On Sale?

If you are like me you signed up for several newsletters to keep up on what’s new with an on line business, for me that’s jewelry making news. Are you as disappointed as I am? News, I think not. All I seem to get is barraged with announcements of another sale.

But are those sales a “good buy”? I don’t think so. Realistically I would say that those products are so over priced that even the on sale price isn’t really a sale price. I mean really, 10% for this or that can easily be understood as a sale price. But when you see 30% off consistently, I’m thinking that the regular price must be way over priced.

Wouldn’t it be nice if shop owners didn’t consider us as idiots? I mean really, price the merchandise at a fair mark up price on a regular basis and forget sending me daily and weekly sale emails, enough already! These sales are marketing gone bad, period.

For the number of regular and frequent “On Sale Now” emails I am getting, business must be really bad for those shops. Or, have those shop owners bought into the SEO’s email marketing sham; "how to drive traffic to your sight for only $ x@!!.oo

So what happened to the “news” letter I signed up for? Is venting the same as being negative? LOL.

Jewelry Making: Random Picked vs. Hand Picked Cabochons and Focal Beads

Thoughts about buying Cabochons, Focal Beads and Strung Beads for New Jewelry Designers

Random Picked vs. Hand Picked

Not all suppliers are created equal. Granted some suppliers are better at some things than others. I'm sure everyone strives for great customer service but that's not the issue of this article.

What does random pick mean? Basically, you see something on aweb site you want, the picture is phenomenal, and you buy it. When the cabochon or the focal bead arrives you are disappointed sometimes very disappointed. Larger suppliers don't take a picture of every cabochon or focal bead they sell. They have bins full of stones and they just randomly pick one to send you.

Look for "What you see is what you get" better known to some as WYSIWYG.

In most cases if you see "Natural Stone" you are not going to be able to buy two of anything. The exception is when a person cutting the stone is able to cut it in half for a "matched pair" but then it will be listed as such.

In the event that you can buy as many of the "same identical" stone as you want, the stone is probably man-made or synthetic; in addition to "cheap"; and probably looks cheap.

Smaller more personalized on-line stores selling cabochons either choose their own stock piece by piece or perhaps they are creating their own cabochons with lapidary equipment. Either way you will know what you are getting.

There is one more point to consider about choosing stones for jewelry making and that is color. Your monitor may not be set to true color or the seller has enhanced the pictures with computer software to enhance the color. It's not always easy to take a perfect picture and other than perhaps some Ebay products, most on-line store try very hard to provide accurate pictures.

A couple years ago I personally have experienced a "bad deal" on ebay. The cabochon appeared to be absolutely beautiful; I bought it and when cabochon arrived what a let down. Oh, it was the same cabochon that what pictured, but something looked odd. I flipped the stone , or what I thought was a stone, and scratched the surface with a pick. Hmmm, it peeled a substance that appeared to be some sort of plastic.

Well, you get what you pay for and it wasn't worth the expense of postage back to Hong Kong. Yes, I contacted the seller and he profusely denied there could be any such problem.

It is very important to understand what you are buying. Read the description and look for key words that describe the stone; not just fancy names and over the top statements.

Add your own opinion!

Rita Juhlin
Private Stock Jewelry

Promote Yourself!

You are invitee to join the top with jewelry sites: http://www.alljewelrysites.com

The top have a friendly interface and it offers free web promotion for your site.
You can find:
-title and description;
- screenshot of your website
-statistics about the number of your visitors(unique/pageviews);
-comments about your site;
-the ranking is by sites unique visitors in a week;
-first 5 sites are scrolling in the right side of the site on all site pages;
-7 sites are selected random and showed on the header slideshow of the site;
-statistics with the visitors you got from our top;
After you join the top take the voting code and put in your site
to be accepted to the site.
They will be expecting you at http://www.alljewelrysites.com to subscribe your
site.

A great place for self representing jewelry artists and designers - go here:

OMG - Look at the color!!!

New 05.22.10 Larimar - OMG!!!

High Quality Gemstones at Ovestocked with Rocks, Yummm

Amethyst and Amertine

Love those Blues!

Swiss Blue and London Blue Topaz

Get 'em while there still available

at

Overstocked With Rocks

Lets get Orgnaized!!

Free Tutorial and Video on Chain Maille Bracelet

DIY Network: Great Video: Chain Maille Bracelet

Because I like to learn something new everyday, well almost everyday, I search for free tutorials on different techniques. This is a clear and easy way to start yourself on chain maille. I just made a similar bracelet, you would not believe what I went through to do the same thing. Believe me this is a great video!

This video is much more professional than what you will find, in most cases, on You Tube.

(Your Welcome) LOL

Free Tutorial and Video on Wire Wrapped Rings

Video:  Wire Wrapped Rings (DIY Production)

The video is good but incomplete, setting the stone is a bit tricky, make sure you get the stone tight. It's not quite as easy as it looks. The ring band itself should be wrapped to make it more sturdy, in my opinion.

Materials and Tools:

(My advise is to start out with copper or brass practice wire until you get the hang of it!)

3 ft. 22-gauge 14K/20 gold-filled 1/2-hard square wire
2 ft. 21-gauge 14K/20 gold-filled 1/2-round 1/2-hard wire
1 ring cab (1/2" wide x 1" long) [You can use any size, the smaller the stone, the harder the setting process]
ruler with millimeters
permanent marking pen
ring mandrel
pin vise
flush cutters
flat nose pliers
fine-blade knife

DIY about Making Enamel Beads

Make Your Own Enamel Beads

This is a good vido about making Enamel Beads, this also can be done to make colorful head pins, I've seen some and they quite pretty.

Creative Metal Arts Guild Show

Free Admission

Check out the 2010 CMAG Jewelry and Metal Arts Show and Sale Participating Members

2010 Show Dates: APRIL 30, MAY 1 & 2

At The

Oregon Convention Center

In Beautiful Portland, Oregon

"Green" Etching for Jewelry without Acid

There is a fabulous tutorial at http://www.making-jewelry-now.com/acid-etching-metal-jewelry-part-1.html by Virginia Vivier (Esprit Mystique Jewelry) using acid. The tutorial has great tips and techniques.  This article is about using saltwater and a battery. If you dig a little you can find ‘how to’ information free of charge and that is what I did, or you can buy it from a popular magazine.
What you need:


Patience (this process takes longer than acid)
Safety Glasses and Rubber Gloves (strong salt solutions can burn)
D battery and a D battery holder
Alligator clips and heavy ga. copper wire
Copper to be etched and scrap copper
Kosher or canning and pickling salt
Glass container deep enough to hang your art piece
Resist

Resists Available: PNP blue paper (good info on this at: http://www.makersgallery.com/goss/pnp.html ) , nail polish (if you’re desperate), enamel paint, etc.

Hook up a D battery in the battery holder, attach alligator clips to the lead wires on your battery holder and then to the two pieces of copper wire to suspend the art piece and the scrap piece in a saltwater bath. Current draws copper from the piece being etched to the scrap copper. You can use the same kinds of resists you would use for acid etching. Red alligator clips on your jewelry/art piece. Put resist on the back of your art piece or etch a design on the back too.

Make a saturated salt solution by dissolving salt, (lot-o salt)


Clean your art piece and clean it again, alcohol works well.

Draw or transfer your design with whatever resist you want. The scrap copper needs to be cleaned off with a scruby pad to remove any residue, then it's ready.

Fill glass (I don’t like plastic) container with the salt solution, attach your two pieces of copper to copper wires and hang them from the sides of the container so they are submerged in the solution. Attach the positive alligator clip to the art piece etched and the negative clip to the scrap copper. You will see little bubbles rising from the scrap copper, and the water will become cloudy.

It takes an hour or more to get a nice deep etch (patience).

Disposal of used salt water, well I’m not convinced it’s a good idea to pour into the sink, there is copper in it. Maybe consider calling waste management services and double check with your area requirements.

Love those little Altoids Tins? Etching Altoids Tins: go to http://steampunkworkshop.com/altoid-etch.shtml

The fun of this is you can transfer virtually any image or pattern to copper, nickel, or brass.

Want more info? Search the web there is a lot of free information. Take some time and learn something new!!  I welcome any comments and additions to this method of etching.

Half Persian 3 in 1

Not the best video but you'll get the basics.

Free Tutorials

Chain maille: You have some choices; I've posted free tutorials on the right side bar. You can buy tutorials at JewelryLessons.com, bless them for trying to make a buck with copywritten designs they sell, or you can go to the chain maille organization and get TONS of instructions on all kinds of patterns, techniques and so on all for free.

The newbies jewelry designers/artist coming on board everyday should really do some research on "how to's" for free before you jump into buying tutorials that actually have been copied from magazines and other free tuorials posted all over the web.

Wire wrapping: for the most part you can find easy to follow instructions all over the place if you are new to the craze. More advanced wire wrappers can look at something and duplicate it. Good Luck and above all learn something new everyday.

Pricing Jewelry

An excellent article I agree with about Pricing Jewelry. Check it out.

I see far too many home based jewelry creators pricing their jewelry way to low, however on the other hand I have observed jewelry poorly crafted, and cheapish way over priced.

"People associate quality with price."
Dr. David Weiman, marketing director of Lapidary Journal Jewelry Artist magazine for more than 20 years, shares strategies and techniques for boosting your sales of handcrafted artisan jewelry!