Wire Sculpting Jewelry

The art of jewelry making traces its roots back to thousands of years ago and it has evolved into much more sophisticated techniques originated by man which is now called wire sculpting. In wire sculpting, it is apparent that the basic element and material is a wire and wires are really versatile elements in any jewelry making activities.

One great jewelry making technique which is wire sculpting allows you to manipulate wires into amazing end result projects with the use of other elements like gemstones, beads, and other materials possible for making jewelry.

Jewelry based on wires inspires a more fashion forward sense of style but in a lesser price since wires can be bought reasonably low. You only need to know basic wire sculpting techniques to make great pieces to start with.

Wire Sculpting Tools And Techniques

Tools are necessary for any type of artisan work, you live by tools and materials alone to create amazing pieces of artwork, and so is jewelry making. Among these tools are:

Pliers And Wires

There are different types of pliers for different techniques of wire sculpting procedures, and given enough time and practice these techniques will make you an expert on this field. Wire sculpting is a tedious and meticulous but fulfilling jewelry niche, that is why you need to know the basic functions of your pliers when it come to wire sculpting.

Check out this article on wire sculpture tools and techniques and know more of pliers and their usage, wire gauge sizes, and definitions that will clearly state the basic function for your wire sculpting projects.

Techniques

To any jewelry making projects, techniques are important to create fabulous designs, look at this gorgeous pair of spring earrings, isn’t it just stunning specially when you use a gold plated wire? The technique of coiling the wire around the mandrel and open up “the coils to form a flower like design. You can see that the design is really simple with only the wire to use as your material but the result if excellent!

This video also shows how to make a Roman cuff wire bracelet that is splendid on its own. Watch this.

Another technique is to incorporate some gemstone to your wire sculpting activities and make a gorgeous wire-wrapped stone jewelry. A video on wire wrapped rings using semi-precious stones is shown below.

The coiling gizmo technique! This is an exciting technique with the use of a coiling gizmo and you can incorporate coiled beads into your future jewelry making projects like the one showed at the end of the video.

For every wire sculpture design you can imagine, there is a specific technique and tool that you can use. And though the steps and tools are really simple to follow and use, it takes hard work to create one of these wire sculpting projects. What’s really important is how you put your mind and heart to it to make an exciting piece of jewelry.

Technorati Tags: Wire sculpting, Wire sculpting jewelry, Wire wrapped jewelry

Stone Jewelry History

Stone jewelry has been a favorite to many jewelry artists; the rustic and cool effect that it brings to a certain piece of jewelry makes it even more appealing to customers. These natural wonders of the earth are more beautiful with its natural colors, texture, and charm that long history of processes made it possible.

The fact that stones have been in formation ever since the pre-historic ages begun, makes you connected with the earth and all its history. A single stone has its own history, be it an agate, tourmaline, opal, amethyst, Garnett, or even a simple pebble.

These stones have been in use whether in fashion accessories and the supposed healing effects that it brings to the one wearing it. One question though, which is more appealing to you, natural stones jewelry or synthetic made?

Stone Jewelry Making

There are four main methods of using a stone component to your jewelry, check below:

Bell Cap

With the use of some strong crafting glue and base metal bell cap, an ordinary stone or gemstone can be turned into an amazing jewelry that anybody can admire.

Wire Wrapping

Wire wrapping the stone for a pendant is a great project too, here’s a YouTube video on how to do that.

You will see that it’s pretty easy to do that and it just takes some determination and creativity on your part to be successful on this jewelry making project.

Drilled

For drilling stones, a good gem drill will be your best tool to do this. It ensures proper and sturdy placement of your jewelry wire and keeps all components in place too. Some great pictures of drilled stone turned into a magnificent set of jewelry.  All of these pieces are from Etsy, take a look!

Silversmithing

Silversmithing is a lot of hard work but with precious stones, it will be worth it to preserve the stone’s beauty and maintain the history the stone comes with. Here is a link to one blogger, silversmith, and jewelry maker’s tutorial on her silversmithing project.

Making your own stone jewelry using these techniques no longer is as hard as you think, armed with your interest in making these kinds of project; you will all be set to making your own stone jewelry collection soon.
Not only do you celebrate the long history that the stone has, you also celebrate the process of how a particular gemstone came about polished, “machine-cut” like, or how vibrant the colors came to be. It is a wonder how these pieces remain on the earth for our use and eyes, but one thing remains true, it is a beauty to behold!

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Care For Silver Jewelry

Silver has been used since ancient times for jewelry and other ornaments, even for flatware, and containers. Up to this day, silver has been used for making jewelry, mixed with other elements to make it really pretty.

But one thing about silver is that it is really soft, too soft to use for jewelry items, see this article for more information on sterling silver. The main problem really is tarnishing because of the presence of copper, which is why caring for your silver jewelry is very important.

How To Care For Silver Jewelry

There are certain harsh chemicals that should be avoided when using silver jewelry such as hair spray, perfume, cosmetics, and chlorine. This will immediately tarnish your silver piece as soon as there is contact to the substance.

Also, if your grandmother or some old folks havetold you to use toothpaste to clean your silver jewelry, think again. Toothpaste has anabrasive substance that will leave a dull scratchy finish on your jewelry. You wouldn’t want that to happen to your silver pieces, wouldyou?

It would help if you wear your silver jewelry as often as possible such that your body oils will prevent tarnishing so sterling silver doesn’t have to be cleaned as often.

For quick cleaning, you can use a mild dish soap and warm water to avoid ruining your silver pieces. Silver is fairly a soft metal and it can easily be scratched when you use abrasive materials to clean it.

One way of cleaning your silver jewelry is with asilver cloth. A material made of 100% cotton flannel that will definitely aide you in maintaining a scratch-free silver jewelry.

Storage

First rule, never store your silver jewelry wet or moist since humidity and open air can hasten corrosion on the silver piece and therefore will result to a yellowish tint on your jewelry which is not pleasant to look at.

If you must keep it for a long time, make sure that you store it in a container that is free from humidity and if you are to store in a Ziplock, then take out all the air inside the bag to prevent air and humidity mixing in the silver jewelry and avert tarnishing.

And if you are to use stackable containers for your silver jewelry storage, one thing to remember is to make sure the jewelry pieces has been dried carefully not leaving any residue. This will help slow the process of oxidization from your silver jewelry.

Taking care of your jewelry and finding appropriate storage can be really easy if you know the basic how-to’s in making your silver pieces stay as beautiful as it was first bought. How you take care of your belongings will reflect on how you take care of yourself and business, so keep your jewelry pieces clean and make your life less stressful.

Technorati Tags: jewelry care, Jewelry storage, silver jewelry, Sterling silver jewelry

Jewelry Making Tools

Any jewelry artist cannot be as efficient as they can be without jewelry making tools, some really expensive gadgets, others can be your trustworthy pliers. Whatever that is, tools are all part of jewelry making and not a single thing is less than the other when it comes to functionality.

List Of Jewelry Making Tools

Aside from the beads, thread and wires used for jewelry making, there are more equally important tools that are being used by artisans, and that includes:

Pliers

Whether crimping beads or cutting a wire, pliers are essential tools for jewelry making projects, there are approximately 10 pliers used for jewelry making and that includes, bent nose, crimping, flat nose, precision round nose, ring bending, side cutter, split ring, stone setting, and wire wrapping pliers. Take a look at this list of pliers from Wire Sculpture for more information.

Tweezers

It is used to bend or give shape to metal wires and comes in many shapes to serve different purposes.

Wire Cutters

This will help you in cutting excess wires that are not possible with pliers. Different wires require different wire cutters, so it is imperative to know the type of wires you are using to prevent damage on the tool.

Measuring Tape

This too is an integral part of jewelry making tools. Measurements are being done to properly string in beads and make some really good ends on the jewelry.

Needles

Needles, needless to say will help you sew in the thread and make some knots to end a current jewelry project. Just be careful and store it in a place where no other people have access.

Crafting Glue

In just about anything on jewelry making, crafting glue is really significant for holding together beads and threads, making sure everything is in its place tucked to last. But you must have the knowledge to use certain kinds of glue for different materials, here’s a crafting glue chart that will tell you which type of glue is for this type of material surface.

There are actually many more jewelry making tools in the market today, but these are the basics. Depending on your jewelry niche, other jewelry making tools can be bought along with the knowledge that you have on a certain level.

If you are planning to make some of those lampwork beads, then you may need to have a torch to melt those glass rods. So basically, the more training you have on jewelry making, the more it is that you acquire sophisticated tools for jewelry making.

Good pieces of jewelry are imperative to the kind of tools you are using. Store them in a place that’s not so damp or humid and not so cold that it hampers the performance of the tool. Have some wooden box or some improvised cardboard to carry all your tools.

Store it in one corner and always place it on the same spot where you put it the first time. Have some order when it comes to this activity as jewelry making is a demanding hobby. But if you get the hang of it, jewelry making will just be really easy for everybody armed with the perfect jewelry making tools.

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Earring Cards Corner

One of the things an artisan has to be concerned about is how they can maximize the potential of their business by cutting cost on certain areas where quality will not be compromised. And earring cards are just the perfect element of business that you can have great savings on!

Earring cards work as a marketing tool too if thought of and made with great emphasis on how customers can retain information on the card itself. Now there are a lot of pre-made earring cards out there in crafts stores, Etsy, Rio Grande, Fire Mountain Gems and just any jewelry store you come into has their own share of earring cards for grabs.

But what’s best is you can make it yourself. And by DIY, it means you having the control on the kind of personality you want to imbibe on your jewelry business by the kind of earring cards you have.

It can actually be some sort of business card that contains all the important elements of a business card. Read on jewelry business cards to be informed.

But of course earring cards will be a lot smaller than the generic business card size but it should always be full of the marketing strategies any business paraphernalia should have. It should contain of the website URL, email address, telephone number, if possible the logo of your jewelry business, and some space for your words describing your collection. See here for more ideas onjewelry tags.

How To Make Personalized Earring Cards

If it would be too much for you to put out some good amount of money for earring cards, then it’s time that you make your own earring cards! Yes, a do-it-yourself earring card. How do you make one?

First, you need to choose the best paper that you can have, acid-free paper will be your best choice for this. Make sure that quality wise, the paper can hold the weight of your earrings and not really fall off, or worse tear up in the middle of the craft show. You can avoid that by using the best paper material possible, this might be your biggest investment then.

Second, your good old PC and printer to help you come up with the design you have in mind. There are really a lot of designs online that you can check on so you can create your own branding.

If you are into pearls, Swarovski, or polymer clay, then your design for your earring card should always be in line with your jewelry niche. Keep it really simple if possible and do not overpower the design of the jewelry piece itself.

Third, your earring card punch kit for a neat, tidy, and easy way to punch a hole on your cards. The tool comes in handy when you are keeping a uniform look on holes for your earring cards. But you can actually use a needle for that for a more cost-efficient jewelry tool.

There are so many ways that you can design your own earring card. One is the conventional square or rectangular and other designs may vary depending on the jewelry itself. Or you can cut the sides off and make some really neat style around the edges.

Once these earring cards are finished, stack them neatly so they won’t wrinkle and you’ll have a nice earring card to hang your jewelry on!

Technorati Tags: cards, Earring cards, Earring tags, Jewelry hang tags

Jewelry Design

Where do you get inspiration for your jewelry designs? Often when faced with this dilemma, you tend to flip through pages of fashion magazines or browse the Internet for new ideas. But what is really a good design?

A good jewelry design is when style and comfort are fused into one, something that would make you wear it and not be uncomfortable by the weight and texture of the materials being used.

For jewelry design ideas, a good combination of nature and synthetic materials can be used, like using a leather string instead of beading threads. Then you can string in beads made of resin to complete the look. It is both economical and the leather gives a certain edge to the design, plus resin is very light materials as finished products so it is really comfortable to wear.

Plan Jewelry Design Ideas

Draw Your Design

Visualize how you want your jewelry to look like when it’s done. Jewelry making is artistry in itself so allot some time for your jewelry making activities. As artisans, you are entitled to your own space and time for those ideas to take place.

You must keep it really organized by drawing your design first, scribble some designs that you can think of and color them. I have found these really cool and useful jewelry design software that will come in handy for any of your jewelry making binges.

Patterns For You – lets you upload an image of your design and create a pattern using your selected stitches, namely, peyote, loom, bricks, and right angle weave.

This will be great for bracelet and necklace design ideas so you can automatically just follow the pattern and go on with making jewelry.

E-Perle – is actually in French but I find this to be a great software and easy to navigate. The language is not a barrier when it comes to making your own design, in fact is really user friendly. So try and check that out!

Design Tool by Swarovski Elements – is also a great tool that helps you design jewelry using Swarovski but of course you can use other materials for this design tool. Your imagination is the limit!

Prepare Your Materials

Keep all materials in a safe place out of reach of children if you are dealing with hot surfaces or very little beads, for obvious reasons. Make sure that after all has been laid out and you have your design ready, all your materials like beads, findings, clasps, toggles, and all that stuff within your each.There should be designated containers for each bead and finding, and carefully labeled too.

Jewelry Design Ideas

Bracelet Design Ideas

Necklace design Ideas

Ring Design Ideas

Earring Design Ideas

These are just sample of images that you can get ideas from, remember, the designs should come from your heart. The designs you make reflects the kind of jewelry business that you have, so make it a point to set aside some inspiration weekend, away from all the stress of domestic obligations, and be ready to launch your own collection as soon as ideas start flowing. Be bold and creative!

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The Etsy Connection

When it comes to jewelry and crafts, there’s nothing more exciting than being able to share your talent and skills by showcasing your work and hope that people will love it and will have an interest to buy one.

In the past, selling handcrafted jewelry is so much hard work, what with all the talking with possible resellers from craft shops and establishing your business from scratch. But today, technology has made artisans realize that there is more to just creating beautiful pieces of jewelry.

You need to have a medium in which people will have one place to go to when they think of jewelry. And that’s where the idea of Etsy’s Rob Kalin came from. The idea was just revolutionary when people were just getting in the hype of social networking!

So what’s in it for you? As what Kalin envisioned it to be, “The little guy being able to organize a better marketplace”. So that’s how you are going to set up your etsy jewelry business. Make gorgeous pieces of jewelry and tap Etsy’s still growing marketplace of handmade crafts.

How Does It Work

Since it was born way back 2005, it has attracted hundreds, even thousands of small business owners in the crafts section has been making use of this opportunity to make their businesses known all over the world. That is widespread marketing strategy if you ask me.

That is the beautiful thing about Etsy, it gives you a place to direct your customers to, coming from your own website and Facebook fan pages. It actually gives a sense of belongingness as almost all tech-savvy artisans go for this kind of marketing strategy.

Do’s and Don’ts

• Don’t expect to be an overnight sensation just because you think your jewelry projects are great! – Work it to the top!
• It is not Etsy’s fault if your sales are not soaring high, what they do is just provide you with an alternative to present your finished products.
• Do make an effort to promote your Etsy site through massive campaign in Facebook, to your friends, and even email marketing where it is appropriate.
• Don’t disregard comments on your Etsy images. Interact with your audience as soon as they post a comment or a maximum of 2 hours to demonstrate reliability and credibility of your business.
• Do spend some time to take amazing pictures of your jewelry. Just because your necklaces and bracelets are beautiful, it does not guarantee a sale. You have to take great professional shots of these jewelry pieces.
• It can be frustrating and a turn off at times to see poorly lighted images of your pieces. Take a look at this article on how to photograph a jewelry properly. Invest in this area to highlight really good jewelry and be on the top list of Etsy finds.
• Do make every possible tag for your images, this is how search engine rankings work, so write every possible tag , you can put up to 14 tags per image, so that’s a lot of possibilities!
• Do add in images of your jewelry regularly. That is one of the key factors too. People need to know that you are serious on your craft and business.
• Do write about your product in your blog and show off. This is the right time to boast about something, and if that means getting those pieces sold, then so be it.
• Do understand your customers and target market. See this article on profitable jewelry niche markets for amore thorough explanation.

So you see there are only 2 Don’ts in the list, meaning achieving good sales isn’t really that far. All you need is the perseverance and passion for what you do. You should love your craft and ultimately the love will be returned as well.

Etsy jewelry is really a place for artisans starting out in the field of jewelry business, if you know in your heart that this is the place for you, then go for it and have fun!

Technorati Tags: Etsy, Etsy jewelry, handcrafted jewelry, Handmade Jewelry

eBay Jewelry

eBay is such a huge hit to all online consumers when it comes to affordable and hard to find pieces specially for a jewelry. It has curved and changed the direction of e-commerce as far as traffic is concerned.

It has become part of an online seller’s to do list to have an account over eBay and post some great pictures and start their push for selling their great pieces. Jewelry is a fetish for women, and in the start of the millennia, men too have developed an interest in this field.

That is why eBay Jewelry is such a great place for all artisans to gather and be a part of an organization of dedicated and hardworking jewelry artists. You just have to read the policies for their sellers to be aware of their general selling conditions.

How To Sell Jewelry In eBay

There is tremendous competition in eBay but that doesn’t mean that you have to just all take all your gears down. You can still make it through the long list of marketing stuff before you can say you have made it to the top. And it doesn’t happen overnight.

You have to learn to create a business plan for yourself; it doesn’t take a genius on business marketing to do this. But to top it all, you must have a good inventory to prove your business stability. You don’t want to spoil visitors to your eBay site in just 3 minutes.

Engage them with great photos of your jewelry. Put up some really to-die-for designs and list the history of why the design came into conception, the materials you used, and convince them how it would really fit them well when they wear it.

Like how we eat with our eyes, online customers buy with their eyes too. Make all your images professional looking, focus on what’s best and make it really look stunning! Read this article for a guideline on how to photograph jewelry.

eBay is also good for auction, so have a good inventory of new pieces and old pieces of your jewelry collection. Separate them in different listings and make sure that you price them thinking of your potential customers.

It can be really hard sometimes when you make decisions like giving out your favorite glass beads bracelet at a starting bid of $.10. But what’s really great is the price can double up with regards to its selling price. However, the downside is exactly the opposite. You can actually have a fairly low price for a piece with a much higher value.

But the only consolation is if you have a vast inventory, they will see it on featured listings and you can be assured of repeat customers. People will bookmark your site and come back to and buy some really good jewelry in fairly competitive prices. The key here is building a relationship of trust from your customer. Once it has been established, it is not that hard to sell the second piece and the rest of the collection.

Now for your inventory needs, Bead Manager Pro will help you keep track of inventory, price your pieces automatically, and even manage your invoicing. You just don’t realize how this software can help you in so many ways without compromising productivity and quality of your work.

So set your priorities ready and head off to eBay jewelry selling for it is a tested ground to set your feet on to. All you need is some great jewelry collection, a little gut, and a lot of patience and you can go a long way in running an eBay jewelry business.

Technorati Tags: Ebay jewelry, Jewelry online, online jewelry store

Why Join Jewelry Auctions

We can collect jewelry of every form and material, from pearls to glass beads, or your all time favorite semi-precious stones. But you will soon realize that a lot of these collections have just been sitting in your storage box for quite a time and so you think it might be wise to dispose it through jewelry auctions.

If you have been making jewelry for quite some time, there might be some slow-selling pieces that you need to dispose of and that needs to be taken care of. Jewelry pieces can clutter up space and it’s really just better to sell it than to lose its luster and shine from being stored for such a long time.

And so that is why jewelry auctions are such a great opportunity to showcase jewelry projects, though you have to compromise with prices. What’s the good thing about jewelry auctions are prices can start really cheap and you can get treasured jewelry heirlooms and pieces at a bargain price.

Traditional Vs. Online Jewelry Auctions

With the growth of Internet today, it is really easy to just post some pictures over your own website and have some sort of auction weekend. You can post images of your jewelry pieces with descriptions on it at different angles. It is important that you show different facets of your jewelry so that customers will have an idea of how it’s going to look like on them when they wear it.

And the good thing about online jewelry auctions is the wide reach of audience. There will be varied customers who will be willing to buy your merchandise and get it for a good sum of money too. With a wide range of customers, bidding will just be very exciting!

That is how traditional jewelry auctions really differ; people who will attend jewelry auctions will have a chance of trying the piece on them and get a glimpse of them from the mirror of how gorgeous the piece is.

But traditional auctions pay for rent, the “auctioneer” who calls for bids and bangs that little gavel to call the sale, and the food, not to mention ushers, sound system and many operating expenses to hold an auction sale.However, it can be really rewarding. The trust is already established and seeing the jewelry pieces can be really inviting provided the pieces are really gorgeous.

Jewelry Auction Sites

For starters, you can actually try doing it on your Facebook fan page like this Jewelry Auction For Ethiopia page. It really is upon you to hold this auctions a lot more exciting and within reach to your customers.

eBay also is a good venue for your jewelry auction activities. It is one great place for auctions that gets visited by millions of buyers. There is also a list of jewelry auction sites here that you can really check on and get yourself familiar with.

Jewelry auctions are just one of the marketing strategies for your jewelry projects to be sold. It can be a lot of hard work with all the labeling and taking of pictures for your chosen pieces going but it can be fun too. So just go on, think of what’s best for your jewelry auction weekend thing and let the bidding begin!

Technorati Tags: Auctions, jewelry auctions, Online jewelry auctions

You can do anything with polymer clay, form it into different shapes and sizes, big and small and design it to whatever character or style that will come up from your imagination. After all has been done, designed polymer clay can then put inside a kiln to achieve its desired texture and solid state.

However, making flexible clay is far different aside from its name.The video above gives you an idea on how you can make those flexible clay and make great jewelry pieces out from the material itself.

It’s a very quick process and takes only minutes to make and it can be used immediately, there’s no waiting at all. You can make textured sheets to use as bezels, shaped forms, folded, woven, tied or wrapped designs and more. Flexible clay can be textured and cut with scissors, shape cutters, tissue blades and scalpels.

You can actually make sheets as thin or thick as desired but flexible clay is not for Art Clay silver. A good PMC silver clay can be used for this project. So watch carefully and create more jewelry using flexible clay. Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Flexible bugle beads, flexible clay