The Beading Gem

Cindy loves her bling as you can see from the rose quartz, pearl and Swarovski crystals she used for her delicately pink necklace. She played with the different depths of hue by placing darker pinks and near white rose quartz ovals alternatively in her design. Notice she also did the same for the pearls. These variations are not immediately noticeable but they ultimately add character to her necklace.



Upgrading jewelry components really increases its value although it is not always possible or desirable to do so all the time. If you can, go from glass to gemstone, ordinary crystals to Swarovski and base metals to precious metals like gold and silver. But ultimately, the decision to upgrade will depend on whether it is for yourself or a gift, for sale and the all important, what kind of market you are selling in. For more information on pricing, check this past post - 6 traps to avoid when pricing jewelry.

Beader Design # : 403
__________________
The Beading Gem's Journal

Feature Designer

I've done a few feather earrings before. They are a fun and funky alternative to glittery glam. It is however a small challenge to figure out how to attach the feathers to findings as I mentioned in my previous post on Birds of a Feather Jewelry. The pinnacle of expert feather tying goes to Japanese Fishing Lure Jewelry.

Rheanna Lingham is one inspirational artisan who is known specifically for her flamboyant feathered pieces. She is a recent graduate of Middlesex University, UK, where she studied jewelry. She now sells her work in a London shop called Luna and Curious. Her custom made cascading butcher's blue feathered necklace is a focal masterpiece. She also makes a white feathered version in her Feather Your Nest Collection.



For those who prefer daintier jewelry, a simpler collar style version of her butcher's blue can be seen here. Pixie Market sells her large Peacock Feather Ball Necklace for $94 ( below).



What caught press attention and landed her many exhibitions is her more outlandish work with all sorts of feathers and acrylic combinations. Below is her Pigeon Wing Shoulder Adornment and her Triple Jay Wing necklace which the model wears on her head!



Via
___________________
The Beading Gem's Journal

Tutorials are a great way to learn a new technique. It is vital that we continue to learn for how else would our creativity and skills improve?

Many artisans are now putting out tutorials. Here are two virtual places where you can browse for and get growing numbers of member submitted tutorials. Both sites are newish so expect site upgrades and features yet to come.

1. Jewelrygeeks.com (formerly metalchasers.com), a social media site for jewelry artisans is one of my favourite places to hang out - their gallery section is a veritable parade of jewelry pieces to gawk at. They recently added a tutorial hub (under sections) where members can submit tutorials - text, photos or even videos. They are to be complete and free but of course if you produce tutorials for sale, your link will be there! One of the early submissions is from SilverRiverJewelry (link no longer available) - a basic tutorial on how to make your own headpins (above left). Tutorials can also be rated. Jewelrygeeks uses Ruby Points for site participation which will soon go towards the purchase of "quality, tangible items" when their Club Feature launches.

2. Eni Oken (link no longer available) is a well known wire artisan who offers fantastic tutorials

Below is Eni's fabulous woven bead cuff tutorial for $7. The site takes a cut after you make your first sale. Your students i.e. people who made jewelry using your tutorials are also encouraged to post pictures of their work. Members can also share informative articles on all aspects of jewelry making - writing articles earns points which then goes towards purchasing free tutorials, featured space and more gallery space.

Carol just loves making chain maille jewelry although after this project at one of our workshops, she decided that rings this small were just too tedious! She used the European 4-1 weave with mainly stainless steel rings.

To speed things up, you can either make sets of 4-1 which are laid down ready for pick up with more interlocking rings (shown here with slightly larger gold tone enamelled copper rings) or do what Carol did. She secured the starting rings with a push pin onto her felt-lined beading tray and added one interlocking with two rings strung on to the growing chain. See the above tutorial link for step by step instructions.



Carol decided that this width was just fine with her although she could have added another row. She now wears her ring a lot. What she likes most about it is the neat splayed out pattern it forms when she takes it off and puts it down!

Beader Design Design #: 402
___________________
The Beading Gem's Journal
Subscribe via RSS Via Email

Sir Elton John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight) is in town for a two day concert! Alas, I am not going for tickets were hard to get and expensive. The concerts were sold out, too. So his picture here is about as close I can get to this remarkably resilient performer whose career spans four decades . It was taken earlier this year at a German concert.

He is known for his flamboyant dress and jewelry. Just a couple of days ago, his sapphire and diamond brooch was up for auction. He wore this circa 1935 Art Deco piece in his 1988 music video "I Don't Wanna Go on With You Like That." The brooch is a stylised "J" with about 7.5 carats worth of diamonds as well as multiple old brilliant-cut and baguette-cut diamonds, five oval-cut sapphires and a bombe cluster of circular-cut sapphires. It was expected to sell for between $24,000 - $30,000 at Bonham's in London. It didn't sell.

Via and Via
___________________
The Beading Gem's Journal

Feature Designer

Outi Pyy of Espoo, Finland describes herself as a crafty fashion addict. She is primarily into sewing garments and has a passion for eco wear - repair, reuse, recycle! It's easy to see why she names her blog Otsapop Trashion (no longer available)!


Her zipper necklaces are outstanding for the free-flowing creativity which result in trendy street artwear for both men and women.



Each takes her 18-20 hours to complete. As she doesn't use any patterns, each design is unique. She mixes diffenrent lengths of metal jacke zippers and sews them together by hand. If you are into sewing and wish to try your hand at this, Outi has shared her zipper necklace tutorial (no longer available) because many people love her unique creations.



Disclosure 

Feature Designer

I remember making potato stamps at art class in primary school. They were a lot of fun but never would I have imagined that the humble potato could be made into jewelry. Indeed, Gail Larkin of Las Cruces, New Mexico actually got her inspiration from a potato necklace her daughter made in day care when she was four.

Fast forward several years, Gail and her husband retired and "Spudz : Jewelry Made From Potatoes" was born. Gail's can-do attitude came from her career as a special education teacher and years of working as an advocate for people living with disabilities and special needs. Looking for potential and creative solutions has long been her strength.



She uses all kinds of potatoes but doesn't find sweet potatoes as effective as they don't dry well. She dries her various potato shapes in a home desiccator or dehydrator. This takes several days which is far faster than air drying the slices. She then paints them and preserves them with fixatives. The resultant beads are very hard. She adds different vintage beads from flea market finds to create her unique eco designs.



People have been admiring her colourful and unusual creations at her local Farmers' Market. She naturally has had to field the inevitable quips! She said, "I provide comic relief. People look at my jewelry and ask if they can eat it when they get hungry. My answer is an emphatic no, unless you want to break a few teeth!". Gail also added that if she had a dollar every time she hears "Can I eat it if I get hungry?", she'd be rich. One kid actually bit one necklace! Another time, two Irish ladies bought her potato necklaces as they said t they "had to" as good Irish lasses!

What a truly creative collection!! Gail doesn't have a website yet, but if you want more information or custom orders, email her at g.a.larkin@ comcast.net
___________________
The Beading Gem's Journal

Women often want a pair of earrings to match a necklace they have bought or were given. But matching earrings are not always available. This happened to Liz who was given this handmade necklace. She really wanted the earrings to match. Fortunately, after rummaging through my supplies she found large dark brown beads with copper highlights that closely resembled the focal bead in her necklace.

She added other glass and faceted beads to her earring design. The loveliest touch was the smaller faceted pear drops which were added as dangles. The whole effect was reminiscent of the style of earrings that perhaps Jane Austen herself would have worn.



Beader Design # : 401
___________________
The Beading Gem's Journal

I've previously written about the recycled beer can tab jewelry . Soda can tabs can also be used. Carrie, who loves reading this blog recently sent me the link to this wonderful Wikihow tutorial of how you can make your own pop tab bracelet. She hasn't made one yet but it's in her "gotta try that" pile. Thanks, Carrie for the tip!!



You'll need 50+ tabs and some string, cord and ribbon to tie the tabs into two layers. They really do look more upmarket if you string in some beads too. The tabs are place with the the backs fo the tabs facing the interior to reduce scratching.

Altered Angel also has an environmentally friendly idea with using the soda cans themselves to make simple tag pendants as shown below.



Angie from the New New York Etsy Street team wrote a great tutorial for making her version of disc/stamped aluminium can jewelry which has eyelets.


For more tutorials check out my Jewelry Making Tips

Liked what you read? Don't miss a post!
Subscribe via RSS OR Via Email* It's FREE!
*Click on the link in the confirmation email to activate subscription

Be a Fan!

Israeli artisan, Julia Goland clearly takes her inspiration from lush green forests and trees. Her detailed jewelry pieces are really works of art. Like any true artist, she creates from within herself without following any tutorials or instructions. She crafts her designs from mostly leather but she also uses wire, beads, fake moss and grass and anything else she can get her hands on which is not necessarily used for jewelry making. Her basic techniques include burning, cutting and dyeing.



Her current favourite is her latest creation entitled Morning in the Forest with bright orangish red flowers on a moss covered "twig" (above left) although I think the yellow blossoms cascading down onside of her Forest Nymph necklace (above right) is equally stunning. I also love her beautiful floral design (below) with white tendrils and the white and gold wire necklace from her wedding collection. Her designs are so good, they are art gallery calibre - what we call wearable art.



One whimsical piece is her unique bonsai ring. Her attention to detail is amazing as you can see the realistic landscaping effects she puts into her design.



She is 26 years old and has been making jewelry for 4 years. You can see more of her work on Deviant Art and on her Picasa Web.

Via
______________________________
Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
Jewelry Making Tips - Jewelry Business Tips 

Tags are fun to hook on to earrings for they add even more to their lively movement. There are plenty of earring tags to use but other findings can also be considered. Liz rather liked these pewter Celtic pendants so she used them as tags for her earrings. Their larger size really makes them focal pieces in their own right. Liz teamed them with green Picasso beads - window or framed Czech beads with abstract patterns on the edges for a fun original design.

Interlaced patterns first made its appearance in the 3rd or 4th centuries AD but the knot work which we associate with the Celts began in Northern Italy and Southern Gaul and reached Ireland by the 7th century. Today, we regard Celtic art as that of the Irish culture, but also the Scottish and Welsh as well.

Other than the sheer enjoyment of the artistically woven designs, Celtic knots were not used for religious or other symbolic reasons. They were just lovely to incorporate into decorative objects then as now.

Beader Design #: 400
___________________
The Beading Gem's Journal

I had to share this photo for it is the closest most of us will come to really fabulous emeralds. The model is wearing a 28 million yuan or approximately US $3.71 million emerald pendant from a jewelry store in Nanjing, China.

Its provenance is fascinating for it dates back to 1790. It was a gift to the Qianlong Emperor (1711-1799) for his 80th birthday. The emerald is not only large but the green is close to that of imperial jade, the jadeite gemstone prized by the Chinese and probably the reason why it was chosen as a present for him. I wonder what he really thought of the emerald for he was mostly obsessed with imperial jade. This exquisitely lovely green shade of jade is also known as feitsu or "kingfisher" jade and remains the most sought after form today.

I wrote about the Qianlong Emperor and his jade obsession before. He was the "Son and Heaven" who squandered many lives to secure Burmese supplies of imperial jade. Before his reign, the Chinese only used nephrite, the other jade which is actually a totally different gemstone altogether. Nephrite jade is sometimes known as Ming jade because it was popular during the Ming Dynasty (1368 - 1644).

References
Chinese Imperial Jade
Wikipedia : Jade
___________________
The Beading Gem's Journal

FOLLOW MY BLOG

Many of you who blog on Google Blogger know that a new feature called "Followers" has been added. That means you can see who some of your blog readers are. On the right side bar of my blog is a "widget" which will show little profile pictures of people who are following this blog - not many yet but it is still early days. I hope to see a lot of familiar "faces" and will be checking out new ones as this feature gets more popular!
BLOGS I FOLLOW

What I have also done is added a number of blogs I like to read via my Blogger Dashboard. They've made it very easy to grab all the jewelry blogs I already subscribe to in Google Reader. I have chosen to publicly follow these blogs instead of anonymously which means if these blog owners have the widget installed on their blogs, they and their readers will see my pink avatar as a follower! Quick, check if you see it on your blog!

WHY FOLLOW?

Many of the readers of this blog already use some sort of feed reader like Google Reader, Bloglines, Google Feeds etc to subscribe to blog posts (the other alternative is email subscription). I will still read blog posts via Google Reader because it is easier to do so there - the Blogger Dashboard gives the helpful option to jump to Google Reader. Following therefore links the two services.

The major benefit is increased blog exposure - checking out followers is one way to find other blogs of interest - even if you don't own a blog.

WHAT ARE FEEDS?

If all this talk about feeds and readers is totally confusing you, please check out my How to Subscribe page which explains what they are and how to use them. You'll learn what those orange symbols are on websites today.

___________________
The Beading Gem's Journal

Here is another turquoise jasper design but this one in a bracelet. Petra choose to stay with the turquoise colour for the other glass beads but she definitely remembered one very helpful tip I give beaders - go with contrasts. So let's see. She has gemstone with glass, gemstone with metal, big and small beads, crackle and clear beads, and even matte vs shiny!

What I also liked about her design was the two round crystal adorned beads she chose to flank her focal gemstone. They not only framed the turquoise jasper as in "look at me! look at me!" but they helped glamorize her design. Well done!



Beader Design #: 400
___________________
The Beading Gem's Journal

I work in a very noisy environment which requires ear plugs to protect against hearing loss. The problem is they often get misplaced and I have to go rummaging for them. I prefer ear plugs to the ear phone-like variety for a number of reasons - they work better, are small and compact and less noticeable. So I was delighted to see these creative earrings with ear plugs on chains. Wearers can plug them them when they need to but can leave them dangling when not in use but still very handy.


Ladybuds Earplug Earrings were designed by a woman who is really into NASCAR and rock n'roll - both noisy affairs. Ear plugs do cut down on much of the noise but not completely - you still want to be able to hear say, a fire alarm or a warning shout.

The ear plugs themselves are from HearTech. They are embellished with Swarovski crystals and are either gold filled or sterling silver. Each pair costs $30.

Via

______________________________
Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
Jewelry Making Tips - Wire JewelryTips  -Jewelry Business Tips 

Well, well, well. Swarovski crystals are being used just about anywhere you can think of - handbags, computers, cell phones, applicances, even toilets. But this is truly unusual - bling for your contact lenses! Tiny swarovski crystals were embedded around the edges of contact lenses for that extra twinkle in eyes!

"Sparkle" was created by Indian based designer Anthony Mallier. He won the second prize in the "Crystal Vision" competition organised by Designboom and Swarovski. There were over 4000 entrants from 92 countries.



He said, “Swarovski has been synonymous with adding that extra ‘sparkle’ to everyday life. Swarovski crystals have the power to transform the ordinary into something extraordinary through their sheer brilliance. `Sparkle’ is one such attempt to enhance the expression of one of our most expressive features: our eyes.”

Via

______________________________
Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
Jewelry Making Tips - Wire JewelryTips  -Jewelry Business Tips 

I've actually come across women who don't think lamp work beads are suitable for earrings simply because they are large. As you can see from Liz's black and white design, you can indeed use them. You only need to use one for each earring.



She added extra long twisted bugle beads for the stems of her earrings but you can also leave the eye pin or head pin as it is as I did with these gorgeous yellow and black lamp work beads. I hammered the sterling silver above the beads just for added interest.



Or turn the bead on its side and attach it such that the edges of the beads face the "viewer" as shown below. This option is particularly good if the lamp work bead has a pretty design to show off. Yet another way is to make the bead face forward like a donut. The possibilities are endless!


Beader designs # : 397-399
___________________
The Beading Gem's Journal

Remember Ponoko? In my past post, I wrote about their intriguing service for artisans who wish to create custom laser-cut jewelry. They now offer Ponoko ID which lets shoppers post requests for specific design ideas. The site's more than 10,000 members can then offer bids to land the design job.

Derek Elley, Ponoko's Chief Strategy Officer says, “Shoppers no longer have to accept ‘one size fits all’ mass produced goods but can now save a bunch of money to get their ideas turned into reality by expert designers worldwide.” Will they ever! One of a kind jewelry is hard to beat.

Featured here are two more excellent designs from their website. The black cellular necklace reminds me of honeycombs. But my current favourite is this stylish fan pendant. It actually opens up and can be used to fan the wearer when it gets hot. Cool!



______________________________
Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
Jewelry Making Tips - Jewelry Business Tips 

Feature designers

One of the main objectives of this blog is to challenge artisans to expand their creative expressions by considering new techniques and new materials. F3 Design show you can make wonderful jewelry even from construction materials. In their case, they use guywire, the metal rope or cable used to stabilise cellphone towers, radio masts, wind turbines, utility poles and so on.

The result is some of the coolest unisex jewelry I have seen. Their Guywire Collection - "Bold Body Wear," uses stainless steel guywires and copper. Stylish and durable - the designs definitely offer a very "guy" look. You can purchase their distinctive jewelry from endemicworld.com.



The designs use different thicknesses of guywire and sometimes with multiple strands. The copper sections hide the joins as well as give a lovely metallic contrast to the stainless steel wires.



F3 Design is based in Christchurch, New Zealand. What is also remarkable and unusual is that the jewelry line was created by an entire artistic family, the Wright-Stows. The parents, Angela and Stuart, are product designers who also run the Little River Gallery where they support other artists and designers. Son, Pippin, works on architectural and design projects. Daughter, Ella studied sculpture and contributes to the business. The family that "beads" together, stays together!

Via
______________________________
Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
Jewelry Making Tips - Jewelry Business Tips