Jewelry Making

Cherry Quartz is a very popular manufactured type of glass that we’ve been using in our designs for a few years now. It is characterized by clear to light pink transparent glass with lots of red swirled inclusions inside of it. (Sorry about the picture, which looks more opaque than transparent). It is manufactured in many different shapes including all manner of standard spheres, ovals, nuggets, drops and briolettes.

Unlike pressed glass, these pieces are not made in molds which is the reason they look so much like actual gemstones. Instead, the glass is actually cut and faceted and polished like normal precious stones. And because the manufacturing process involves swirling different color combinations within the glass first and allowing it to cool, each piece is different. This seems to be what attracts so many jewelry makers - the fact that it’s synthetic but it retains individual characteristics.

Continue reading “Cherry Quartz Beads” …

Barrel Clasps are a particular type of jewelry clasp that is sometimes used for necklaces. They are two part cylindrical screw clasps that look like barrels (hence the name), each with an eyehook or connector loop. They usually feature some sort of ridges around the barrel for easier grasping when trying to fasten - you simply rotate one part into the other.

We use these clasps quite frequently for necklaces. They provide greater security than magnetic or hook type clasps, though they are a bit more difficult to attach around the back of your neck. Barrel clasps do seem to be easier than lobster claw clasps to open up which is why we often prefer them for necklaces.

Continue reading “What are Barrel Clasps?” …

I came across some elegant jewelry through Style Bakery the other day. Carrie Schafer of Original Hardware creates beautiful necklaces, earrings and bracelets characterized by earthy colors and textures. Taking much of her inspiration from nature and travels abroad, the Colorado-based artist uses rustic handmade silver paired with warm-colored precious stones like carnelian, smokey quartz and jade in her pieces.

I especially like her use of hand-dyed chocolate colored silk and leather to compliment the natural colors of the stones and oxidized silver pieces. Another common design touch in her work includes the use of loops and ovals of silver with gemstones hanging within. Carrie is all about the “road less traveled” and that’s clearly reflected in her design… here’s a blurb from her website:

My design philosophy is simple: make pieces that reflect the strength, beauty and individuality of its wearer… I like to make pieces that are off-the-beaten path and incorporate the cultures and colors of the exotic places I’ve travelled.

Continue reading “Original Hardware” …

Billed as “Jewelry With Soul”, Pieces of a Girl is run by Lizzy Carter who lives in the New England area. Although she does make a seasonal line of jewelry that you can order straight from her website, a big focus of her site involves custom designs on commission. You basically contact her to set a price range and other parameters such as the desired look and style, and the design progresses from there.

The custom pieces also get the full star treatment as far as packaging goes. Items over $100 come in an elaborate box along with a full set of story cards - these include custom greetings and sentiments that are behind the actual jewelry which are sure to tickle the fancy of the lucky recipient of the item.

Her seasonal line for Fall 2006 includes a beautiful assortment of necklaces, pendants, earrings and bracelets. I feel like her pieces have a lighter, airy touch to them.

Here’s a little bit about Lizzy, from the Pieces Of A Girl website:

lizzy carter is an artist, entrepreneur and texture junky. she launched pieces of a girl in 2002 after eight months of strategic planning and a lifetime of daydreaming about a career made from her own creativity. she has more than 1,000 pieces of signature custom jewelry to her credit, and her collections are available in exclusive boutiques nationwide…

Continue reading “Pieces Of A Girl” …

I came across some rather nice jewelry the other day at Ornamental Things (I’ve since forgotten how I found the site, but I think it was from Indieshopping).

Designer Natalie Tischler has only been selling her jewelry since 2004, but has already made a big splash with her extremely playful bracelets, necklaces and earrings. She also offers a number of interesting cameo rings.

A little bit about Natalie, from the Ornamental Things website:

… The thing I like most about jewelry is its sentimental nature. If you think about it, every woman has some piece of jewelry which has special meaning to her - a necklace from a sweetheart, a bracelet that was a gift from a best friend, an heirloom from her grandmother. I strive to create pieces that are stylish but also classic enough to be worn forever - jewelry with soul and meaning. I love to think that something I create will hold a special meaning for someone in the future.

One of her signature products are her rather eclectic bracelets, many of which are one-of-a-kind creations. They are characterized by the use of dangles and trinkets of many different shapes and colors. I picked this unique Red and Yellow Explosion bracelet to show here, which includes vibrantly colored vintage beads and metal stars and hearts. Very nice complementary color choices here, and the overall design actually works surprisingly well without seeming overly “muddied” by too many trinkets.

Continue reading “Ornamental Things” …

The latest jewelry poll held a big surprise for me. We asked readers what their favorite type of glass beads were. Admittedly, there are always only 4 choices in our polls so I’m sure many other different types of glass beads were represented. But anyhow, the winner was Lampwork Beads.

Here are the complete results:

I fully expected Czech Pressed Beads to come out by far on top as far as the “average” jewelry makers who mostly do beading were concerned. This is because they aren’t super expensive, and have a lot more consistency in quality and tend to be more “refined” in look than just your ordinary cheaper glass beads from Michaels or Joann.

Granted, at 171 votes the Czech beads nearly tied Lampwork’s 181 votes. Seed Beads were just about where I expected they’d be in third place with 102 votes - it’s extremely useful to have several hanks of various colors around at all times, but I don’t think they’re anything to write home about for appearance. But I’m sure some jewelry designers who wake those wonderful woven seed bead creations are going to beg to differ!

Well, I gotta admit that a lot of those Lampwork beads are indeed gorgeous. I actually confused everything by throwing in “Furnace Glass” into the mix which is sort of related to lampwork. But I believe that Furnace Glass is meant to refer to those beads that look like candy or licorice. They are made using long thin rods of glass that are melted and fused together and then cut into chunks.

Whereas with Lampworking, they actually may add other colored glass to the surface of the existing glass bead in order to create vibrant designs. I think that’s the difference, but again correct me if I’m wrong on that. Anyhow, Furnace Glass brought up the rear with only 57 votes. I still like these beads that look like colorful candy pieces quite a bit, and it’s evident some of you do too!

Our next poll asks what your favorite gemstone shape is. Again, I only have the four slots for my poll, so I’ve combined several of the shapes together.

I hadn’t visited Stylebakery in awhile so when I went there yesterday there were a lot of new jewelry designers in their Designers on the Rise series. Here’s one that I picked to show today: Jessica Hicks Jewelry.

From her studio in Nantucket, Jessica creates bold yet highly delicate precious metal-centric pieces infused with a playful sense of wonder. Having attended Worcester Center for Crafts and later at University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth under jewelry and metals, she later decided to put her metalworking skills to the test and started up her own fashion jewelry line. Her focus is earrings and pendant necklaces though she does have a few bracelets.

Here’s a little bit about her design philosophy from her website:

“My jewelry is contemporary and bold. I design pieces that demand attention with their geometric shapes, hidden elements, movement and texture. My creations encourage further investigation; where the observer expects to see stones set, I place free-flowing crystals that give the illusion of color contained within pierced metal.”

Continue reading “Jessica Hicks Jewelry” …

Sorry everyone, I know a lot of people have sent in questions for the “From the Mailbag” section and we basically have not answered ANY of them yet. Too much jewelry making, not enough time! =) Anyhow, I’ll try and start catching up over the next couple months. Here’s one for today:

From the Bloglander Jewelry Making Mailbag:

Heidi F. writes: “I am looking for a cheap base metal finding. I have been buying them at Michaels Craft store, but they stopped selling them. The package calls them rhinestone settings, but they are not the kind that crimp around the rhinestone, the rhinestone is just glued to the top of the piece and it has loops on either end to string them together.”

Bloglander Jewelry Making says: I haven’t really used the rhinestone settings that you described before, but I think I know what you’re talking about. I’ve seen small base metal (brass or copper?) cups that are meant to hold beads or stones at Joann’s before. But I’m not sure if they had loops or not… actually, I wonder if they may be listed as “Bead Caps” instead of “Rhinestone Settings”?

A quick search on Rings n Things and Fire Mountain doesn’t show many results for rhinestone settings, but it does bring back quite a few on bead caps. The pic at left is from another site I found (jansjewels.com) and seems to be what you’re talking about with the loops on either side.

The only thing is that it DOES seem to have the four crimps that are meant to go around the stone. Also, it is a concave instead of a flat surface, though if you’re gluing something down this might actually be better because it’ll cup the stone more securely and probably make it so it doesn’t get knocked off as easy. I didn’t see any that didn’t have the 4 crimps on them, though there are a variety with open / closed backs and 0, 1 or 2 loops. Maybe someone else knows if we’re on the right track… ?

I promised to show off some of the items we picked up at the IGJS we attended this month. One of the types of jewelry making components that we saw quite a bit of are precious stones, beads and mother of pearl shell that had large holes in them. I had to do a bit of searching, but I think a common name for these interesting pieces are “jewelry donuts”.

Now, we aren’t huge fans of following trends so we have no idea whether this has already come and gone. Interestingly, I did see them featured in the latest Fire Mountain catalog. I know I’ve seen this type of bead many times before made of various types of gemstone, glass and even wood. But at the show it just seemed like it was EVERYWHERE. What was mostly interesting is that in addition to the usual “round” jewelry donut, they also had different shapes like squares, rectangles and even triangles and trapezoids.

Continue reading “Square MOP Jewelry Donuts” …

We got the new Fire Mountain Gems catalog in the mail the other day. Fire Mountain is a fairly decent wholesaler of beads, gems, jewelry findings, and other beader related things. We’ve used them quite a bit and would recommend them for their excellent customer service, at least for the orders we’ve done.

Anyhow, featured on the front of their June-September 2006 catalog were Cane Beads Assortments. So what are these colorful cane beads anyhow? They are actually furnace glass beads made using Italian glassworking techniques. They get their Furnace name from the fact that they require a large (fairly large anyhow) glass furnace and an annealing kiln to make.

They get their “Cane” name because they are made using several colored canes of glass that are fused together on a mandrel. The resulting long fused glass piece is then cut across into various shapes and sizes. Cane beads can be cylindrical, square, rectangular and triangular in shape. The resulting beads have what look like vertical stripes because of the many different colored canes fused together.

Beginning jewelry makers often use cane beads in longer necklaces that feature pieces of random size, shaps and color. It seems to be much easier to go this route rather than try to find beads of the exact same size and color scheme (and they’re great for beginners because you don’t have to worry about matching). They are often sold in complimentary color lots and sizes so that you can just pick up a handful and string them up.

This particular assortment pictured above is from Fire Mountain and made by glass bead artist David Christensen. The package scheme is called “Crayon” and features between 280 and 580 glass cane beads per pound.