The Beading Gem

Ponoko is an exciting new and truly innovative web service. It offers a one-stop make-on-demand service where you can get help designing your own jewelry, upload the finished product plans to the nearest Ponoko factory and let them make it and ship it back to you. At this point, you can keep the item just for yourself or you can take pictures, set a price and load it onto their online shop and sell it. If someone buys it, Ponoko will ship it directly to the customer for you. The advantages are awesome - no inventory, no minimum order and no need to find an alternative marketing site.



You're probably wondering - how much is this going to cost? Well, joining is free. They offer online tools like guides and templates to help you come up with designs. If you're not up to working from scratch, they offer some product plans for sale and some for free which you can mix and match to come up with something unique. You naturally have to pay for the materials you use upfront. The online storefront is free to set up. If you are any good, you can even sell original product plans!



This service still appeals to people like us as you can make the kind of jewelry that requires a laser cutter - not many of us have those in our home workshops! The products showcased are predominantly jewelry so I have selected my favourites to show here. The current Ponoko Design Challenge will award the top 20 designers with with free advertising on their home page and their designs will be made for free for all buyers for a whole month! The winner will be chosen from the 20 and will get $1000.




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

Bone has been used in jewelry making for thousands of years. But quite honestly, do we really know where the bone we use comes from? Nope. One participant at a beading party was slightly alarmed and actually asked me about the bone beads in my collection - like, were they human? I reassured her they weren't but I thought it might be cow bone but I couldn't be sure.

One designer who does know where his bone comes from is Andrew Ross for his raw material came from an abattoir. A graduate of Dundee University (UK), Ross recently won the The New Designers Swarovski Crystal Palace Award for innovative product design. His prize was £1000 (approximately $2000) worth of crystals and a 2 years membership to newdesignersonline.co.uk. He said, "I’m impressed that Swarovski saw the potential of my project as mainstream material."


His winning idea was to convert waste cow bones into a variety of objects including jewelry. What's so great is his project shows all kinds of alternative uses for cow bones rather than being regulated to the dump. Cow bone used to be ground up as animal feed but that practice was halted when the BSE - bovine spongiform encephalopathy or mad cow disease as most know it - crisis occurred. The infectious agent is spread when cattle, which are really herbivores, are fed the remains of other cattle in different forms including bone meal. If humans eat infected carcasses, they develop a variant of the Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD or nvCJD).

This designer's jewelry is markedly different from the bone jewelry we normally see. Instead of reshaping the bone material into beads, his necklace still retains the original shape of the bone. His ring is also unusual although it would be hard to pinpoint which bone in the cow's anatomy it came from. Any guesses?


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If you haven't got any cube beads in your bead collection, do get them! And when you do, get them big! They are great for all sorts of jewelry designs. Mildred's blue Czech cube beads coupled with fluted silver metal beads give that art deco look to what are simple dangles.



Betty on the other hand chose cube beads that have been drilled on the diagonal. These beads made her dangles look like they are dancing. Betty made this pair specifically to match a bracelet she did before. Rather than art deco, these remind me of Picasso and abstract art.



Now if you put a whole bunch of these dancing cubes together with some millefiore and lampwork beads, you get Libby's bracelet! The cube beads make this bracelet unique and quite different from if she had used ordinary round beads. Blue was a hit at this seniors' beading party proving this colour has enduring and cross-generational appeal.



Beader Designs # : 377-379
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The Beading Gem's Journal

Earlier this summer, we were lucky enough to spend a few days in Iceland which is situated in the northern Atlantic Ocean close to Greenland. Despite its name, Iceland wasn't really that cold. It rarely gets colder than -5 degrees C in the winter nor does it get overly warm either in the summer. The climate is so mild because of the warm waters of the Gulf Stream. Just outside the harbour of Reykjavik, the capital city are little islands inhabited by comical puffins which apparently winter in Newfoundland, Canada!



Iceland is geologically active - their meteorological office has both the latest weather AND earthquake map! On the plus side, Icelandic people get virtually free hot water and heating from underground thermal sources. Indeed hot steam vents can sometimes be seen here and there in the countryside. Our favourite spots to visit were areas where geysers and bubbling hot water or mud pools could be seen. The geyser on the bottom left was a spectacular one erupting every few minutes. The Icelandic word "geysir" is the origin of the word we use today. Elsewhere acres and acres of old lava fields (below right) could be seen. The rocks were covered with lichen. The steam seen rising in the horizon is a geothermal plant near Blue Lagoon which is a famous hot mineral spa pool.



Walking along Reykjavik's main shopping street, I noticed jewelry featuring lava stone for sale. Alas, the finished jewelry was way too expensive. Most things in Iceland are because the tax is an astounding 24%! I did so want to leave Iceland with at least a souvenir and not just the ability to pronounce Reykjavik! As luck would have it, we stayed very near the only jewelry and hobby shop in the entire city. So I was able to buy a strand of medium sized (about 10 mm) beads to make my own jewelry - sure is handy when you know how!

(NB All the jewelry stores seem to use this black lava stone but the native lava looks different. As confirmed by a reader's comment, Iceland does not appear to have any industry making lava stones which is a pity because there were tons in Iceland.)



Lava stone is volcanic rock. Closeup (see below), it looks like pumice which is also a type of volcanic rock. Lava stone is also used as a luxury counter top surface after being glazed with coloured enamel. I may not have expensive counter tops but I do have lava beads from Iceland!!


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The Beading Gem's Journal

Feature Designer

In Tiziana's Etsy profile, she says that the birth of her son coincided with the birth of her shop Fairie Bling, which has the subtitle - "Dedicated to all of you who still believe". She rejoices in her young son's belief in magic and fairies in the woods.

Tiziana is Italian born but is now based in San Diego. She works with natural materials such as wool, leather and gemstones. She recently created a summer collection of wire wrapped jewelry inspired by the Island of Capri, Italy such as her Dreaming of Capri gemstone and copper necklace. Her confident uses of colour and varied materials are evident. However, what caught my eye were her wool flower jewelry for Tiziana is an eco artisan.



Her Dangling Red Roses lariat cum choker (above left) is my favourite. It is made from recycled 2-ply cashmere and adorned with faceted amber glass in the middle of the flowers. The flowers are on leather and the necklace wraps around the neck finishing lariat style in the front. A charming design for those who love romantic designs. Another upcycled wool flower necklace features pear-shaped turquoise gemstones in a circle (above right). A single faceted yellow-olive chalcedony dangles on super soft hide. Note her unusual way of attaching the headpin to the leather.

Yes, Tiziana, I still believe in the magic of beautiful handmade creations.
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The Beading Gem's Journal

Tube beads make great dangle earrings. However most artisans just use one per dangle. But why not two? The tubes can be paired together to get a totally new look.

Carol did just that by beadweaving. She first threaded a small seed bead onto a strand of Fireline. This seed bead is the anchor bead at the end of the dangle. She then threaded both ends of the strand up through the same beads, only separating them through the tube beads. To finish, we knotted the Fireline around a small seed bead inside a clam shell finding. A quick dab of glue, a little trim and closing the clamshells were the final steps before attaching the dangles to the ear wires.



Beader Design#:376
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The Beading Gem's Journal

I am in awe of imaginative designers who can take something as mundane as old parts from discarded TVs and VCRs and make them into something wearable.


D Young, the artisan behind Obvious Front is responsible for the funkiest robot jewelry I've ever seen and for recycling what would have gone to the landfills. That's him on the left in a photo his daughter took during a robot building demo in Kewanee, IL (Hog Capitol of the World).
 
He assembles the quirky bots from capacitors, wires, resistors - whatever it takes to form the body, arms, legs and heads. He has been making these robots since the 1980s long before it became cool to recycle. He says, “Every old TV is robot in kit form”! Check out his storefront on Etsy called 21st Century Folk art by oBVIoUS FRoNT!

As you can see he sometimes groups the robots in whimsical pendant sets - like two big brothers with a little sister bot or even a six pack set. They make perfect gifts for children which explains the addition of a trading card inside each bag or for your favourite computer geek. He confirms his target market on his Flickr page.

His favourite story concerns some robots which were being delivered for an art exchange show in Europe. They were actually temporarily seized by the customs officer at the German airport who must have thought they were little bots ready to do great mischief! The guy probably watched way too many science fiction movies. The robots didn't make the show but DY got it back eventually, minus a few pieces. They eventually resurfaced after he misplaced them for a year. Ja, DY - well travelled robots indeed.

He has a great sense of humor. When I asked him what was the eureka moment for his Capacitor Figures, he actually gave me a choice of two epiphanies :

1) I was helping a friend move and dropped a TV down a flight of stairs, or...
2) It was a slow afternoon in the electronic repair shop.

He told me his favourite review was this one. Very funny, DY! But how do you know what they really said about you? Well, I hope you'll count THIS review as your favourite from now on!


Via 

Before You Go :

Red and green do go together - just think of holly and the red berries at Christmas. However, not everyone is thrilled with those particular shades especially out of season. So how about lighter hues? Susan combined both cherry quartz and the gemstone aventurine for her lovely bracelet. It's a simple design but made elegant with the larger flat oval cherry quartz beads against the round aventurine and even smaller silver balls.

You can see the striations of the cherry quartz much better when the beads are large as in this case. The strands of colour you see inside the translucent beads are what gives these high end glass beads their character.



Beader Design #: 375
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The Beading Gem's Journal

Feature Designers

Dutch born Maaike Evers and Mike Simonian are industrial designers behind MikeandMaaike.com which is based in San Francisco. Innovative and experimental approaches are the hallmark traits of such designers and they both aptly showed how thinking outside the box can yield unusual results.

They wanted to explore the "tangible vs. virtual". So what they did was to scour the internet for images of really expensive baubles by famous jewelers. They took these images and changed them into extremely low resolution forms - similar to when you try and print photographs which were taken with too few pixels. They then transferred (printed) the images into cleverly scored leather for reincarnated jewelry. No wonder they called this design line Stolen Jewels. The design on the left is Imelda Marcos' Ruby and Diamond necklace by Van Clef and Arpels.

The first of the two necklaces below pays homage to Daisy Fellowes "Tutti Frutti" Ensemble, Cartier, 1936. Tutti frutti means all fruits in Italian and fits the multi-gemstone style which is one of Cartier's famous and enduring specialties. The collection features platinum, sapphires, emeralds, rubies, onyx and diamonds. You can see a picture of the original necklace here.



The bottom picture shows the necklace inspired by the fabulous " Great Chrysanthemum Diamond necklace" by Julius Cohen 1963. The original necklace features a huge pear-shaped brilliant cut fancy orange-brown diamond weighing 104.15 carats.


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The Beading Gem's Journal

Cindy is always learning and exploring new techniques. The last time I saw her was when she breezed in our workshop for only a short while because she and her sister were off to buy a torch to do some metal fusing!

But she also tries to improve her existing skills. This here is one of her practice pieces for perfecting her wire wrapping. Did she ever! The clear and very pale pastel crystals matched her outfit on the day I saw her.

The necklace was a variation of Embelished Bead Chain from Get Started Beading (Best of Bead & Button Magazine)

Beader Design #: 374
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The Beading Gem' Journal

Making resin jewelry appeals to many people. There are lots of resources on the internet to help you get started such as this excellent tutorial from Ganoskin.com called 3 Ways with 2-part epoxy.

More recently, John W. Golden shared his free video tutorials (below) on how he makes his resin jewelry (rings and pendants). The first shows him preparing his artwork which is the basis of his designs. The second shows him making up the epoxy solution and working outside for ventilation. In the third, he deals with bubbles, the bane of resin jewelry making. The trick is to pour slowly and in layers. To remove the stragglers, he prefers to blow with a straw. But he actually cautions "Do not do this at home" as fumes can be accidentally inhaled! Not a good thing when you are working with epoxy resin in its liquid state.

Hair dryers held at a distance are his suggested alternatives but I wonder if resin jewelry artisans have tried what bartenders and laboratory staff do when they are carefully pouring liquids. Bartenders who make layered drinks use a teaspoon held with the scoop part in the hand and the stem pointing into the glass. Lab people use a glass rod as shown in the picture on the left. This really helps slows down the pouring even more and shouldn't form bubbles as the liquid doesn't trap bubbles as it is being dispensed..

On the other hand, the Arty Crafter who wrote a great article on the Tips and Techniques has something else to say about bubbles, " There are always going to be some bubbles somewhere no matter how hard you try and get rid of them. I recommend that you just get over it and enjoy them as part of the hand made nature of your work!" Sage advice indeed.

Resin Jewelry Tutorial Part 1

  Resin Jewelry Tutorial Part 2

  Resin Jewelry Tutorial Part 3
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 Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
Jewelry Making Tips - Jewelry Business Tips 

Laura and Sarah are sisters who enjoy beadweaving. Laura is 11 years old and is comfortable with mixing and matching colours like many children I've come across. She mixed 4 different colours of seed beads - pink, white, red and orange - for her necklace above. When you try and envision those colours together, you'd probably be shaking your head. No way, uh-uh. Yet, Laura's combination does work.



Sarah is 14 and likes simple designs. She is particularly fond of Japanese art and design. So it was not surprising that she chose dark almost black bone beads mixed with some wooden beads for her focal area. Then she used simple beadweaving using seed beads to form the rest of her necklace. Again, like her sister, she chose a uncommon colour combination - yellow with salmon pink with black.

Beader Designs : 372-373
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The Beading Gem's Journal

Who says science and art doesn't mix? Raven Hanna is a self-confessed science geek who is also an artisan. It's no wonder her Etsy "handle" is molecularmuse for all her jewelry designs are based on chemical structures.

The structures may not be familiar to non-scientists but some of her jewelry photographs sure give big hints. Like the coffee beans below which provide the background for her caffeine sterling silver earrings. We all know caffeine is the stimulant in our coffee or tea which wakes us up in the morning.  

Theobromine is another caffeine-like stimulant found in chocolate such as the piece of dark chocolate used to prop up her theobromine earrings. You don't have to be a chemist to see that both pairs of earrings look a little a like because the chemical structures for caffeine and theobromine are somewhat similar.



Feeling hot? That might be due to the hot chilli peppers you ate recently for these contain the chemical capsaicin which is the cause of the burning sensation in your mouth. Her capsaicin pendant necklace could symbolise how "hot" you are!

But my favourite is her estrogen pendant necklace photographed with purple flower petals for it is perfect for those who are going through hot flushes! Estrogen is the female sex hormone used in hormone replacement therapy to relieve the embarrassing symptom of approaching menopause.



Dopamine (represented by her pendant on a pink background) is an important neurotransmitter in the brain, the lack of which causes the disease Parkinson's disease which is a movement disorder. One famous sufferer is the actor Michael J. Fox.

Serotonin is a catch-all neurotransmitter which regulates our moods, emotions, sleep and appetite. Lowered levels of serotonin results in insomnia, aggressive behavior, depression and other negative effects. That is why Raven coupled her serotonin structure with a happy disc! Her neurotransmitter charm bracelet is a brilliant combination for it features several chemicals like dopamine and serotonin which are important for our good health.