subtractive: she adds metal, carves some away, adds more, and repeats the process until her vision is realized.
Textured with oxidation and steel wool, the surface finish adds depth and highlights the handcrafted nature of the design.
After creating all the major elements of the brooch, she began fusing them together. She attached the dandelion bud component to the stem, then drilled a hole in the root, and soldered the stems in place. “It took many times under the flame to put it all together, which is tricky because there are so many solder points,” she explains. “The biggest challenge was getting the gold flower together without melting it during the process.”
To create the gold dandelion puff, she grouped wires in sets of four, soldered them, then added them to the puff one at a time. “I was purposely making them quirky and not all going in the same direction, but making sure they were stable,” she says. “It’s tricky when you have such a mass of metal, given heat sink. I had to be careful not to overheat it.”
The texture on the sterling silver was achieved by oxidizing, then texturing with steel wool and bristle brushes. This added depth and texture, bringing the piece to life. “It’s handmade, and I like the hand showing,” says Peters. “It’s not a perfect rendition of the exact flower in real life; it has more feeling to it.”
The final challenge was adding the pin. Given the weight of the piece in the root, it can swing, and Peters didn’t want it to sit off-center when worn. She soldered a tie tack to the back of the largest leaf, which provided an even distribution of weight and enabled the brooch to lay as she envisioned.
And when it’s not being worn, the dandelion brooch can be displayed in a small box that hangs on a wall like a piece of art—the way in which Peters packages her work.
“Dandelions are so happy,” Peters says. “Many look at them as weeds, but they are one of the first pops of color in early spring. And after they bloom, they turn into wishes. They are truly magical botanicals.”