In the last article we discussed how to make your own handmade jewelry. As explained in that article, handmade jewelry is growing in popularity. If you choose the right combination, you can walk away with spectacular looking pieces at relatively inexpensive prices. The issue becomes knowing if you are buying good quality handmade gemstone jewelry or not. The best way to know that is to understand how it’s made so you can understand what to look for when shopping.
If you look back at the last article, you will see that we went step by step making a great pair of handmade gemstone earrings. Once you read that article, you will understand a little bit more the points to look at, but we will highlight them for you:
- Gemstones: Nobody is going to take your ear and put it under a microscope to check out if your gemstones are real or not, but do keep in mind that there are “real” gemstones that are very bad quality. That means that you can buy gemstone earrings that look very bad. Don’t be fooled by the word gemstone. Take a look at the quality.
- Silver. Beware on the word silver. Unfortunately, many times we’ve seen people using the word silver to describe color not the actual type of metal. So it’s possible that you think you are buying silver, but are buying a silver colored metal. It’s important to carefully read product descriptions.
- If you recall, one of the steps to making your handmade gemstone jewelry was to file off the ends of your wire. If you are shopping in a store, you should run your fingers along the edges of the wire and make sure it’s well filed so that it’s not sharp and doesn’t catch on any of your clothes.
- Take a look at the loops on the bottom of the earring wire. Make sure they are closed well. If not, chances are that your earrings will come apart. You would be amazed at what little force or movement it takes for the head pin to come off of the earring wire.
- Check the head pin. The head pin holds the gemstones onto the wire with a little flat part on the end. If the “head” part of the head pin is thin or worn, then you run the chance of having the gemstones slide off. You should run your finger nail against the flat part of the head pin. If you see that it bends or cracks off then do not purchase them. If they are already weak or brittle, then you can only imagine what will happen
Above is a guide to checking the quality of your handmade gemstone jewelry. Follow all 5 of the steps to achieve the absolute best quality.
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Handmade silver jewelry keeps on growing in popularity. There are many reasons for this. First of all, sterling silver jewelry is long lasting and beautiful. Also, many styles you find in gold or platinum are cost prohibitive, but in sterling silver, they become relatively inexpensive. It’s important to make sure though that you are buying good quality pieces regardless of the price.
In order to understand that, it’s important to know how silver jewelry is made, so that you know what quality to look for. So in this article we will explore how to make your handmade silver jewelry and in the next one, we will explore how to check the quality.
The most difficult part of making your jewelry is actually deciding the design and getting together your tools. First of all, decide what you want to make. In this example we will de a simple pair of gemstone earrings. Get together the following items:
2 Sterling Silver Head Pins
6 Gemstone beads (center drilled)
4 Sterling Silver beads (center drilled)
2 Sterling Silver Ear wires
Round Nosed Pliers
File
Wire Cutters (nail clippers will do in a pinch)
The first step is to string your gemstone bead, then a silver bead, and then again a gemstone bead onto your head pin. Next, take your round nosed pliers and put one of the arms on top of the last bead. Take your wire and wrap it over the arm and wrap it around the head pin. Make sure you leave a little bit of room on top of the bead. Then, remove the pliers and wrap the wire around the straight part of the head pin. You should wrap around going downwards at least three times. Cut off the extra wire that is sticking out with your wire cutters or nail clippers. If you run your finger over the wire that you just cut, you will see that the end of the wire is probably very rough. If it is, then take your file and file away the roughness. You can keep running your finger over the end until you think it feels smooth enough.
Next, take your ear wires and loop them together with the loop you made at the top of the beads with your head pins. Take your pliers and close the loop on the ear wires so that the gemstone part doesn’t fall off.
Step back and take a look at your creation! Congratulations, you are a handmade silver jewelry maker! All you are going to want to do is add rubber stoppers to the back of the earrings, if you want. Stay tuned for how to quality control your pieces so you can be a savvy shopper!
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Fashion jewelry is always surrounded by a lot of hype. People throw terminology around that make it confusing to even understand what is being discussed. From diamond stimulant to synthetic diamond to whatever else you can imagine. The same thing goes for handmade jewelry. Vendors love to throw the word handmade in the mix. We will explore why and what handmade really means.
So what exactly is handmade jewelry? It is jewelry that has been either assembled or made by hand. Great, but what exactly does that mean? By assembly, does that mean that somebody can buy a chain and a pendant, put them together and call them handmade? Not really.
The Federal Trade Commission stipulates that in order for an article to be considered hand made, it must be made by hand power or hand guidance. That leaves a lot of room for interpretation, although they do preclude some processes such as casting, pressing, etc. If those processes are used to make jewelry, then it is not considered handmade. So if you are thinking of purchasing handmade jewelry, make sure you look at it and consider if it’s really hand made.
The next question would be, why would you want to purchase handmade jewelry anyway? A lot of people like the idea of handmade, especially handmade in the USA. Being handmade usually means that there is true artistry behind your piece of jewelry. For those that are patriotic, it makes them feel good to get something truly one of a kind, made in the US.
Especially because there is so much mass produced jewelry being made all over the world and the news is constantly showing children being exploited in factories working from sun up to sun down making a penny per day.
The idea of purchasing a piece of that kind of jewelry is horrifying to most people. The idea of handmade makes it even more precious, knowing that it was made in an environment that does not support child labor and terrible work conditions. Although many items that were formerly handmade are being pushed to being mass produced by machine, jewelry made by hand will be around for a long time to come due to the reasons described above.
In this article, we described what handmade jewelry is and why people enjoy buying it. In the next addition, we will explore different kinds of handmade silver jewelry.
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Handmade jewelry designs can be easy if you follow a few simple steps. Making your own jewelry is not only easy, but relaxing. In fact, I consider it to be almost therapeutic! Here we’ll explore how to make your very own Tin Cup style Necklace.
You will need the following supplies:
Cotton Cord
Clasp
6 to 10 pearls
Scissors
The fist step is to cut your cotton cord to approximately 24 inches in length. Thread the lobster clasp side of the closure and tie an overhand knot. With the scissors, cut the thread leaving a short tail. Your goal is to just make sure it doesn’t come undone. Just to be on the safe side, you can add a dab of glue, but you don’t have to.
Lay the cord down on a ruler and decide how often you want a pearl. You might want to mark the cord so that you can keep track of where they go. Make an overhand knot at the first mark on your cord, string on a pearl and then do another overhand knot. You can use special tools to make sure the knots stay nice and tight against the pearl, but again, it’s not necessary. You will need to continue the pattern just described with the total number of pearls you have chosen.
You can vary the length of the necklace by including more or less pearls but here are a few words of caution. Since you need to tie knots in front of and behind each pearl, you will need to make sure that you add a few extra inches for each pearl. Otherwise, you will end up with a bracelet or a necklace so short that it won’t fit. Also, keep symmetry in mind. Make sure you space them apart evenly, otherwise, your handmade jewelry designs will not look very nice. Finally, when you have the amount of pearls and the length you want, attach the other half of your clasp. Now it’s important to look over the necklace and check the quality.
A great variation on this design is to replace the cotton cord with any type of link chain. What you will do is put wire through each pearl. Then you will make loops at the ends, attaching the chain to the loop you make. This is a classic and beautiful design. You can also choose to put more than one bead at each station. For example, you can place a crystal, pearl, and then another crystal to spice up the look.
The bottom line is that it is rather easy to create your own handmade jewelry designs. You just need to have some fun and get creative.
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