Jewelry Making

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

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.

Boy, I had meant to post this show much earlier but just forgot about it. The reason - we are actually participating in this for Bellaceti so nearly every waking hour has been devoted to increasing inventory for the show!

This is Felt Club (a play upon the popular “Fight Club” movie) and is a new monthly indie mini-craft fair of 20-25 revolving diy artisans making handmade goods, jewelry, paper products and clothing. It usually takes place at The Echo, but the upcoming one is going to be a larger show of 70 crafters and is taking place at the Ukranain Culture Center on Melrose Ave in L.A.

If you happen to be in the Los Angeles area, stop by and say hi… we’ll be there from 12-7pm under our Bellaceti store name. More information at:

www.feltclub.com/

FELT CLUB: XL Holiday Edition
Saturday, DECEMBER 9, 12pm-7pm
@ THE UKRAINIAN CULTURAL CENTER
4315 Melrose Ave. @ Heliotro

Whew! Can you say gem-mania??! We have been meaning to pay a visit to the International Gem and Jewelry Show and finally got a chance to last week. The show is a massive bazaar of gems, minerals and jewelry from all different stores and shops from around the area and abroad. It was developed 37 years ago (by Herbert A Duke, Sr.) and has grown to about 80 shows per year in 30 cities in the U.S.

OK, so attending this show was a long time coming and we thought we knew what to expect. However, the sheer amount of gems and beads available was staggering. We have previously attended the one-room Rings -n- Things special travelling gem shows before and thought there was a pretty decent selection. The IGJS was about 30 times bigger!

Walking into the show floor (our show was held at the Pasadena Convention Center in Southern Cal) is somewhat of a sensory overload, and we actually had to do a “first-pass” around the room before even picking anything up.

There are a ton of folks selling jewelry making items like gemstones, beads, findings, wire and chain. But interestingly, there are also quite a few stores selling items that are already assembled or ready-for-purchase jewelry. I guess that is because a lot of the people who come in aren’t looking for bargains on supplies but actually want to pick up jewelry for their own use. Even though we could safely ignore those particular booths, the number of vendors was still daunting.

The prices were pretty good all around, but we hadn’t really prepared lists of items we needed or done research on exactly how much things cost. So it was a bit difficult to do smart shopping. We overheard one vendor say to someone that a booth at the show costs over a thousand dollars for the 3 day show. Still, even at those show prices many vendors had nearly all their items marked down. You just had to know what to look for.

Continue reading “Intl Gem and Jewelry Show” …

I was just clued into the MJSA Trade Show for Jewelry Making which is taking place this Fall in Rhode Island. Just what is the MJSA? It’s the Manufacturing Jewelrs and Suppliers of America organization which is dedicated to helping designers, jewelry manufacturers, suppliers, gem dealers and anyone connected to the business of making jewelry achieve greater profitability. Members have access to cost-saving biz plans, marketing / promotion opportunities, buyers guides, the MJSA jewelry academy and advertising opportunities.

They also put out a print publication, the MJSA journal, and you can get a free trial copy of on their site. It’s a pretty decent mag, though more serious than your standard beader magazine. It focuses more on the business and marketing side of jewelry making as opposed to “how-to” tutorials.

Continue reading “MJSA Trade Show” …

We’ve talked about the Renegade Craft Fair before so if anything this is just reminder that the New York show is taking place in Brooklyn, New York this coming weekend. Since it’s too late to signup to be a vendor the best you can do if you’re a jewelry maker is head down to the event to check it out in case you want to apply next year. However, if you happen to live in Chicago, they are now taking applications for the 4th annual one in that city which will take place September 16, 17 in Wicker Park from 11am-6pm. The deadline for that one is July 1.

Here’s the basic details for next week’s New York Renegade Craft Fair:

Brooklyn Renegade Craft Fair
Saturday- Sunday June 17 - 18
11AM - 6PM
McCarren Park
N. 12th St and Bedford Ave. in Williamsburg

There are a TON of big name sponsors for the event, including Venus, ReadyMade and Bust Magazine. It has really blossomed since it first started up in 2003, with over 200 vendors.

Both fairs are “juried” craft shows and the application fee for the Chicago one now stands at $210.

You can visit their site at:

www.renegadecraft.com

Hopefully you’re not like me and you actually write down on your calendar important TV shows that you want to catch. I kept on missing Diana Friedberg’s two-part “World On A String” presentation on public television which was a segment on the importance of beads and beadworking around the world historically and in present day usage. (I think they are coming out with 2 additional segments as well.) I know they keep showing it periodically but I keep forgetting to set the VCR.

And now I realized that I goofed and missed checking out Oh! Be Jewelled on the Oxygen network this past weekend. Oh well, I’m sure they’ll be showing other episodes, right?

A little blurb from their website:

Oh Be Jewelled gives you a insider’s look into the latest trends in jewellry and shows you step-by-step how to create your own pieces that are unique, personal and totally current. Some of the hottest looks are easy enough for a beginner and surprisingly affordable.

I did hear some people say that the jewelry design processes shown were a bit quick, though that’s probably to be expected in these rapid fire cable shows.

For those who can’t wait until the next one airs, they actually have several videos on their site including tutorials for making a charm bracelet, making a layered necklace, and making hammered earrings. There are also downloadable PDF files that explain the process, though I was a bit disappointed that there were no pictures to go along with the text…

A quick note for jewelry makers who live up in the Bay Area in California. The well-known multi-city indie craft show Bazaar Bizarre has expanded to include San Francisco as a venue.

Originally started up in the Boston area back in 2001 by Greg Der Ananian, the Bazaar Bizarre was an attempt to share personal artsy creations with other like-minded folks who were into making crafts that weren’t typically sold at “your granny’s craft fair.”

The fair has had successful shows in Boston, Cleveland, and Los Angeles. We actually participated as Bellaceti at last year’s Bazaar Bizarre Los Angeles at the Shrine Auditorium, and although the sales didn’t exactly provide the windfall we had expected the show was a nice first experience as a vendor. There were quite a few jewelry makers as well, so there was some expected competition. But a ton of people attended the all day show.

The newest Bazaar location will actually be at the Maker Faire which takes place at the San Mateo Fairgrounds near SF. The event is taking place this Spring on April 22-23, 2006. Unlike the previous Bazaar Bizarres, this one is not going to be a standalone event; but the Maker Faire will definitely attract a similar clientele since it’s put on by Make Magazine. The fair will feature The Mythbusters and “all kinds of people who make amazing things in garages, basements, and backyards.”

I’m not sure how this Bazaar will differ from previous ones… one other thing to note is that it’s held over two days, whereas the normal Bazaars are usually just one day. If you should be interested in being a jewelry vendor, you should probably contact them to find out more.

The Bazaare Bizarre website is located at: http://bazaarbizarre.org/

I found another cool looking potential DIY jewelry craft show/fair to consider when selling your items.

This one has the interesting name No Coast Craft-O-Rama which is of course because the craft fair is located in Minneapolis, MN. So many times for craft shows and fairs, you hear about “West Coast this” and “East Coast that” - and so I think these people got a little tired of being ignored so they’ve tagged their show with catchy name “No Coast”!

The Craft-O-Rama is put together by Crafters Local 612, who are 6 crafty gals (Tracy, Willa, Ellen, Kristen S, Eireann and Kristen Mary) from the area. What is the No Coast Craft-O-Rama? Here is their description:

A hip craft sale catering to unique handmade items of all sorts put on by people who wanted to have a venue for buying and selling crafts typically outside the “craft sale” or “art sale” norm.

Continue reading “No Coast Craft-O-Rama” …

I hadn’t taken the time to look online to check for Jewelry Shows and Fairs lately. But yesterday I found out about the Urban Craft Uprising show on the IBuyDIY site (which in itself is a pretty cool place to visit)

Like we’ve said before, it can be really difficult to get your jewelry designs in front of a targeted audience. This is especially true if you’re just starting out. So it might be helpful to spring for a table at a smaller independent craft fair where the traffic is already interested in handmade things. This can also be a great way to network and compare notes with other jewelry designers.

Urban Craft Uprising looks like a fairly good sized independent craft show featuring the work of vendors in the Pacific Northwest. Specifically, the show is taking place at the Artists Gallery of Seattle on Sunday November 6, 2005 from 12-6pm.

Here is the mission statement from their website:

We are funky, independent designers with craftitude. We will bring to Seattle, Washington an annual juried show of over 50 vendors whose work is handmade and reflects the current DIY revolution. Our goal is to provide the optimal environment for vendors to showcase their creations and for the public to have the opportunity to buy unique, handmade, one-of-a-kind items.

Continue reading “Urban Craft Uprising” …