From Concept to Completion: Making Jewellery

Ever wondered how jewellery designers come up with their ideas? What design factors are taken into account (and what commercial limitations there are in place)? Here I aim to give you an idea of my concept-to-product process. A sunny afternoon in late July is not really the setting one might expect a winter jewellery collection to be conceptualised in but that’s exactly what I was doing this summer. July is the perfect time for me. Summer is slow on the jewellery components and beads side and I like to stocktake over the summer to ensure everything is ready for the September rush on jewellery making customers. So I close my online shops in late July, take everything I want to use to make jewellery and then frantically make as much as possible for a month before stocktaking and re-opening my shops in September. This lets me get a wide range of items designed and made before my manic sales of the final four months of the year start. I was sitting outside one very clear morning in July and the clouds were like little fragmented puffs of ice. My ‘Winter Fantasy’ collection is based around those beautifully crisp, clear mornings in winter where the dawn lights up the entire sky in barely-there shades of pink, blue, lilac and lemon with dotted white clouds. Think the morning after snowfall when the sun is glinting off bright white snow and frozen icicles. The ‘Fantasy’ part comes from my love of the magical and whimsical. About half of my collection features unicorns, pegusi, fairies, stars, moons and the like. Moving from the concept to actual jewellery is a careful process. First I look at the colours and pick out appropriate shades in Swarovski crystal and occasionally, glass beads. I’ve used a lot of crystal AB, light sapphire, aquamarine, light rose, rosewater opal and violet opal among others. Then I look at my Sterling silver components. I sell components in various finishes of silver from very dark antiqued to the bright, almost white silver of very highly polished findings. It was the latter which were incorporated into this range. Next is design and make. It’s important to get a balance between artistry and retail savviness if you’re depending on sales for a living. I do make art pieces which take many, many hours, but when designing a retail collection there has to be a trade-off between time spent and rewards available (i.e. how much I can sell them for). So a lot of my retail collection are both beautifully simple and relatively quick to make which in turn allows me to keep prices at an affordable level. I tend to design 2 or three pieces, sort out the quantities I will need to make duplicates and then make up multiples of them. Again, this is a simple matter of economic sense, particularly as all my jewellery is sold through my eBay store. eBay implemented changes for business sellers earlier this year which make selling multiple quantities of the same item far more cost effective and likely to succeed than selling individual items. So most items are made with between 3 and 10 pieces of the same item. My jewellery ranges tend to centre around necklaces, bracelets and earrings and often I’ll make up matching ranges of necklace, bracelet and earring so a customer can buy a whole set if they wish. I make an average of 20 pieces a day for around 4 weeks. That’s over 500 pieces, all carefully hand crafted in my studio in South Gloucestershire, England. My jewellery is available online exclusively through my ebay store at www.stores.ebay.co.uk/princess-jewellery. I also sell a large range of beads and findings, many of which went into my current collection, both through my ebay store and through my website at www.princess-jewellery.net. Gallery Sterling silver necklace with Swarovski Crystal in shades of blue, green and teal. Sterling silver earrings with fairy drops and Swarovski crystal hanging from delicate rose-shaped post earrings. 9 Carat yellow gold earrings with 9ct glitter beads and aquamarine Swarovski crystal. Sterling silver charm bracelet with Swarovski Crystal beads, glass lampwork beads and a beautiful fairy charm.

Where does the time go!

It has been an embarrassingly long stretch since I last posted. Partly that was due to breaking two of my fingers in July (ooops!) but mainly it was due to being terribly distracted due to the kids summer break.

I've had a fun 6 weeks or so (distracting children aside!) with lots of drawing, painting and claying but for now I'll simply leave you with my latest tutorials available on my website.

First up we have this beautifully delicate silver filigree bracelet with rose Swarovski crystal. Deceptively easy to make, its a sure hit with anyone and can be made in any number of colour combinations.



I've also made matching earrings to compliment the above bracelet. For this quick and easy tutorial, click the image.



Finally, this cute and whimsical mermaid necklace is great for summer!



That's all for now - I'll be back with a claying post later in the week!

Stephie

Busy, busy, busy!

It's been a busy couple of weeks here in Stardust land, and also quite stressful. I was diagnosed with Osteoarthritis in my hands and several other joints. Needless to say its the hands that worry me most, as a jeweller they're quite important. As a jeweller who sells entirely online they're absolutely essential. There's lots of useful things one can do to try and manage it though so I'm remaining optimistic. The Arthritis Care website has been invaluable in providing lots of useful and pertinant information that my GP failed to mention.

Other than stressing about my fingers (which are rather painful) I've been busy getting stock listed and ordering more. Check the New In Stock category over at www.princess-jewellery.net to see what I've been adding. I'm also midway through another tutorial for a beautiful sparkly pink bracelet. I haven't written it up yet but it should be available in the next few days - watch this space!

And finally, I thought if I'm going to find myself with extremely restricted finger usage within the next few years, I need to get back to drawing regularly! I was always told I had no drawing talent and thus it was only around November last year when I plucked up the courage to teach myself to draw. Due to general busy-ness I haven't drawn at all since around January this year but over the weekend I pulled out my pencils and took a stab at my first ever fairy. She's far from perfect but given my lack of experience, I was reasonably pleased.

Until next time...

Happy Beading!

Stephie
x

A New Necklace Tutorial

Its turning out to be quite a busy week so far. Nothing major - just lots of little things needing doing. My ad for the UK's Bead Magazine was sent to them yesterday for the professional treatment (I sent a fairly basic layout of what I want, along with the jewellery I want featured in it for them to photograph and produce properly). The magazine comes out in August and of course, by then I really need to have the stock levels upped a bit (particularly on anything I'm featuring in a tutorial!).

More tutorials are on the agenda this week. Haven't quite decided what but I think I'm looking at the lovely bright white silver componants I sell at www.princess-jewellery.net with some pastel shades in crystal. I also want a techniques tutorial done for the art of fitting pinch bails. I want a good selection of tutorials available in a relatively short space of time which means getting a few done every week for the next couple of months.

Speaking of tutorials, there is now a matching necklace for the Summer's End series. I hope you enjoy (click on the picture).

A new website - and new tutorials!

It has, admittedly, been an age since I posted here, mainly because I've been so busy with all manner of exciting things that I've simply not had time to update my blog! I am hopefully back on track now, and over the couple of weeks I shall try and show off some of the designs that have been made over the last three months.




The main reason for the absence has been the development and launch of my brand-new website at www.princess-jewellery.net. My wonderful range of Sterling silver beads & findings, Swarovski crystal, gold filled beads and findings, glass beads, etc. are now available on my own website. The selection on ebay has been cut down considerably so the webby is really the best place to shop!

I've also made a start on adding some brand-new tutorials to the site, and expect to continue increasing the range over the next few months - here's a few of the most recent ones. My tutorials are free to use, subject to the restrictions at the bottom of my Jewellery Tutorials page, so enjoy and don't be afraid to experiment with different colours and looks!

Flying Free Earrings


Summer's End Bracelet


Summer's End Earrings


Happy Jewellery Making!

A plethora of pretty things!

Shame 'plethora' is such an ugly sounding word or that title woulda worked better...

For all you jewellery lovers out there I have a tasty feast of eye candy today. Plus some stuff that I made :p

First off - I still haven't sanded & polished the weekend's lentil beads and realistically I can't see it happening before Friday now so here they are in their unfinished form.

First off - the best of the bunch





The beads I made out of the remainder of the red mix




Best of the blue/pink/silver



And the remainder



And these were made out of the scrappy leftovers from the previous 2 mixes (believe it or now, quite a lot of creamy gold went onto the red ones!)




Now... the Scheherazade necklace and earrings set - slightly better picture although blue goldstone is an absolute bitch to photograph. Its a little chunky for my personal taste.



And the first of the necklace connecters to go with the previously made red pendant (not yet finished)



And finally, these turned up today. I almost never use gemstones, partially because I sell Swarovski crystal for a living and so have lots of it lying around and partially because I'm not really an earth-tones kinda gel, however I've been looking for this stuff for ages - its titanium coated druzy (druzy is a generic name for the tiny little quartz crystals that sometimes form within rocks) and the titanium coating means it comes in a whole range of completely non-natural shades :p They're gorgeous. Far better than expected, I was absolutely blown away by this lot.













The druzy came from www.druzygems.com

My puppies!

Non-dog owners always look slightly incredulous when I refer to these two as my puppies. Callie we've had since she was 10 weeks old and she's a white-apricot German Shepherd. Sabre we've had for a year and was a rescue dog who has improved enormously from the scared little boy he was when he arrived. He's never going to be a social butterfly but he's much more confident and happy now. Both dogs are almost 3 years old.

Why the random doggie post? Because they're my wolf substitutes and Cyndi over at jewelleryandbeading.com just posted a GORGEOUS beaded journal page featuring a pair of wolf eyes.

Indecision!

You gotta hate it when that happens. Y'see it's the weekend, which is cool given that I'm on a strict no-work regime at the weekend BUT I'm at a total loss as to what to do with it. Not because I don't have any choices, but because I have too many choices.

• I want to make a necklaces for the pendant I made last weekend.
• And earrings to go with the dark blue necklace.
• There's a set-out necklace in my bead tray that I wanted to do once I had some GF wire - which has now arrived.
  
• I want to try some 30ga wire weaving stuff that's been floating around in my head this morning.
• I have a whole bunch of different yarn and ribbons that I want to try some mixed media stuff with.
• Last night, I spent FIVE hours (I kid ye not) sorting out all my personal beading stuff and threw up a whole bunch of beads & findings that had been dumped in little boxes with the idea of making jewellery to showcase the relevant componant products so that needs doing.
• I also found an entire collection of half-made pieces / pieces that need fixing that I'd like to not be sitting in a to-do box.
• I got my moulds delivered yesterday from the US so want to play with moulds and clay. I got them from madaboutmolds.com which has some gorgeous designs.
  
• And I STILL haven't tried the cool lentil beads tutorial I intended working through last weekend

Damn.

Clay will be tomorrow I think - Geoff has to go out a couple of times today which means I'll have Finn running around and uninterrupted time is def better for clay.

A to-do box sounds a bit too much like actual work I think...

And product showcasing IS technically work...

...which still leaves me which a whole bunch of choices!

But look how organised everything is! The trays stack on the bead storage table so they don't take up anywhere near as much space as they do in the picture :o)

Imperfection

It may surprise those of you who know me well enough to know that I'm totally anal and incredibly self critical, but I don't actually mind imperfection. I mind screwing up something I shouldn't - but I don't get mad at myself just because something isn't perfect. Everything's a learning curve and learning curves inevitably have fuckups - whats the point of trying things that you know you can do perfectly? where's the challenge? So... I can probably complete a 'perfect' necklace or bracelet using wrapped links and connecters. Because due to the nature of the day job, I do that a lot. I'd therefore get pretty peed off with myself if I screwed up all my wrapped links on a bracelet. But trying something new, half the fun is in seeing yourself improve. And being afraid of trying... well yes you could go through life doing everything perfectly because you never tried anything new but... your comfort zone would get boring very quickly.

Therefore this is an imperfect pendant, and up for rewiring. But the interesting thing about it was that as I was working my way down the weave, I could see the technique improving, and looking at it after completing it, I can see how to redo it so the mistakes start to be corrected. I don't know if it will be perfect on the second try. More likely, it will be closer to perfect on the third.

Pretty isn't perfect. Anyone can make pretty jewellery. There's very few people make perfect jewellery (and I don't count myself among them). One lady that does however, is Eni Oken and it was looking at one of her pendants that resulted in my trying this particular technique (I was orginally going to try crocheting). The pendant is here and check out her gallery as well - she's amazing - at the very top of her area. She also has a lot of tutorials. I've occasionally been tempted to buy the whole pack but I'm very much a figure-it-out brain and following tutorials seems like... cheating. Plus I'm spatially strong enough to be able to see how things are put together most of the time. Stupid, but it seems only a step away from all those jewellery people who only ever complete set projects and therefore never develop jewellery craft into jewellery art. Which is absolutely fine as a hobbyist - making magazine-published projects for yourself and presents for your family can be satisfying, but if you're going to aim to be a professional then originality is needed. Design and figuring out is important to me.

Imperfect Pendant



...two hours later...

OK second attempt. Still not even remotely approaching perfect - but significantly better than try #1

It was going reasonably well. So I added a bead. A reasonably adventurous choice of bead for the technique. Which screwed it up more than it otherwise would have been. Other than that, I changed from working with one really long piece of wire, to separate pieces for each 'row' (you can see the ends sticking out - I didn't tuck them in properly when I wrapped them around the beads as I expected to be undoing it again). And consciously remembered that wire loves curling. Its its natural state - no need to fight it.

For attempt three I'm going to take that slightly further I think and coil each piece around a pen to match the number of arcs in each row. Although later, because I'm getting tired.



...4 hours later... after a nap

OK - I'm actually reasonably happy with it now. There is still some slight problems but they should be fixable without restringing.



And perception of size works better on a bust - it's about 2 inches top to bottom. Yes that's my work bench, yes I'm messy. So sue me :p



The mesh size I used is quite a bit bigger than is usual for this technique which I think makes it harder to get perfect - each section has longer pieces to develop kinks! Its more usually seen as a cabochon bezel wrap with very tiny arcs/swags/whatever you call the graceful curves!

An OhShitMoment

Below is a necklace I just completed. It already got restrung once because I didn't like the way it was turning out. So I finally finished it, crimped and attached clasp, trimmed the fireline its strung on... and realised there's an excess stardust bead at one end that isn't on the other end. So it needs restringing. Again.

An ohshitmoment (actually my standard exclamation of dismayed frustration is somewhat more... pithy than that... but perhaps somewhat offensive so I shan't repeat it here).

It's called Sheherazade. I don't even know if I've spelled that correctly, but she was the teller of the 1001 Arabian Night's tales and a necklace in predominantly navy with a million tiny sparkles seemed appropriate - the very dark blue beads are starstone (or blue goldstone) which shimmers with a zillion tiny twinkling stars. The rest is sterling and Swarovski crystal.

And if I'm honest I haven't managed to get the style as I want it. I'll try some different variations in other colours and beads but I want to test it with a few different methods including different stringing material, a double drop, and wire meshed 'gaps'.

Its only a point & click snap I'm afraid so not my best. Will post a better one when I get the darn thing to stay strung!