Caring For Pearls – Keeping Them in Perfect Condition
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By Mary Amos
Caring For Pearls
If you want a stylish and elegant accessory for any outfit, then you can’t pass up pearls. They’re beautiful and glow with their own luster, and as they’re reasonably neutral in color they can be worn with almost anything. Unlike most other gems, pearls are very soft, so you need to handle them with care and clean them on a regular basis. If you want to keep your pearls looking their best, here are a few hints to help you do it without damaging your pearls.
Hints and Tips About Wearing Jewellery
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Selling your jewellery online – the first steps: The importance of Domain names
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Before you do anything else about getting your own website up and running, you will need to come up with a web site name or domain name as they are called.
The main focus of this article is to explain the domain name selection process and how important it is that you chose the right domain name for your website.
Lobster clasp, bolt ring and tag or toggle clasp – which one should you choose?
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Choosing a clasp for your jewellery may seem easy, but to get it right every time it is best to think about who will be wearing the jewellery you are making.
Avoid bolt rings and tags for anybody with dexterity issues. The bolt ring and tag clasp can be found on many pieces of jewellery but it can be extremely difficult to manipulate and is best avoided on jewellery made for older people or on bracelets. Typically you need two hands to hold back the bolt and line up with the tag clasp and so this clasp is better suited for necklaces.
Elements of Design – Which pattern formation should you choose?
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Jewellery design work is very subjective, tastes vary considerably. And as the decades pass fashion plays and increasing roll in jewellery design. But whether classic or contemporary, 80’s big and bold or 30’s angular dimension, one thing you will have to decide upon in some kind of pattern formation.
A classic jewellery style will favour a symmetrical pattern. Symmetry is symbolic of a balanced life and many people will still gravitate towards a classic symmetrical style when selecting jewellery. A symmetrical pattern is considered safe. And will be favoured by a more conservative target audience.
Rune Style Pendant
The last 20 years has seen a huge revival in mysticism, spiritualism and New Age practices.
This rune style pendant is based loosely upon rune stones which are used in some circles for divination and can be traced back to the Anglo Saxons.
Fear of taking action and the fear of failure
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I hang out in craft and jewellery making forums all the time, and the one thing I see time and time again is people who are too scared to take action and sell their crafts. They have a fear of failure, and therefore they would rather not take any action at all. This way they never get any where, but at least (they reason) they have saved themselves from the possibility of failure and humiliation.
What amazes me is the number of success stories I have seen on craft forums where people have summoned up the courage to approach a shop and the shop has placed an order. Often they are all too willing to stock something different and unique. The crafter then comes back onto the forum to share their success and everyone congratulates them. Common comments are, “aren’t you brave, I could never do that.” or “You’ve given me hope, maybe I will try and make some approaches next year.” NEXT YEAR? Why not now?
A simple rule you really need to master to sell more jewellery
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A simple rule you really need to master to sell more jewellery.
The 80 /20 principle
Do you know the 80/20 rule. This rule states that 80% of your success is down to 20 % of your actions. The key to lasting success is to identify the 20% of what you do that make a difference and do more of it.
It’s a common rule of thumb also that 80% of you sales come from 20% of your clients. One of the fastest ways to sell more of your jewellery is to identify those 20% and look after them.
Making jewelry pendants with shrink plastic
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Of late there has been a real resurgence of the use of shrink plastic in the design of jewellery. Shrink plastic, sold under several brand names, was once seen as a crafting medium for small children. Now this versatile medium is being used by those of us interested in making jewellery to add a new dimension and depth to our designs.
To use the shrink plastic, just draw an image on to the plastic sheet, cut out your shape and bake in an oven or use a heat gun to shrink.
On this project we have taken an image and manipulated it in a graphics package to get the desired effect. We have then printed the image via our computer printer directly onto the shrink plastic. (It should be noted here that if you choose to do this we recommend using an old printer or a printer which is not particularly valuable as damage to the printer could occur if the plastic gets stuck in the machine.)
Our image is cut into a plain pendant shape and hole in punched into the plastic before baking in an oven.
We have then decorated the pendant with some co-ordinating beads and used a sliding knot and linen cord.
Note.
Please follow the manufacturer’s instructions and guidance which come with your shrink plastic.
The reason some people fail when selling handcrafted jewellery and what you can do to avoid becoming one of them
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Years ago I had a light bulb moment. I was going for a job interview on a magazine. The position was as a sales executive selling advertising space. I didn’t know at the time but I was going into one of the hardest professions in the world – selling blank space is not easy.
I hadn’t planned to go into sales and I didn’t consider myself to be the stereo-typical salesman type, but I needed a job that paid (it was the recession of the 80’s) and I knew that these jobs paid well.
Whilst at the interview, the man interviewing the 19 year old girl in front of him said, what do you do when you call someone up and try and sell them some space and they say no. I said, well I would just move onto the next client, and try my luck with them. After all I couldn’t do anything to make someone buy something. That is where I was wrong.
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