Jewelry Making

We came across some very cool, slightly futuristic jewelry on Etsy made by Sylwia Calus who hails from Warsaw, Poland. She’s been making jewelry for around 4 years, but already her work is being sold European designer shops.

What makes the jewelry interesting is the choice of materials and the way they are used. She employs clear polyester resin to create classy, one of a kind bracelets that contain decorative elements inside. She hand-polishes the bracelets to give them a nice finish - below is an example of one of them called the Square Shadows bracelet.

Another very interesting use of materials are her knitted silver wire pieces. She takes thin silver wire and knits or crochets them into earrings, bracelets and other items. Shown below is an example - her Knitted Oxidized Silver Earrings.

Visit: Sylwia Calus Design on Etsy

I apologize that lately the only posts you’ve been seeing at Jewelry Making at Bloglander are ones for craft shows. This year, we’ve actually decided to discontinue our jewelry making business - we had a good long go at it, made a lot of great contacts and had a good deal of fun making and selling our own jewelry. But it’s gotten to the point where it’s too difficult to continue.

You can blame it on the economy or whatever you’d like. I know this is not a great excuse - but in any case, since we haven’t been making a lot of jewelry there hasn’t been as much opportunity to write up the popular how-to posts. I’m not yet sure how the focus of the blog will change - but I think that we’ll continue to talk about bead shows / resources, jewelry promotion and product reviews. We’ll also continue to try and feature great DIY jewelry makers we run across and perhaps run more interviews. I hope that the how-tos on the site will continue to be a good resource for beginning jewelry makers - but we probably won’t get to create too many more of them.

Ok, on a happier note, the Glass Craft & Bead Expo is coming up very soon on April 2-6 at the South Point Hotel / Casino in Vegas. We haven’t been to this one before, but it sounds pretty interesting. They have various classes and demos that focus on art glass techniques and tools. There is a “Bead Bazaar” area that looks similar to the other bead shows that we’ve been to.

The classes actually look pretty interesting, and I think some of the demos feature live torch work. They also have a charity auction and a “Gallery of Excellence” where they feature outstanding examples of art glass and other jewelry. The admission is $15 for 3 days, but if your register in any of the classes that admission is waived.

Visit: Glass Craft & Bead Expo website

If you use a lot of different seed beads in your jewelry, you might be interested in The Beader’s Guide To Color by Margie Deeb. This professionally designed beading book is a great information resource for both novices to color theory and expert designers alike. There are 20 different jewelry/art projects, 75 color palettes and instructions for beginning beaders on loom techniques. I have to admit that personally we haven’t really gotten into using seed beads in this way yet, but this book is still on my wish list for future inspiration.

From the author’s website:

Author and artist Margie Deeb discusses in depth the psychological and symbolic associations of all the colors of the spectrum, and the ways in which color can be used to create and accentuate pattern, rhythm, and movement.

The illustrations in the book seem to be really well done. The color palettes actually use Delica numbers (a classification for the Miyuki seed beads) and cover a wide range of different color combinations. I think some of the reviews I read of the book seem to think this is less of a standard “how-to” book and more of a presentation of the choice of color in seed bead projects. Still, most both beginners and advanced jewelry makers seem to think it’s a worthwhile addition to their libraries.

Here’s yet another jewelry competition we’ve found. But this one is being held by a company that everyone should know, unless you’ve been beading inside a cave. Cut crystal maker Swarovski is holding their “Create Your Style” Contest and entries will be accepted until May 16, 2008.

You can enter in 3 different categories: Professional, Amateur and Student. But what’s cool is that the finalist prizes are quite significant and are the SAME for the first two categories (1st:Trip to Austria, 2nd: $3500 gift cert, 3rd: $2000 gift cert) - the student category prizes are a little less but still significant and are put toward tuition. Semi-finalists get $50 gift certs.

All of the designs have to be made of at least 80% Swarovski crystals. One note - if you win I think they keep your design in order to photograph it for various books. I’m also not sure if there is an entry fee, but I don’t think so. They’ll announce the winners on October 15th, 2008 in New York. Good luck if you decide to enter!

Visit: Swarovski: Create Your Style

I hesitated about a microsecond before posting this unusual jewelry making competition. There is a contest held by Land of Odds (and sponsored by a few other companies) to design the ugliest necklace possible. There’s a reason I didn’t picture any of the previous winning entries here. =) Have a look for yourself. The contest is currently open and they will stop accepting ugly necklace entries on March 15. Oh, the humanity!

Visit: Ugly Necklace Contest

Another upcoming competition for you jewelry makers: don’t forget about the Rings & Things 2008 “Your Designs Rock!” Competition. The focus here is on designs that you make that use Rings & Things products. The entries are being accepted until the end of this month February 29. There are several categories including Glass, Gemstones, Polymer Clay, Metal Clay, Mostly Metal and Alternative Materials.

Although the prizes are Rings & Things credit ($750 Grand Prize, six category $250 First Prizes and $75 Honorable Mentions), you also get a chance to have your design featured in their catalog and other promotions which could be a good chance to get worldwide exposure for your designs.

Just a quick note that it’s time to think about the Bead & Button show again. Sure it seems like it’s 6 months away - it’s being held June 1-8, 2008 in Milwaukee. But registration opened yesterday, and the Bead Dreams Competition and Exhibit is now taking submissions from now until April 4. Never to early to get a head start in the new year on planning out jewelry pieces to submit and figuring out what bead supplies you need to pick up at the largest consumer bead show in the world. They also have a ton of different beading classes and workshops worth looking into.

So everyone knows about the dangers of lead in children’s toys and other items being talked about in the news lately. Well, if you make jewelry for a living or as a hobby you might not have thought about the possibility that your jewelry might also contain certain amounts of lead.

It’s used sometimes in base metals in order to make them more pliable and to give base metal a heavier feel. It’s also cheaper than other metals like zinc, and may also be used as a stabilizer in plastic.

I don’t think ethical jewelry makers (especially the ones making hand-made, one of a kind jewelry) are going to be using any of those materials on purpose. But in any case, it’s probably a good idea to keep tabs on what materials you’re using and where you’re buying them from. Also, if you live in California, there’s actually a newer law called the Lead-Containing Jewelry Law) that was enacted to limit lead in jewelry - especially children’s jewerly and body piercing jewelry.

Continue reading “Lead and Jewelry Making” …

I was quite taken with these interesting beaded jewelry pieces from Lisa of TQB Designs. She creates each of these wonderful small “circles, dots, rounds and spheres” by weaving a gourd stitch pattern with seed beads on top of a wooden core, and then uses them in her jewelry along with hand-crafted metal findings.

From far away, the little seed bead rounds look amazingly like nuts, or fruits (particularly, some sort of berry). The care and time that go into making each of these little rounds must be tremendous; I know because we do beaded rings and they take a long time - and it probably takes much longer to create a whole sphere like these. Each bead has between 50 and 500 individual seed beads!

Lisa is self-taught and has been making these bead rounds for over a decade. Shown above is the Betty’s Apron Neck Wrap, which contains seven bead rounds (in duckling, tangerine, cinnamon, mushroom, cilantro and chartreuse colors) along with brushed oxidized and sterling silver findings.

She has some “harvest” colors available that are meant for the Fall season - warm shades of red, brown, orange and gold. Here’s an example of one of the earrings using a garnet red color for the bead rounds - they are paired with silver handmade ear wires and filigree bead caps. I can’t believe how much they look like natural berries!

Neck Wrap - Betty’s Apron - $120
Garnet Filigree Dot Earrings - $38
available at TQB Designs

I was surfing around looking for interesting beading things to write about and came across this Bead Loom Kit from Shure Products. I haven’t actually tried out the product, but was hoping that if a reader has gotten this item they could chime in as to how they like it in the comments. I’m especially interested in whether this is something an adult might enjoy, because at first glance it definitely looks like a kid’s toy - they say that it’s meant for 7 years and up due to the small beads and the skill needed to put them in the loom.

They say that you can use the loom to weave bracelets, necklaces, earrings and rings. The loom itself is wooden - I’m not sure how sturdy it is though and I wonder if you could just go to the Home Depot and make one yourself. They give you a starter selection of glass and seed beads (over 1000), cord, jump rings, and clasps along with an instruction booklet. The patterns that are shown look sort of like some of the Native American beading styles. While I’m a bit hesitant how worthwhile this bead loom might be, the price is definitely not too bad, and a bonus is that if you’re starting out making jewelry you can use the leftover beads for other projects.

Bead Loom - $24.95
available at Amazon.com
also available at Jo-Ann.com