Tammy's Jewelry Making Blog

With tropical storm Fay hitting Florida (where I happen to live) and it looks like getting ready to possibly head up the rest of the eastern coast of the United States, I thought it might be a good time to consider low-tech jewelry making techniques and ideas. Knock on wood, my power is still on right now, and it really just looks like a lot of rain for the next few days, but even with power, all this heavy rain means I'm pretty much land-locked inside the house. If the power goes, like it did when I went through the 2004 hurricanes, then that means limited light and forget about using equipment like a kiln or drill press. So, when you get your other storm supplies ready like water, food, and flashlights, don't forget to get some jewelry supplies set aside as well. Here are a few ideas for low-tech jewelry making:

Macrame is a good low-tech jewelry technique because you don't need a large amount of tools or supplies. A few beads and the cord of your choice plus a work surface and pins, and you can make yourself a few choker necklaces or waxed cord and shell earrings.

For wire workers, consider crocheting with wire. According to the book Crochet with Wire by Nancie M. Wiseman, you really only need some thin gauge wire and a crochet hook to get started.

These are just a few ideas I'm throwing out there for you. I'm sure if you think about it for a few minutes you can come up with other ideas for getting some low-tech jewelry items together for those long stormy days ahead.

Art Bead Scene
Let your jewelry do the talking! Enter the Art Bead Scene's creative challenge!

BeadStyle Magazine
The staff shows off some of their favorite jewelry from the pages of BeadStyle magazine.

Carter Seibels for Divali Glass Jewelry
Carter ponders the organization of beads in the Bead Trust booth, and shares some new projects!

Jennifer Jangles Blog
Make Jennifer's Long, Dangle-y, and Jangle-y Earring Project

Jewelry & Beading
Make a cigar box handbag...featuring beads, of course!

Katie's Beading Blog
Download one of Katie's projects over at Beading Daily. It's an icy confection of dichroic glass and matte seed beads.

Naughty Secretary Club
The Naughty Secretary Club book is finally here. If you love your jewelry kitschy proceed immediately to Jen's blog.

Salt Shaker Bead
Carmi turns an odd collectible into something wearable.

Strands of Beads
Melissa finds that it's still easy to be green in August

I've been doing some more spring cleaning around the site, though I guess since it's really almost fall now, I'm really doing late summer cleaning. Either way, you'll find a number of updated projects that are much easier to follow now that I spruced them up a bit.

Here are a few updates and some of the latest projects posted on my site:

Chain and Bead Elegant Necklace

Make a Wire Coil Chain

Make a Figure 8 Chain

Fabricate a Copper Toe Ring

Make Sandals from Chain and Beads

Wire Wrapped To Ring

One of our forum members writes of a weird meeting with another jewelry maker at a show. As soon as the other artist realized she also made jewelry, she was super rude and totally ignored her, which was too bad because she was actually considering buying a pair of earrings. Did she do something wrong in discussing the fact that she made jewelry as well? Or was this woman just a tad too touchy? Have you had similar experiences at art shows yourself? There are usually so many jewelry makers selling at these, it is a little (and just a little mind you) understandable as to why someone might get a little upset to find yet another person who makes jewelry standing in front of her.

On a similar note, another forum member writes about her irritation with so many of the jewelry artists on Etsy.com who sell their work at dirt cheap prices. Etsy is much like an on-line on-going craft show, so again, you have a huge number of jewelry designers over there. I would guess that jewelry is probably the largest category they have. One brief look showed 27, 734 pages with 21 items on each page of jewelry for sale. Yikes, do that math! Actually, they do it for you and the day I check listed a total of 58,2405 jewelry pieces for sale. That's a lot of jewelry! Does so much competition force jewelry designers to keep prices so low they may not be even making a profit?

I don't necessarily have the answers to all of these questions, but I thought they were worth thinking about and talking about.

I have a number of new and updated jewelry projects published over the last few weeks. Along with a number of brand new projects, I have also been trying to spruce up some of the other ones by adding them to nicer templates and including different images. If you want to print any of these up to do later, check on the right hand side of the page for a printer friendly link.

Here are a few in case you missed any:

• Metal Clay Fine Silver Textured Links
• Fine Silver Link, Pearl, and Crystal Earrings
• Glass Frame Poetry Pendant
• Brass and Lampwork Bird on a Wire Necklace
• Puzzle Piece Brass & Crystal Earrings
• Silver and Crystal Autism Adjustable Puzzle Necklace
• Silver and Crystal Autism Puzzle Earrings
• Victorian Elegance Crystal Bracelet

Barbe Saint John - New Jewelry from Forgotten Artifacts
Looking at some of my fave suppliers.

BeadStyle Magazine
New video interview at BeadStyleMag.com: Meet Melissa Cable whose necklace is featured in the September 2008 issue.

Carter Seibels for Divali Glass Jewelry Who says the grass is always greener on the other side? Stop by Carter's blog for a sneak peek at her green and grassy new bead display.

Jennifer Jangles Blog
Jennifer shows off her very loved tools

Jewelry & Beading
Wendy Van Camp has written a wonderful tutorial for J&B on how to make adorable earrings!

Katie's Beading Blog
Back to school already? Make summer last a little longer with this fun, jangly necklace from the August issue of Simply Beads.

Savvy Crafter
Looking for the perfect tumbler? Candie's got the answer!

Strands of Beads
Melissa cracks some geodes to add to her jewelry making stash.

Summer is almost gone, and that means vacation time for many of us is at an end. It's back to the regular work-grind. For my "day job," I'm a teacher, and though I have been teaching summer classes, it has been a much more casual atmosphere at school since so many people take time off during the summer, but that will be changing very quickly.

Along with meetings and administrative stuff that takes time away from my classroom duties, I also have to start being more aware of what I wear: suits, pantyhose, high heels (or at least kitten-heels which are as high as I can handle). And, this also includes careful consideration of the jewelry I wear. Since most people know I make jewelry, they often give it a quick inspection when they see me. The school I work at is very conservative, so while I am known as artsy/crafty, I have to still stay within certain boundaries when it comes to my appearance.

So, what do you do when you want to make and wear artistic jewelry but you have to be careful that you don't cross a certain line? Here are a few ideas for you:

• Updated Classic Pearl Earrings (pictured above)
• Woven Pearl Bracelet
• Mansfield Park Earrings

Pearl jewelry offers you a way to stick to the classics but still add a little something extra. I have a lot of other pearl jewelry projects. Most are fine "as is," but you can always tone-down a design. For example, with my Swarovski Pearl Glam Earrings, you can also make them just a little shorter and still get some glam without crossing the line.

You may know her from her various jewelry and craft books such as Sparkletastic! and The Impatient Beader Gets Inspired (both of which I have reviewed on this site). Lately, Margot Potter has been branching out from hard copy text to video productions with her crafting and jewelry-related how-to videos posted on her blog as well as YouTube. If you haven't caught her on tape yet, her videos are a mix of how-to with a little light-hearted silliness tossed in as well.

It looks like her efforts to move into video-land have paid off big time with a recent contest win over at MindBites.com. She entered and won its Spread the Craft video contest. You can take a look at her winning entry (here) and check out other how-to videos on the MindBites.com web site. Congratulations, Margot!

A Little Something
They are taking notes and learning from one of their recently attempts at selling jewelry at a local event.

Art Bead Scene
Art Bead Scene throws away the key!

BeadStyle Magazine
Check out the notebook pages in the latest issue of BeadStyle magazine; subscribers can get extra pages online.

Carter Seibels for Divali Glass Jewelry
Carter shares her full bead box, new marketing efforts, and a visual taste of blueberry icrecream cake!

Craftzine
Beads are not just for jewelry as illustrated in this memory mobile made of beads and found objects.

Jennifer Jangles Blog
Jennifer is taking a moment or two to look ahead/

Jewelry & Beading
Cinch a stone using right angle weave!

The Savvy Crafter
Candie shows off a flower pendant made from plexiglass and hung on black polyester chain.

Strands of Beads
Melissa and her son share their passion for beads.

Naughty Secretary Club
Jen lists lots and lots of her favorite weblog links.

Snap Out of It Jean!
Jean Yates interviews Sharyn Wolf, author, jewelry designer, social worker, and singer!

It can be hard to keep track of everything that is going on in different jewelry related sites, blog, and social networks around the web, so I like to try to collect a few for you every once in a while.

Barbara Barbec is keeping tabs on the new controversial Orphan Works Copyright Bill. Check out her site for the latest on this important issue.

Land of Odds has posted the winners of its Ugly Necklace Contest. It is amazing how ugly these are!

A relatively new blog has started called the Handmade Network. April is a stay-at-home mom who was looking for a business to run while being able to promote the work of fellow artists.

Beading Daily has a video up demonstrating fusing techniques used for making head pins, worth a watch.

Bead and Button have teamed up with International Society of Glass Beadmakers and are promoting a design contest where you show how you incorporate lampwork beads into your jewelry designs. You can find the application on-line. The deadline is August 15th.

Margot Potter fills us in on her trip to New York, which included bead shopping as well as cruise through the Jewelry Arts Show.

MyCraftivity has a free downloadable metal clay stamped bracelet project posted. Looks great and seems pretty easy too.

Not new but definitely worth reading is a post over on Average Jane Crafter with loads and loads of craft business links to explore.