The family behind the bench in Sanur
A Balinese family studio teaching visitors to make their own .925 sterling silver, six benches at a time, on Jalan Pasar in Sanur since 2023.
A family studio, not a tourist stop
Bintang Sanur Jewelry Workshop opened in 2023, when our smiths decided the pieces they had spent years making for shops would be far more interesting if visitors made them instead. The family had already worked silver for two generations in Celuk, the silver village north of Sanur, and the techniques we teach are the ones they were taught there: jawan granulation, hand stamping, forged texture, and soldering with a torch you hold yourself.
Nothing here is a demonstration. You do the sawing, the filing and the soldering, and the piece that comes off the polishing wheel is genuinely yours. We keep classes to six people so a smith can stay at your shoulder for the whole session.
First class taught
Maximum per class
Sterling silver only
Where our smiths trained
A shaded pavilion, cold drinks, no clock
The workshop sits behind a family compound: six benches, a hand-cranked rolling mill, a wall of files and stamps, and a frangipani tree that drops flowers onto the work. It is open to the air on two sides, which in Sanur means a breeze off the sea rather than traffic noise. Guests wander in from the beach in the morning, make something, and are back at the hotel before the heat builds.
- Six people per class, so the smith stays beside you
- You hold the torch yourself; soldering is part of the class
- Celuk technique: jawan granulation, hand stamping, forged texture
- The price on the website is the price at the bench
Why we teach on the quiet side of the island
We run two studios. The one in Kuta sits in the middle of everything: surf lessons, late nights, guests with an afternoon spare between other plans. Sanur is the opposite end of the same island, and it has always drawn a different traveller.
Most of the people who sit down here are families with children, couples on a second or third trip to Bali, and guests staying long enough to stop checking the time. That changes how we teach. A class in Sanur runs slower, with more talking, more questions about where the silver comes from, and more guests who decide halfway through that they want to make a second piece.
The location does the rest. We are on Jl. Pasar, a few streets behind the Sanur beachwalk: ten minutes on foot from the beach and the night market, ten minutes from the harbour where the Nusa Penida and Lembongan boats leave, and roughly twenty-five minutes from the airport. Guests walk here, cycle here, or get dropped off on the way to something else.
If your week is based around the west coast, the Kuta studio will suit you better, and the classes and the prices there are the same.
We also keep a general guide to silver jewelry classes in Bali for anyone still deciding where on the island to book.
What a six-bench class changes
Nobody waits for a torch
Six benches, one group. You are not queuing behind twenty people for the single soldering station, which is the main reason larger workshops finish pieces for guests instead of letting them do it.
Mistakes are fine
If a texture goes wrong we anneal the metal and you start that part again. There is room for that in a two-hour class with six people in it, and there is not in a class of thirty.
You keep the whole process
Sawing, filing, soldering, polishing: all of it is yours. We hold the piece steady and talk you through each step, but we will not take over to speed things up.
Come and make something with us.
Message Komang on WhatsApp with your dates and how many of you there are. She answers in English, usually within minutes, and there is no deposit to hold a bench.