Making Jewelry is the Easy Part

We were in a quick stop while on the road the other day and the girl in front of me in the line for paying, handed the cashier and her friend some business cards and said they were having a sale that weekend.  When my time to be first in line came -  I handed them my business card and said that I made jewelry, and if they needed anything to give me a call.  The "friend" behind the counter, said " I make jewelry too" and showed off a pair of glass earrings.  She then turned to me and said - "I never realized how easy it is to make jewelry"

I've thought long and hard on her statement and have decided that it is definitely worthy of a blog...mostly because it's true and at the same time, it isn't.

I can't disagree with the premise - it doesn't take a mental giant to make ( or buy ) a couple of eye     pins...throw something on them and dangle something from them, and voila - one pair of earrings.  Or buy some memory wire and necklaces and bracelets are right around the corner. Purchase a piece of leather or cord, buy a bail  or make one for the stone that you have, and you have a pendant necklace.  Yes, all of the above is easy and doesn't take any skills and any idiot could do it.

Is this how I make jewelry - NO! ! !  I spend hours on line looking for the new, the different, the appealing to incorporate into my jewelry.  I spend 4 to 5 days at the Tucson Gem and Bead show and other shows, doing the same thing.  I rarely have a complete idea of what I want to make.  I buy things that appeal to me and then combine them into something that appeals to me even more.  I wish what I did WAS easy...but it isn't.  It's a combination of magic, a good color sense, and intelligent shopping.  Is it quick?  Never! Is it easy - sometimes, if I've made wise purchases - but sometimes, I rip things apart umpteen times to achieve the look that I want.  That elusive "look" that I know when I see it, but don't always know what it is I'm looking for until I get there.

I work with wire allot too.  Mistakes or wrong turns here are even more demanding - sometimes it must all be discarded and you have to start over.  Sometimes the wire just won't go where you want it to. Sometimes the wire and beads don't fit each other.  Depending on the type of wire you are using - you have to decide early on how you plan to finish it because many stones cannot be oxidized - or tumbled - and forging can easily ruin a stone unless you possess perfect aim....I don't.

I came to this obsession too late in life, and there are many things that I wish that I could explore, but I haven't for one reason or another.  Soldering - make a mistake there and the house is gone.  Precious and other metal clays...which I so badly want to do, but that $600.00 kiln can buy allot of other goodies.  Enameling - blowing glass - making beads like Rona Sarvas.  Real metal work with presses and all those cool machines.  All of  these different avenues to jewelry require an expense for new equipment, some sort of training and learning curves, and at least through the intro parts, they cannot be easy, because learning something totally new is never easy.

So I guess the answer here is - that depending on what you want - making jewelry can be very easy.....or very difficult.  I am no longer satisfied with a couple of beads hanging on a premade earring of some type.  I do like easy especially for what I sell, because then I can keep the prices down and they are more apt to sell fast.  But the most soul satisfying pieces are those that I agonize over, until they are perfect...and that is never easy.  Please come visit my shop and take a look at what I've been agonizing over lately....til next time

Time versus Money in Jewelry Making

As allot of you know, I have started working with annealed steel wire and I love the product.  It is inexpensive and extremely easy to work with.  If you make a mistake, you can fix it, unlike most metal wires that we, as jewelry artisans, normally work with.  Forgivable goes a long way in my book - especially when I am saving major time by rescuing a piece that I have put allot of effort into already.  


I have made many necklaces with the industrial look of the steel wire combined with both Swarovski  crystal and  or freshwater pearls.  I love the combination of these two opposites - it really meets my esthetic.  My pearl and steel necklace is in my Artfire shop and every time that I make one, they seem to sell.  I keep making them because I want one for me...but I can't get upset because they are selling...

I really do think that this is a great look.  It's funny though, I have two retail shops that sell my jewelry and they will not touch the steel.  One owner doesn't like the color of the steel and the other one feels that the pieces belong in a gallery, not a retail location.  The shops that do carry it, sell it consistantly...life really is a crap shoot, isn't it??


In any case - back to the reason for this blog.  I have been wanting to make a couple of very dark, almost black, necklaces out of the steel for me.  I worked on them this weekend and they came out even better than I expected. As soon as I get some pictures taken, I will insert them here.

Remember - I promised the pictures and here they are - unfortunately they are not the cropped, fixed pictures. But, as confirmed techno-tard, I have to be happy that I am able to upload a picture, something I couldn't have done about a year ago.
 I said to my husband that much as I liked them, I'd never be able to sell them - it took me almost 3 full days to make these 2 necklaces.  He thought that was my learning curve and any more that I made could be done faster - I said no, it's just that they are very labor intensive.  These are simple link necklaces, one with large links and one with medium large links and they are connected with fairly small jump rings.  Each piece is hand forged. Each ring is hand filed, even if I do use the dremel for the initial clean up.  I did wrap each joint on the large and medium link with fine wire because I don't solder and they were too flexible just left alone.  They needed something and the fine wire wrapping filled that need - and I did add a few very small Swarovskis to the wraps on the large chain as eye candy. Both of these were minimally cleaned, to keep them black, and waxed so they wouldn't rust.  All in all, allot of work.


Before we make anything that we intend to sell, we need to assess the old time versus money equation.  Is the piece going to be so expensive to make, that no one is going to be able or willing to pay the price that the piece must command if we intend to sell it.  It's a fine line that we must tread...are we making something to make us money, or are making something to give ourselves pleasure.  Material like steel wire is a great thing to gauge this on, because it is so inexpensive that time is really your only investment...so my advice is to think long and hard as you plan what you are creating, and why you are creating it.


I could conceivably charge $500.00 to $600.00 for these to barely cover my labor costs, but no one is going to pay for them...I could do them in sterling for about the same price, but I don't want them in sterling.  So I am left between a rock and a hard place...I'm just gonna use them as I envisioned them.  Necklaces for Linda, lucky girl. I know that, at some point, someone is going to say..."I love that necklace and I want one, how much does it cost?" At that point I will reassess these points and see what I want to do...and I will report back here.

Silver Filled in Jewelry Making

I decided several months ago to try a fairly new product, silver filled.  It is made in basically the same way that gold filled is made and should last indefinitely.  As we all know, plated metal materials not only often look differently, they are not meant to last.  I work too hard on my metal jewelry to use a material that is not going to last and yet, sterling had gotten to a price point that was beyond me, and most important, beyond what my clients were willing to pay.

As you can see, when I use metals - it is allot. The first bracelet uses quite a bit of 24 g wire and there is a huge difference between SF at $0.22 per foot and sterling at almost a dollar a foot.  I have about 20 feet of 24g wire in the first bracelet which translate to $4.40 as opposed to $20.00. For the final pricing, i.e. retail, that can mean the difference in the price of the bracelet of $17.00 or $80.00.  There is even a big difference in the 16 g that I use as the frame.  I have about 18 inches that I use - SF is priced at about $3.00, whereas, sterling would be about $9.00. If you double your price of materials for a wholesale price and then double again for retail, these get to be really big numbers.  In SF, I have $7.40 in materials, but in sterling, I would have $29.00.  I would love to be making these in sterling, but they are very time consuming and the final price would have to reflect that and it would put them out of the ball park. The second bracelet is the same as the first except that I use thicker wire for the decorative part. I don't use much more than 10 feet, but SF for 20g is $0.76 and for sterling it is $2.30 per foot. So once again, in the thinner wire alone, we see a monetary difference of more than $15.00. These are huge numbers when you are figuring your final price.

The only real difference I have found between the two types is that I feel that the SF work hardens much faster than sterling.  For that reason, I only buy full soft wires.  I think that it must be the interior brass in the wire, because brass has always seemed much harder to me than copper or sterling.  I have oxidized SF numerous times and have the same results that I had with sterling.  You do have to be a little more careful handling it during working so it's not gouged - the one time  

that I slipped and really gouged it, I was very pleasantly surprised when I grabbed my trusty Dremel to polish it and see what I could do about the brass showing - and somehow, the silver migrated to the polished part and no more brass showed.  My husband, a retired dentist, says that that can happen occassionally with precious metals... so I don't know if this was a one time occurrence or something that I can count on to happen again. It is recommended that all polishing be done in the tumbler and with a cloth, not to use mechanical polishers.

I have always used sterling earwires and I recently switched to SF for most of my earrings and have been very pleased.  The least expensive sterling that I used was $3.00/pair, and I can purchase SF for $.40 a pair. Once again the cost differential of $2.60, or $10.40 makes a big difference in the retail price. These earwires can be seen on my website, but I have not gotten the bracelets on there yet.

It seems that every day there are new products arriving on the market made in SF, and I for one am very happy about it. There is chain, and sheet, and all kinds of findings.  If you have hesitated to try SF, give it a try, I think that you will be very happy with it, I know that I have been.

Like all my metals, I am very careful where I purchase them.  I have stuck with Rio and Fire Mountain and I'm sure any of the other large, well established metal places would do fine.  There are two types out there. One with 20% sterling and one with only 10%, and I have stuck with the 20%.

If you have hesitated to use silver filled materials, I think that it is worth a try. I know that I have been very happy with the product and I would hope that you would be too.

Terrific Tucson

I am one of the lucky people who lives in Arizona and am about 150 miles from the Gem Show.  I think that the first two weeks of February are nirvanna for jewelry artisans.  I have, so far, spent three days in this gem studded heaven and plan on making one more trip next week.

We went down the first day that the show opened so that I could see the vendor/friend that I met last year while she had all her goodies.  She was at HoJo's where I had allot of luck finding things last year - and this year was even better.  My Tibetan lady and her fantastic pendants were back - she smiled when we walked in and said that she remembered us from last year.  Next year, the smile will be even bigger, because I did allot more damage there than last year...but everything that I made from her supplies has sold.  I found a great vendor with natural colored coral that was reasonable and some nice stones and pearls.  We also found the best burrito I have ever had in the food court.

Our next trip was on Monday - it's nice being retired, you can go when other people can't - and we went to the To Bead True Blue show and I was so dissappointed that we left after only an hour.  It was supposed to be wholesale and retail - but the vendors evidently didn't know what wholesale was.  They all wanted me to buy $300.00 to $500.00 worth of their product and then they would give me 10 to 20% off, I said, "Gee, thanks" , and left for the Grant Inn Show.  That was fantastic.  As we were walking down one aisle, I said to my husband to look around - everyone was on their cell phones and everyone was speaking a different language.  I got ostrich egg shell beads...one of the first things that man used in jewelry making.  I saw a strand of beads that was made before Christ was born.  I found keishi pearls so my daughter can have her Christmas present.  She'd picked out a triple strand of said pearls, and I sold them and I had no more and they've been back ordered for several months.  Very bad mother, but good business woman.

I wore the new necklace that I made after my trip to my friend on Friday and three vendors went bonkers over it...and they see allot of jewelry, so that made me feel really good.  It has a centerpiece of an antique African pewter bead, big, brown, flat nuts, and beads made from fossilized mammoth bone...it is really pretty special and if the sun ever comes out in Arizona again, I will add a picture.  By the time I hit my friends booth again, I thought she was going to make an announcement over the loud speaker about the necklace...but it was fun. I have added the picture - not the best one in the world, but you get the idea.

Tuesday was my downfall.  We went to the Gem Mall and that is composed of two very large tents.  We hit the first tent fairly early and we couldn't have gone more than 50 feet, when I said to my husband, that we had to leave.  For some reason, he wanted to know why, when there was so much that we hadn't seen, and I told him that I had blown my budget and then some.  He tried to give me a lecture on restraint at that point, and I said that I had more than a fair share of restraint, but not when it comes to stones, bones and unique things to put into jewelry.  If I didn't see it - I couldn't buy it.  I tempted him with the promise of another one of those home made burritos - and off we went to HoJo's again so I could check the new shipment of pendants that my Tibetan vendor had gotten.

We are returning one day this week as I have a short list of things that I still need to purchase, hopefully, I will head directly to the booths where they are located and I won't get distracted by something fantastic, either that, or someone will buy 50 necklaces in the next two days, even 10 would do the trick, and I can shop some more, because my cash is gone and my plastic is seriously close to a major meltdown.