Altered Art Jewellery

This is another interesting jewellery project in the pipeline for me to try out as the possibilities are endless to create jewellery around specific themes such as literature, art, nature, cinema, Victorian photos, advertising or anything else. I've picked a few examples from sellers on Etsy.com and Folksy.com, and there is also a good online tutorial on Aunties Beads.

I've yet to decide what glaze to use as I hear that the images can smudge when applying water-soluble glaze to anything printed on an inkjet printer. I've recently ordered a CD of images to use in my altered art jewellery from Lunagirl.
I was excited to see a CD containing masses of illustrations from one of my favourite book illustrators, Walter Crane, so just had to have it. I could have just download images from the internet or scanned some of my own early illustrations for free, but the CD seemed to contain so many more that I didn't have access to.

There is a good article about creating altered art jewellery charms on Lunagirl's blog, so I won't repeat the process here.

Here are a couple of examples of altered art charm bracelets by Poetsummer on etsy.com

Alice in Wonderland is always a popular theme. I particularly liked the Absinthe charm bracelet as that is one of my favourite drinks.

Plus plenty of earrings to choose from by Jezebel Charms on Folksy.com. These are her Casablanca earrings.


If you want to buy images for your altered art jewellery then there is a wide choice available online, plus free vintage clipart (see link below), or use magazines, old photos and advertising labels.

Online jewellery making tutorials

While it is possible to learn the basic techniques of jewellery making, as well as add new techniques and materials to your projects through books alone, I have found that online video tutorials are a good way of getting some quick answers or ideas.
Youtube.com has videos on various jewellery-making categories, which is good if you want an overview of a style or method before going ahead and buying any books on the subject.

This weekend I got stuck on ring-making, for instance, as the book I was using left me without proper diagrams and intermediary steps to finish what I started making, so had to abandon it at step 3. I'm new to rings, was never going to make them, and the book I had didn't have anything very inspiring on them anyway, so I went browsing on YouTube to see if there were any better examples or explanations on there. This lead me to discovering other video jewellery tutorials, plus their websites where I ended up purchasing even more supplies. So if you want to increase sales of your designer jewellery, beads or jewellery-making components I would definitely recommend putting some video tutorials on YouTube and also on your own website. It is probably the best marketing for your business you could ever do.

Although grateful to those who are putting out this information, I just want to mention a few tips though to those who are filming these videos by themselves:

1) Please show the table with the beads, tools etc rather than yourself. Although an intro is good to start off with, and having you in the camera frame is fine, don't talk about any beads, tools or anything else without a close-up shot of them on the table. In fact don't talk about anything unless the camera is pointing to it (preferably in close-up) even if this means having to stop and start the camera.

2) Don't be afraid to change the position of the camera occasionally. For instance, if you are threading beads and all I can see are your hands covering the beads, try putting the camera on the other side of the table, looking over your shoulder, or anywhere so that I can continue to see the item being made rather than having to wait until you have finished that stage.

3) Please, oh please don't wear any other jewellery like rings when doing a jewellery tutorial. The piece you are making is the star of the show! Clean nails are important, whilst overly long nails can cover up a lot of what you are illustrating. But wearing other jewellery seems to be the worst offender, and I found it to be so distracting.

4) Try to keep everything you are doing within range of the camera. There is nothing more annoying when following a tutorial than to have the hands and jewellery item suddenly disappear for a while. If necessary, mark the area on the table where your hands and supplies need to stay within, with a cloth or some other guide.

5) Very quick movements of the hands can easily create a blur on the video. And please do close-ups of certain techniques that are impossible to figure out from a distance.

Well, now I've got that out of my system I am also keen to find out about new products, from tools and settings to glues and glazes, so even product videos would be interesting for me to watch as there is just so much out there, and I want to buy the best and most appropriate tools and supplies for my own projects. In fact, only just today I decided that I also want to sell jewellery components, supplies and unusual beads, along with my own jewellery designs. So I may end up making those videos myself before too long if I am to follow my own marketing advice. Meanwhile, I have a heap of projects to make, new techniques to learn, and a couple of hundred listings to put up on both Etsy and DaWanda so I'm not quite there yet. I'm not short of ideas and inspiration at the moment, it is just a matter of finetuning the techniques or trying new ones to achieve what I want.........so keep those tutorials coming!


Here is a good page of tutorials for various jewellery-making techniques including bead and wire jewellery, which is my favourite method. I also managed to find there a video on altered art jewellery, which is to be the subject of my next post.

Steampunk Jewellery

I have only just heard about this style of jewellery, having seen some interesting rings selling on Etsy.com by Catherinette Rings, whose blog I'm now following. Steampunk jewellery is often described as retro-futuristic and neo-Victorian, being inspired by fantasy and science fiction, as well as the era of the steam engine. It is an aesthetic which celebrates the vintage and antique in a fantasy and futuristic way, and the style is more industrial with hints of H.G Wells and Jules Verne fictional invention.

It appears to have gained more popularity in the USA than in the UK, but there are places here and online where Steampunk jewellery can be bought. I will put a few links at the end to websites I found and post a few photos from them as a picture explains it better than I can.

When I first saw examples of Steampunk jewellery I felt really excited at all the possibilities of creating original and contemporary fantasy pieces that is not at all like the usual fantasy jewellery offering of fairies, dragons and the like, although sometimes these other fantasy elements creep into Steampunk too. No, this was more like a mad scientist's invention. Translated into jewellery terms, some of the more common jewellery components used are old watch faces and cogs, antique keys and locks, springs, dials, typewriter keys - in fact anything that can be recycled from junk and antiques that gives the flavour of a fictional bygone era that looks both futuristic, fictional and nostalgic at the same time. Very clever, I love it.


And although it is not really my own style, I think my excitement at discovering it sprang from wanting to do something a bit similar, with the mixing of time periods into a new fantasy genre, before I ever heard of Steampunk. I am feeling my way into a style that is not Steampunk but will end up being my own. It is still gestating while I'm familiarising myself with different materials and techniques, and all I know so far is that it is an archaeological style with a more contemporary influence, mixed with a dash of Venice Carnival. I don't really have the words for it yet, but discovering Steampunk has inspired me further down the fantasy jewellery road and I'm actually going to try making a few Steampunk pieces myself.


So today I ordered some more supplies, including some watch faces and brass washers, springy looking jumprings and anything else that could be vaguely Steampunkish.

I shall have fun with this, and will attempt to get up early tomorrow to find myself some old watches and keys in Portobello market. I don't feel quite so silly now in having wanted to save all the offcuts of copper tubing that the plumber left behind when my kitchen was being renovated, as I must have been subconsciously tuning in to this artform even before I was made aware of it.

Here are some links to Steampunk jewellery websites:

http://www.steampunkjewellery.co.uk

http://PinkWaterFairy.etsy.com

http://CatherinetteRings.etsy.com

http://www.1000markets.com/groups/steampunkstyle

Buying and Selling on DaWanda

I've now opened a shop at DaWanda, a German owned shopping website for handmade gifts and craft items, so will be listing my jewellery in euros there as well as in dollars on Etsy. Have yet to decide which UK site to go for but feel occupied enough with listing on those two for now. DaWanda has versions of their website in English, French and German and you can buy or sell on any one of these, although selling on the non-English ones really does require language skills if you are to interact with customers, sort out queries etc. I'm told that the German one is the most successful one to sell on, but as I have zero German I'll only venture as far as the French one once I've listed enough in English.

Having said that I thought I would buy some jewellery supplies on the German DaWanda in order to start off my feedback score, as it is hard to start selling as a newbie with zero feedback on any website of this sort. Some items I also bought from Singapore and Turkey, but I could happily pay via Paypal for those using my credit card. Most people in Europe pay by bank transfer rather than by credit card when buying goods online, so as I use online banking I bought some coin charms from a lady in Austria for 2.70 euros. What I hadn't anticipated was the £9.50 in bank charges that my bank added on for this transaction. Rather than confirm and complete the transaction today, I'm having to phone my bank tomorrow to find out how I can pay such a small amount without such hefty charges.

And to make matters even more ridiculous, when I set up this international bank transfer I had to wait for an automatic phone call from my bank and type in a special code before they would allow me to proceed with transferring the sum of 2.70 euros. Give me Paypal any day, and fortunately most sellers on DaWanda accept Paypal. You do have to check the payment methods accepted by each seller though, as they vary. It makes me wonder whether I should scrap bank transfer as an accepted payment method from my own customers, although I don't recall ever having this sort of problem when I was selling on eBay a few years ago.

You are given up to 7 days to pay on DaWanda and I emailed the seller to tell her what had happened (in English) although I'm sure she thought I was talking about the currency exchange rate rather than my bank charges. Hopefully this will get sorted out somehow or other, but it does go to show how important it is to become familiar with a new website as a buyer first.

London Jewellery Week 8-14 June 2009

The 48 hour tube strike is currently on, but anyone interested in attending the Coutts London Jewellery Week, which I've only just heard about, should be able to make it towards the end of the week, and you can download a programme from the website. The Festival in Hatton Garden sounds promising, which runs from Thurs 11th to Sat 13th June. Many workshops in the area will be open to the public, and on Saturday there is a street party with jewellery making demonstrations in the street, plus jewellery themed walks and talks, musicians, food market, childrens workshops etc.

Jewellery will be on display at Platform, the new exhibition space in Greville Street, and will run the full gamut of the industry's illustrious history from The Cheapside Hoard - an astonishing collection of Elizabethan and Jacobean jewellery discovered by chance during the early 20th century - to the laatest contemporary designs from today's hottest new talent. (Nearest tubes: Farringdon or Chancery Lane).