Jewelry Making

Lilia Shatnaya creates necklaces and earrings with a bold and sometimes elaborate flair. These are a bit more ornate than the pieces I usually review, but they are quite striking in character which is what led me to take a second look.

Originally from Ukraine, Lilia first worked as a web graphics, video and special effects designer before discovering jewelry making as her true calling.

From her website:

While on a search for a job in the Computer Design field, Lilia started making jewelry. She taught herself wire wrapping, gemstone names and properties and soon a line of jewelry emerged. As many successful ventures, this one started as a hobby but soon grew into a full time business. She is now attending New York’s FIT Jewelry Design Program.

Lilia makes all the pieces by hand. She uses semiprecious stones to complement the antique filigrees in the pieces. Lilia doesn’t like dull colors and like the designer, her line is vibrant, colorful, fun and flirty…

Continue reading “Lilia Jewelry” …

I’ve been wanting to write an article about making a “plain loop”. This is one of the basic techniques needed for many beading and jewelry projects and requires only a few tools. It does require practice to get your loops to look nice though, and I still often make the occasional wonky looking loop that needs to be fixed. Here’s a picture of what the article will step you through making:

I’m really partial to unusual jewelry and Austin’s Kristin Laing fits the bill quite nicely with her etched sterling silver designs. Kristin latest collection includes earrings, necklaces and rings and each piece is created by hand in her studio. While many of her pieces may seem more stark than other typical bead and jewelry DIY projects, I think her style exhibits clean elegance through the use of silver etching without seeming overly distant or cold.

From her website:

Kristin Laing has been designing and crafting jewelry since her teens. Raised in San Diego and a graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara, Kristin migrated to Austin, Texas after several years on the east coast. While in Austin, she had the opportunity to study silver, copper, and blacksmithing among other metal arts. Her love of working with silver eventually lead to setting up her own jewelry studio. With unparalleled support from family and friends Kristin released her first line in the spring of 2004.

Continue reading “Kristin Laing Jewelry” …

I wrote a sort of long (and kind of boring looking back on it) article about the importance of including a good “title tag” in your website. But seriously, even though it’s obviously been beaten to death, I think it’s an important part of any jewelry website campaign.

I actually have a pretty good background in web work and coding. So I decided over the next couple of months I’m going to put up a few more articles about websites in relation to selling jewelry in addition to the normal DIY Jewelry articles that I’ve been slowly writing.

The results of the first poll for the Jewelry Making at Bloglander site are in:

This seems to be pretty much in line with what I thought the results would be. Note that the poll was for favorite type of jewelry to MAKE, and not what seems to sell more. I have a feeling that a lot of people have more fun making necklaces for some reason, but I know from experience that smaller items like bracelets and especially earrings can be hotter sellers just because by nature they are usually cheaper.

Continue reading “Poll - Types of Jewelry” …

Jewelry supplies at … Target?

On the About.com Jewelry making site I just read about the possiblity of getting some supplies for Jewelry Making in the “dollar” section at Target stores. I’ve seen this so called dollar section before, which is usually located in the front of the store near the checkouts or carts. But I’ve always avoided it because I didn’t think there could possibly be anything of value there. According to the article by Tammy Powley, the store near her had a whole bunch of really cheap tubes of beads and some related supplies. The supplies included those storage containers with dividers and bead trays as well as some pliers.

Continue reading “Bargain Beads At Target” …

Mariska Design from The Netherlands (which is of course run by someone named Mariska) offers bracelets, necklaces, and earrings in warm colors like pink, peach and purple. Having started designing her own jewelry while at HKU Utrecht School of the Arts in the Netherlands, she decided to offer some of her creations online. She uses a lot of pearls in her designs but also adds precious gemstones and Swarovski Crystals into the mix.

From her website:

I’m constantly trying out new techniques and materials to come to new designs.
My style is classic combined with modern. On this website you can see the result.
Only high quality materials are used in my jewelry.

When I go on holiday in other countries I bring back many different exotic beads .
I brought back beads from spain, USA, Italy, Germany and other countries. I use
these imported beads in my designs.

Continue reading “Mariska Design” …

I came across an article on Business Week Online about Sri Lanka looking to up its already significant exports of gems and jewelry by more than 20 percent in this year. From the article:

Last year, Sri Lanka exported US$301 million (euro234.81 million) worth of gems and jewelry, making the industry the country’s fourth largest export earner after garments, tea and tourism.

Continue reading “Sri Lanka Gem Export” …

Rachel Lavin from Pio makes use of her metalsmithing skills to create unusual metal pieces that she uses in necklaces, earrings, bracelets and rings. Although she is currently based in Austin, TX she has lived in a variety of places including New York, Portland, Boston and Mexico (where she originally learned about working with metal).

From her website:

After graduating from Brown University with majors in anthropology and Spanish, she led kids on mountain hikes in Maine, then worked as a clinic assistant at Planned Parenthood, then played with images on the computer for Hearst Publications’ Interactive Studios. After Hearst, she ran away to a town called San Miguel de Allende in Mexico that’s known for being heavily populated by artists and American retirees. It was there that she learned metalsmithing; she’ll never forget the first moment she melted a small piece of wire into a perfectly round ball - the moment that she knew jewelry-making was the ideal outlet for her obsessive nature and her need to constantly create.

Continue reading “Pio Playground” …

I put up a short article on how to make wine charms that are simple yet can be used at just about any party. Here’s a picture of the completed winecharm on a glass.