At the beginning of last month I was offered the opportunity to review a unique personalised item from the ‘Precious Prints Forever’ range from Silvella jewellery and I jumped at the chance! I could choose from a vast array of beautiful solid silver hand & footprint keepsakes but I chose the silver keepsake keyring as I knew my daughter would love to give it to her daddy. 🙂
We chose to have the keyring with both her hand and foot print on but we could have had just a fingerprint or just a hand print or foot print. If we had wanted there was also the option to have her name engraved on the front of the keyring but we chose not to. We kept the keyring as a surprise as my daughter was so excited for him to have this special gift.
My daughter is 5 and I have never had any jewellery or keepsakes made from her hand or footprints. I have had some lovely cards with painted handprints come home to me when she was at nursery but never have I had any prints captured in silver. That, however, was set to change thanks to the wonderful Gillian at Silvella Jewellery!
First of all, I have to say that the whole process of getting a keepsake keyring made from my daughter’s prints was so quick and simple, from start to finish!
Gillian arranged for a home impression kit to be sent to me and that arrived within a couple of days of her initiating the order. The kit should also arrive with you just as quickly (within 48 hours during normal working days) if you place an order in her online shop – www.silvella.co.uk.
Once the home impression kit arrived we opened it up to see what we had to do to capture my daughter’s prints. I have to be honest here, I was kind of dreading this part as I thought we would do it all wrong and the prints would be terrible. Do you know what? I was completely mistaken…it was easy!
The home impression kit contained a stamped addressed board-backed envelope to Silvella Jewellery (for sending the prints back in), 4 sheets of specially coated paper (2 for the hand print and 2 for the foot print) , a little sachet containing 1 dry inkless wipe , an instruction leaflet and a letter about my order.
To get the hand and foot prints all we had to do was open the little packet which contained the non-toxic inkless wipe (you can see the wipe in the photo above) and rub the wipe completely across the palm of the hand that we wanted to get the print from. Once this was done my daughter placed the palm of her hand onto one of the sheets of special A4 paper and pushed down firmly.
I made sure she placed the handprints on the sheets of paper in the most space-saving of ways so we could get lots of prints per page. I was worried the prints wouldn’t turn out properly and thought the more prints we get…the better our chances of one of them being okay to use for the keyring! As I mentioned earlier though, I was wrong – all the prints turned out fine. The first one was a bit wobbly but after that they were all great and perfectly usable. 🙂
Once we had done 2 sheets of hand prints we then re-applied the wipe onto the hands and did two sheets of foot prints. As before, the first one was a bit skew-whiff but the rest were absolutely fine. We did rub the wipe over my daughter’s hand and foot a few times throughout the process, just to make sure that the print would always come out clearly. I was so surprised that just one dry wipe could make so many prints!
My daughter absolutely LOVED the process of getting her hand and footprints taken and she was so interested to see them magically appear before her eyes in the dark coloured ink…even though she had used a clear wipe. Have to admit, even I was intrigued by how the ‘magic’ works as I had never seen it done before.Once all 4 sheets were full of prints we added a small asterisk next to our two favourites and then we popped the sheets of paper, along with the order form, into the envelope addressed to Silvella jewellery. Although not before taking a photo for the family album of my beaming daughter sitting down with the sheets of prints beside her. 🙂
We posted the prints off on the 4rd March, Gillian received them within a few days and by the 11th she had already completed our silver keepsake keyring and had posted it out so that it arrived with us on the 13th March. What a quick turnaround for a bespoke gift!
The keyring was beautiful! It came presented in a luxury silver & black coloured gift box with ‘Silvella – Handmade In Wales’ embossed on the top in black writing. My daughter was over the moon when she opened the parcel and found her precious keepsake keyring for daddy inside it.
When my daughter gave the keyring to her daddy she was so delighted that he loved it and straight away he put it on his car key. She thinks it is great that as her prints are on the keyring it means that a part of her will always be with him. even when he is at work. 🙂 She told him exactly how she had got it made up for him and she was so proud she had managed to keep it all a secret!
The split ring on the keyring went very easily through the hole in the car key and I was very pleased that the keyring was not too heavy. The keyring weighed 17g which means it won’t add too much unnecessary weight to a bunch of keys.
The keyring was gifted to us for the purposes of this review but if you wanted to buy one as a special gift for a loved one then the price varies depending on how many prints you have and whether or not you opt for engraving. The one we were sent costs £85.00 as it is a solid silver keepsake keyring with two prints (hand & foot) and there is no engraving. Yes it is a bit expensive but being able to have your child’s actual prints in a precious piece of handmade jewellery or on a keyring is priceless! The keyring would make a very thoughtful gift for someone special and it has been made beautifully and to a very high standard. It was presented luxuriously in a gift box and Gillian has been extremely friendly and kind throughout the whole review process.
I do not hesitate in recommending her keepsake jewellery to you however I can foresee one teeny tiny problem…. how are you going to decide what to buy? Maybe you could get a keyring like we did but how about a triple print necklace?  Perhaps a fingerprint charm bracelet or even some handprint cufflinks? Not only that but Gillian also sells handmade silver jewellery and much more besides.
Don’t forget that Fathers Day is coming up on the 21st June so maybe you could treat Dad to a lovely new silver keyring for him to cherish?!
You can find Silvella jewellery on facebook, twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, so if possible please pop by and say hi to her and follow her accounts so you can stay up to date with all the latest Silvella news and offers. You can either order your keepsake gifts online or pop into her store on Cardiff Road in Caerphilly, Mid Glamorgan.
Before I go, I’d like to say a massive Thank You to Gillian for being so kind and sending us this keyring. When she offered us this opportunity she not only made us a keyring but some wonderful family memories too!