Petal to the Metal Cuff – Handforged Recycled Copper Floral Bracelet

Flowers pressed into copper. Then set on fire, more or less.

The pattern comes first. A flat sheet of 99.9% recycled copper goes through under pressure until the blossoms and feathered scrollwork sit down into the metal itself, not laid on as a print and not coated on afterward. Run your thumb across it and you can feel every petal. There's nothing on the surface to chip, because there's nothing on the surface at all.

Then the color. This is where it stops looking like anything else in the shop. The copper is darkened by hand, and taken light rather than all the way to black, which leaves the surface running through rose, green, gold and violet depending on how you turn it. Oil on water. We can press these flowers again. We can't make this cuff again, because the color goes where it wants and nobody tells it otherwise.

An inch and a half tall, edge to edge in pattern. This is a statement cuff, not a quiet band, and it's handforged by The Swanky Dale in Ball Ground, Georgia.

• 99.9% recycled copper, handforged in Ball Ground, Georgia
• Floral pattern pressed into the metal, not printed or coated
• Hand-applied iridescent finish, rose and green and gold, left unsealed
• Approx. 1.5" tall, shaped from 6.5" of copper with a 1" opening at the back
• Made to fit a 7" wrist, adjustable with gentle pressure
• The pattern we can press again. The coloring we can't, so no two are alike

Sizing. For a cuff, measure your wrist rather than your hand. It opens at the back and goes on sideways, so your wrist bone is the number that counts. Like all our cuffs, this one is made to fit a 7" wrist, and because it's open you can ease it a little wider or narrower with your hands. That range covers most people comfortably. Work the whole curve rather than bending one spot. Our sizing guide walks through it.

Care Instructions. Washing is fine. Polishing is not. That's the whole rule, and here's why it matters more on this cuff than on most. The color is a thin layer sitting right in the surface of the bare metal, with no seal over it. Water won't hurt it, so clean it with a soft toothbrush, a drop of Dawn dish soap and warm water, rinse well and dry completely. But polishing cloths, metal polish, jewelry dip, steel wool and scouring pads will take the rose and the green straight off and leave you with plain copper. That doesn't come back. Expect the high points to mellow a little with wear while the color holds in the pressed lines, which is the piece settling in rather than wearing out. More in our copper care guide, or see care by material.

Wear it alone. It doesn't need help. Good with a sundress in July and just as good over a pushed-up flannel sleeve in November, and it goes with more than you'd think because copper sits warm against almost everything. A gift for someone who'd rather own one piece people ask about than five nobody notices.

Handforged in the USA. Small batch, by hand, start to finish.