Lots of playing going on! I love the sparkle of Swarovskis, so I added a thin row of crystals to this next pendant in the series. I love the classic “sweetheart” look that resulted!
I’m still working along the lines of “quick and simple” for this series, but this time, I wanted to add a tiny splash of colour.
Still trying to keep the cost of the pendant down, I didn’t want to spend too much time on the coiling, so I added only one little Swarovski, strategically placed.
I bought a bunch of these 2 mm Swarovskis back in the late spring when I was preparing for my class at Haliburton. I hadn’t intended to buy them, but when the supplier I was visiting only had half the tools in stock that I needed, I had to choose some other things to bump up my purchase to their minimum order requirement. (It’s incredibly irritating when the stuff is shown in stock on the website, only to discover empty bins when you get there. Unfortunately, this is not an unusual occurrence with this particular supplier, which is why I always go in person, and I don’t shop there unless absolutely necessary.) They are one of the few officially sanctioned wholesale suppliers of Swarovski and Preciosa, so I picked up a few packages.
After several different attempts, I also finally came up with a nice bail that compliments the marquise shape of the pendant.
Marquise Series: Pendant 1
Sterling silver, fine silver, cord
Constructed, cold-joined
L 6.1 cm x W 1.0 cm
One of the jewelry groups on Facebook is currently running a design contest to “overcome the economic crisis”. The idea is to use cheaper materials to reduce the price point of the finished piece. The problem I see with the contest is that the value of the physical effort involved is completely discounted. The cost of the labour stays the same regardless of the materials used.
The only way reduce the cost of the labour is to simplify the designs so that they take less time to make.
There are two challenges to making simple designs: one is to make them well, because the simpler the design, the more important the finishing becomes; the other is coming up with an original concept, something that will appeal to the customer without looking like the same old same old that someone else has produced.
I think the latter is the harder of the two to overcome.
This was the background I was thinking about while making this pendant. The goal was to produce a nice, quick-to-make design, that could become part of my bread-and-butter line for next year. As much as I like making the complex one-of-a-kind pieces, most of my sales fall in the in $20-$150 price range.
Without the neck rope, the pendant on its own would fall easily in the lower end of that range.
It’s been my experience that chains are uneconomic for me to make from scratch, and that was proven true again with this piece. The labour involved in making the neck rope bumps the price up substantially, and the change to the cheaper material (polymer cord) has a huge impact on the perceived value. I end up with a piece that is not sellable at the price I need to sell it at to recoup my costs and actually pay myself.
It’s perverse. It’s also why I don’t generally use “cheap” materials. I want you to feel good about what you’re buying from me, so I make high quality jewellery, with high quality materials. It’s worth every cent.
Marquise Series: Bracelet 2
Sterling silver, fine silver
Constructed, cold-joined
L 19.5 cm x W 1.4 cm
The next step in developing the Marquise Series was to add some form of embellishment, like a spiral. To give this bracelet a bit of visual interest, I decided to alternate the links in mirror image. They remind me of fish, and a bit like the stylized birds from the Partridge Family tv show.
I debated about using solder to join the spiral to the frame, and then decided that I wouldn’t save enough time doing that to make any difference in price of the finished piece.
Marquise Series: Earrings 1
Sterling silver
Constructed, cold-joined
L 5.4 cm x W 1.4 cm
The next logical step from the Bracelet I did for YOJ09-43 was to make a pair of earrings. I liked the idea of making the earwire in the same shape as the link – it gives the earring a chain-like look.
Marquise Series: Bracelet 1
Sterling silver
Constructed, cold-joined
L 19.5 cm x W 1.4 cm
I’m doing a serious push to get caught up on my YOJ projects before the end of the year. It’s sort of cheating, because I’m working on a bunch of things all at once, and posting it all in a very short time frame, but so be it.
The other week I was working on my Secret Santa project for this year, and it inspired me to explore some other ideas. (I can’t post the SS photo until after Christmas, so it will be a few days yet.)
This week, I started working on what has become a new series of pieces, all using a marquise shape as the starting point.
This is the first bracelet from the series, which is just a simple marquise link. This is such a basic shape to make that I can’t imagine it not having been done elsewhere. It’s a good start point to develop other designs though.
The opening of the Metal Arts Guild of Canada exhibition “MAGC 2067 – Crafting the Future”, held on November 7 at Arta Gallery in Toronto, was a costume ball. In connection with the theme of the show, people were encouraged to dress up in character.
I originally planned to wear a costume, but then, in the week before the opening, the issue I had been dealing with in my personal life came to a head. Although able to attend, I didn’t have the emotional or physical energy to dress up.
My character was “an acolyte of the Goddess” – a jewellery maker for a matriarchal society devoted to worshiping a Gaia-centred deity. As part of the costume, I made a couple of “Goddess Jewels”. These are very loosely based on Bajoran earrings, of Star Trek fame. My version has a chain of handmade spirals, two Preciosa crystal drops, because I love dangles and sparklies, and is worn via an earcuff on the centre of the ear, and a spiral earwire through the lobe.
I used to wear these a lot, and had forgotten how much fun they are. It’s been several years since I made one. Usually only worn on the left side, this time I wanted the pair. Someone took this photo of me at the opening, where you can see one of them. The whole set of photos from the show is worth a peek.
Recently members of the Starving Artists Etsy Team did a critique of my Etsy shop. One of the comments that came up a couple of times was that my descriptions tend to be a bit on the sparse side. I generally give information about the piece, what it’s made of, basic sizing, etc., but only rarely is there a “story”.
My reply to one of the ladies who asked me about this was “Well, sometimes the design is the result of nothing more than “I had this idea and decided to play around with it.” ”
The truth is that I just have no talent for writing bullshit. What I write has to feel authentic, otherwise it doesn’t work for me. Hmmm…. maybe I need to look into a creative writing course…
Anyways… I was playing around with some scraps of wire left over from working on my Clip-on Earrings tutorial. I tied the wire up in a small knot – not quite as tight as I would have liked, but it worked. I have a “thing” about dangles, so I added these little tourmalines. I love the vibrant pink – they’re just juicy! The result is a cute pair of earrings that works for everyday wear.
The SATeam critique did confirm one thing: my photography is pretty good. It never stops surprising me how much time it takes to get the photography done. Nowadays, I’m not only doing photos for my regular record keeping; I’m also doing set up for Etsy. “Product” photography is different from jury photography – attention must be paid to angles, and multiple positions. A lot of people on Etsy photograph on elaborate backgrounds. I have yet to find one that works for me, so I’m still working with the “jurying grey”.
Photographing studs is difficult at the best of times, but these earrings were particularly challenging. There was just no good way of laying them nicely to get a straight-on shot. Finally, I decided to cut a upright display card out of an old layout board and poke holes in it. Voilà! It worked!
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Okay, so life fell apart for me two months ago, and I’m just starting to recover. I have not been making much new jewellery, but I am going to still try to keep up with the YOJ postings.
I got this purple jade cabochon through a Bead Box swap several years ago. Those Bead Boxes were lots of fun: the idea was to put in things from your stash that you weren’t using and swap them for beads that other people had put in from their stash. I was the Bead Box Mama who organized the whole shebang for Bead Box North, which traveled around Canada and the Northern US. It was a lot of work, but every time the box arrived on my doorstep, it was like Christmas Day! I managed to keep it going for about three years.
Purple is my favourite colour, and I’m always drawn to it. For this pendant, I wanted to work with the same sort of weaving I did on the Moonrise pendant, but on this smaller cab. Well… the cab’s shape proved to be quite a challenge: getting the wire to fit around the pointed ends was very tricky. After multiple attempts to get a pendant that hung lengthwise, I gave up and set the stone sideways. It ends up looking a bit like a genie bottle 🙂
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I have lots of supplies left over from my classes at Haliburton, which I’ve decided I will not be using next year. The cabs I ordered were a huge disappointment, with widely variant thicknesses. In particular, the green paua shell cabs were paper thin, making them virtually useless for wrapping. Basically, they can be pressed into something else, like maybe polymer clay, glued into a pre-manufactured setting or as part of some other craft item. Unfortunately, by the time I got them, it was too late to send them back to the supplier and order something different: the supplier wouldn’t have been able to give me anything else in any case, because I had already cleaned out the stock she had. The students who had to work with these cabs did admirably, but we had to change the project to make it work. Oh well, lesson learned. I’ll use a different supplier next year and put the remainder up for sale as a destash on Etsy to see if I can recoup any money that way.
The blue pauas were meant to be used for rings, but again, the thickness (while much better than the green) was an issue. They are actually quite pretty, so I may try to make something out of some them.
The first go is this variation on my Art Nouveau Bangle, which uses four wires instead of eight. It ends up being a very dainty looking piece.
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On my annual trek to Bancroft this year, I decided to focus on buying cabachons. I have a huge stash of beads, but I’ve been moving away from working with them. The last time I was in Bancroft, I bought some really nice cabs from one particular vendor, and was really happy to see them again. This year, I scored a bunch of beautiful tourmaline, prehnite, kyanite, garnet and rainbow moonstone.
As a member of the Etsy Wire Artisans Guild, I’m supposed to make a monthly “theme” piece. Well… I’ve been a bit lax about it because of my other commitments. So I’m playing a bit of catch up.
It’s been a couple of years since my last attempt at a multi-stone pendant. That attempt was… adequate… but really not up to the standard I like to set for myself. So, for the EWAG’s “Blue Moon” theme, I decided I’d take another stab at it.
Back when I was single, I lived within walking distance of Woodbine Beach in Toronto, and would regularly stroll along the water’s edge. I always loved watching moonrise over the water. The reflected light from Luna rippling over the waves was so peaceful. The Moon is the ruler of my astrological sign, Cancer, so I feel a special connection with it. With my feet in the water, I would say prayers of thanks to the Creator for all of the blessings in my life, and listen for the messages in my heart of what direction I needed to go.
For quite a long time now, I’ve been getting messages telling me I need to reconnect my spiritual side with my jewellery. I feel really strongly that doing that is going to resonate with others. So, in the past few months, I’ve been making and posting work that draws from my inner life.
I gave conscious thought to the stones I chose for this piece. The calming, balancing energy of the 11.7 ct moonstone helps connect with intuitive promptings, and the loving, powerful energy of the 24.42 ct blue tourmaline helps bring awareness and communication of those messages.
The wavy line coming down from the moon was always part of the design, but I also wanted to incorporate the shimmering and rippling of the water by incorporating weaving into the bezel of the lower stone. I’m very happy with the way it turned out, and the energy that comes off the piece is wonderful.
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I’m running a bit behind with my YOJ postings, but I have been keeping up with doing the pieces. My focus has been on preparing for my class, which starts 9 days from today! This netted pendant is one of the projects for the class.
The good news is that I will get all of the tutorials done. The bad news is that I have no idea if my wire is going to arrive in time!
Getting the supplies for these classes has really tested my patience. Back when I worked in the mining industry, the gentleman I worked for always reminded me to prepare for Murphy’s Law. I’ve been reminded of that over and over in the last few weeks…
I do my best to support Canadian companies, partly because I believe in buying locally, but also because that way I don’t have to deal with the extra hassle of shipping, customs, duties and fluctuating exchange rates.
But some suppliers really make it a pain in the ass to deal with them.
Case in point: John Bead, a trade-only wholesaler and beader’s heaven. They would be an ideal Canadian supplier if they actually had the things I needed IN STOCK!!! Three weeks ago I went to JB – my first visit in years – and I was reminded why I don’t bother to shop there unless I absolutely have to. The warehouse is a frustrating jumble of aisles and bins. Just finding things is the first challenge. Then the flat nose pliers I wanted were out of stock. I had to settle for a cheaper, lighter weight version. The round nose pliers – every style – were out of stock. The only pliers they did have in stock were their own house brand – at $20 a pop. They didn’t have enough spools of 26 gauge copper wire, so I had to buy half of them in brass. No 1.5 mm antique copper chain in stock. Barely any 2 mm copper beads in stock. This is a wholesaler, remember, with several thousand sq. feet of showroom space…
*If* they had had the pliers, I would have been well over their minimum purchase requirement. As it was, I ended up having to visit their Swarovski room and buy a bunch of Swarovski crystals I didn’t really want or need to make up the difference. And even there, the stock on some of the common colours was patheticly low!
So, if you’re in Canada, looking for wholesale Miyuki, Swarovski or Preciosa, John Bead is a go-to supplier if you can meet their minimum. As for me, I think next year I’ll deal with the shipping costs, and customs charges, and just order from Rio Grande…
And increase the cost of the kit…I’m dealing with a very tight budget here, so that makes sourcing reasonably priced supplies problematic.
Thankfully, I found another supplier for the round nose pliers – Habsons Jeweller Supplies in Vancouver. They had the quantity I needed in stock, and they had them packed and shipped the day after I ordered them. This is the second time they’ve come through for me on a hard-to-find item. Last year I bought a half dozen wooden ring mandrels from them – impossible to find elsewhere in Canada, but they had them. I love these guys. Great customer service. Actually, maybe I’ll order from them first next year…
Next was the still-ongoing misadventure with the copper wire.
There are NO suppliers of shaped copper wire in Canada. So, ordering from the US is required.
I placed my order in mid-June, with expected delivery in 10 business days. The time came and went, and when I followed up this last week, I found out the supplier missed something on the paperwork. The package had been returned and had sat in their warehouse for a week before being sent out again. So now I’m sitting here hoping the package will arrive in the next few days. If it’s not here by Tuesday, I have to re-order the whole lot (US$900+), and have it sent up here by express overnight courier. Cost of the courier: US$102. *gloom* And I have to re-source the cabochons because I cleaned them out of their 22×30 mm with my last order. And then I’ll have two complete sets of the wire I need for the classes once the other order finally does arrive. The owner is doing her best to be helpful, even taking time out of her vacation to deal with this for me.
In the meantime, I’m beavering away, working on tutorials, putting together what I can of the kits, and trying not to stress out…
