Jewelry Making

California jewelry designer Sharla Samuelson has a great selection of delicious looking items at her site Sharma Designs. As usual, I got there through a crafty collective portal (this time around it was Indie Designer Labels). Sharla makes a wide variety of fresh and interesting necklaces, bracelets, and earrings.

Although she does use some of the standard colors for precious stones, I liked that she also had some alternative “darker” pieces that featured material like Onyx, Carved Bone and Horn, Dark Jasper, Carved Horn, and Brown Jade. A bit more unusual choice of material, which makes for an interesting look.

Some info from the “about” section of her site:

So, how did my personal quest for unusual jewelry morph into a business? Unintentional advertising. After I made my own pieces, I took them out on the town. And, well, the town took notice. Some people sell their creations out of the trunks of their cars, I was selling them right off of my own neck. I quickly realized that I needed to set up shop.

So you know I treasure my own individuality, but did you know that I treasure yours as well? Every piece is a one-of-a-kind. Sure, I might riff off of themes, but no two necklaces are ever identical.

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I found some more jewelry that’s on the funkier side the other day at Lluvia Designs. Phaedra A. Torres makes unique necklaces, bracelets, earrings out of a kaleidoscope of different items. Some pieces feature “found” components such as shells and buttons, while others use handcrafted silver (often made by her family in Mexico) as focal points.

A lot of her items have a playful, bohemian flair to them, but I also get the sense of a deeper organic look to a lot of the pieces especially in the use of knotted leather cord and shells. There’s almost a sort of connection to the landscape in much of her jewelry.

Some background from her site:

I started selling my unique pieces several years ago after many requests for purchasing my handcrafted jewelry. I am based in Los Angeles, and began making jewelry as a hobby over 15 years ago. All items available for purchase are handmade and one of a kind. Most of the silver used is handcrafted by my family in Mexico, who have been metalsmiths for generations.

Continue reading “Lluvia Designs” …

I found some interesting and cute stuff over at the UK jewelry site (that’s actually “jewellery” for many sites across the pond!) Aurora Bloom the other day. Jenny Hudson designs all the pieces and has been making bracelets, brooches, earrings, necklaces and phone charms for a number of years, but only set up her online shop this year.

Although the color scheme of many of her pieces tends toward the more pink and/or girly (which is usually not a style we gravitate toward), I liked her choice of unusual components such as shells, cameos, polished stones and vintage plastic in the work which makes it a bit different than many other DIY designers who have similar items.

From her site:

The findings and beads used to make our jewellery have been carefully sourced from a number of suppliers. The current range is made up of components from the USA, Africa, Czech Republic, Austria, Bali, Japan, Germany and the UK. There is a strong emphasis on ‘the unusual’ and mixing the past with contemporary styles.

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Whenever I’m surfing around on DIY jewelry sites and come across an interesting piece, I almost always file it in a “Check Out Again Later” bookmark folder. I was going through my folder the other day and I came across Bella Jolie Designs again. Tricia Miller, who has been designing the jewelry for Bella Jolie at her home studio in Washington state for the past four years, creates elegant and fun necklaces, bracelets and earrings using hand picked precious stones. She uses a wide variety of gem materials including Tourmaline, Peridot, Citrine, Amethyst, Rubies, Garnets and Sapphires. These are combined in her jewelry with a choice of 14k gold filled or sterling silver findings and wirewrap.

Some information about her design process and philosophy from her website:

I create jewelry because I have a passion for the process. From selecting high quality tools and materials to completing a piece of jewelry- I love every bit. I am inspired by beautiful gems and stones. I hand select them much like most people would a diamond: in my case for richness of color, the cut, and quality. By the time I get these treasures home, I am already excited to begin creating. I love putting different shapes and colors into my hand admiring the beauty of them. Next I spend hours happily working these gems into the finished products you see on my website.

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I came across some really beautiful jewelry through Stylebakery’s Designers on the Rise yesterday. The company in question is called Indulgems Jewelry and from their name you might be able to guess a little bit about what their philosophy regarding jewelry is. From their site:

At Indulgems we believe in something very simple: Indulgence should happen often, in small dosage or large, to add that necessary warmth and pizzazz to life.

Our one-of-a-kind jewelry creations are hand-made with this idea in mind. We want you to pamper yourself, to wear exquisitely crafted jewelry with confidence and joy. We also believe that indulgence does not need to come with a shocking price tag…

If you believe that indulgence is a necessity and pampering is a must; if you have the confidence to stand out from the crowd, to express your inner poise with outer beauty; if you aspire to adorn yourself with jewelry that makes heads turn, and to never shy away from compliments, then you have come to the right place.

I think that’s a pretty wise way to go… for while the pieces at Indulgems are not exactly your everyday affordable item, everyone needs a little something special once in awhile. As long as you don’t go overboard, these types of gifts to yourself are important!

Indulgems main jewelry designer is Grace C, who like quite a few designers is self taught and sort of fell into the profession through business school. She creates one of a kind necklaces, earrings, and bracelets that feature luxurious precious stones often wrapped with silver, gold and gold filled wire. Her pieces can be very ornate but for some reason I was really drawn to them especialy in their frequent usage of vibrant, multicolored stones (something I don’t tend to gravitate to usually) and twisted wire work sort of in the style of “French Beaded Flowers” that I mentioned in my previous entry.

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I’ve found my way to the Beaded Flowers site more than once so I decided to give it its own entry finally. Although, this isn’t technically jewelry making, I’d been investigating some of the interesting ideas and techniques to see how they might apply to making wirewrap beaded jewelry.

The technique of French Beaded Flowers involves wrapping beads and wire around central rows of beads in order to create the likeness of flowers and plants of various types. When performed correctly the results can be astonishingly lifelike and in fact from a distance or in a smaller photo they appear to be the plant in question!

I looked online and it seems this has actually been around for a long time, perhaps the 14th or 15th century in Europe but didn’t come to the United States until the 1800s. Recently, French Beaded Flowers have experienced a renewal of interest, particularly with the advent of the internet making the techniques and materials widely available.

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You may just want to join the Naughty Secretary Club, but not because there’s anything particular naughty about it! I always maintain that a catchy or unusual name for a DIY jewelry company can make all the difference in the world and this is a good example.

Not that they’re hiding at all behind their slightly flamboyant name. Jennifer Perkins from NSC (as we shall abbreviate hereafter for this review), creates funky jewelry that emphasizes one of my favorite aspects about DIY jewelry making - reused and renewed items from the past. Along with her mom and sister, she has created a myriad of unique necklaces, bracelets, earrings and brooches that are very colorful and creative. She also features a large selection of non-jewelry items that are just as cool including home accessoires, purses, and fashion accessories like hair clips and belt buckles.

NSC has three basic lines for each jewelry category which include Revamped Vintage (creative pieces made from older, antique jewelry bits), Nostalgic Notions (older antique jewelry stock that have not been worn or used before) and Nouveau (tasteful newer reproductions of vintage costume jewelry).

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One of the most difficult things for the beginning jewelry designer is figuring out how to sell items online. Sure, you could just open up an Ebay account and sell items on there and many jewelry makers have been successful at that.

However, there is a huge amount of undercutting competition on Ebay… people want bargains and unless you’ve already made a name for yourself it can be tough to attract buyers unless your prices are perilously cheap.

So maybe you are interested in doing some sort of consignment. This can be tough for pricing too, because many consigners take 30-40% of the sale price. Plus, many want to see some sort of track record already and of course there are the dreaded “returns” if your items don’t sell.

Enter Etsy.com which was launched just month or so ago but already has a pretty large following. You can think of Etsy as a sort of “mini-Ebay” that lets you have your own “shop” site. Everyone gets their own shop that is customizable, along with a subdomain url (yourname.etsy.com). Here’s a screenshot of a sample shop:

They charge a $0.20 commission in order to list an item no matter the quantity or price. This is nice to be able to have the same item listed without getting hit with the listing fee again. For every sale they take a 3.5% commission fee which is pretty reasonable, in the range of a fee that is charged by credit card companies. Like Ebay they are merely a “connection” site between buyers and sellers. So it’s a buyer’s responsibility to pay and a seller’s responsibility to handle shipping, etc.

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I surfed into the Twigs and Heather website completely by accident, but decided to post about their designs here because they were so unusual. I’ve said before that I dig unusual jewelry, in particular interesting metal cast jewelry. And the work here certainly fits the “unusual” tag!

This is also pretty cool: Heather and Kerry Collins, who run Twigs and Heather, are TWIN silversmiths who create mysterious but beautiful silver castings out of the natural items around their home in New England. Their casting methods mix a bit of old school (wax and natural burn out casting) with some newer innovations. Here’s some information from the about page of their site:

Based in Kittery, Maine, Twigs and Heather uses twigs and plant life native to Atlantic Northeast. Born and raised in Nahant, on the North Shore of Massachusetts, Heather & Kerry’s profound love of the ocean, and the trees that grow around it, first fueled the inspirations for their work.

They are super imaginative in the type of materials they use. The resulting jewelry ranges from cuffs and rings cast from rolled Birch Bark to handcrafted Maple Seed necklaces that look almost like silver insect wings! They also make jewelry utilizing beach glass as well as more traditional looking silver charms.

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I actually found Jill Italiano’s jewelry work through the Stylebakery Designers on the Rise section. I had seen the little blurb but had forgotten to click through earlier.

Using semi-precious stones and silver and gold, Jill creates playful yet elegant necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings and brooches utilizing a wide palette of colors. I notice a good amount of pearls used in her bracelets and necklaces. One of her signature themes that appears in much of her work is a vibrant flower motif that uses faceted semi-precious stones. The effect is a delicate one rather than overly vibrant which is rather nice.

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