Experimenting with sheet metal

I ordered some sheet metal to try and make some rings. I've only worked with wire up to now and felt it was time to try something new.

My first project is a ring with a sheet metal back and a knitted front with sapphire rondelles. I knitted the front some time ago and was waiting for the sheet metal to arrive to finish the ring. Unfortunately I'm missing a Dremel accessory to be able to drill the holes I need in the silver sheet so it'll be a few more days until I can get it done.

In the meantime I decided to try another one of my purchases - number and letter punches. Since I use both 835 and 925 silver I wanted to use the number punches to mark the pieces I make so I can tell them apart when they're done. It's not an official hallmark, obviously, but it's useful to me. Unfortunately the number set I bought was too big - I knew I should have bought the 1mm set instead of the 2mm but I was influenced by a negative review. Damn. I hate wasting money like this.

The letter punches are also 2mm but these will have other uses: I can write messages on the outside of the rings or the owner's name - text that's meant to be read so it's OK if it's a bit bigger.

I'll need, however, to practice getting all the letters in a straight line and spacing them properly. It's harder than it looks.

Wire wrapped rings

Still in wire-wrapping mode. I've been making rings now. I usually try to make adjustable rings whenever I can but this time I went for a closed ring band because i wanted to try wrapping it in half-round wire. It makes all the difference because apart from giving the ring a more finished look it also makes it so comfortable to wear - square wire is quite beautiful and it allows you to do wonderful things but the edges can be a little prickly when you first slip the ring onto your finger.

At first I wanted to use some 4mm saphires at the front of the ring but the holes were two small to accomodate the half-round wire so I went for these round aquamarine beads instead.

I made a second ring using a very classical design to hold a cabochon. I've used a wire net in the past but I wanted a cleaner look this time.

This model works perfectly for what I wanted but the measurements still needs some work. This design uses square wire instead of half-round to wrap the sides because it make it stronger but it's much harder to keep the wraps perfectly aligned and close together. I guess I need some practice with that.

Also, the wraps should have been further apart to give the stone a little more room to breathe. As is is, the side wires work as a frame and give the stone extra support and protection - it really won't budge and it's not so easy to hit the stone if you brush your hand against something - but it also cover part of the oval shape.

The curving of the wires took some work and it's still not perfect - It's easy to see one of the top wires is still too loose, but it's an easy fix. When working with silver I have a little extra room to make mistakes because I know I can fix them - tool marks can be filed away and so I can make tiny adjustments that would be impossible with silver plated wire.

These rings have a very classic look to them that won't appeal to everyone but I like them because they look luxurious despite being made with just a bit of wire and some pliers. It takes a lot of practice to get it right but when you do you achieve a piece of jewelry that is both beautiful and sturdy, capable of lasting a lifetime - or more.

Peridot hoop earrings

I love hoop earrings. They are not always in style but I don't really care - I make them anyway and wait until they come back into fashion :)
I finally gathered the right combination of beads, in the right shades of blue, green and gold, to make the hoop earrings I've been planning for a while. I should have made them sooner, since the colours are more spring than autumn, but, like I said, I didn't get the right beads until now. The peridot ovals are like leafs hanging from a branch and all the other beads (peridot, apatite and tourmaline) are wrapped as if by a vine around the hoop.
The best thing about the earrings is that they are incredibly light, since weight is sometimes a problem with hoop earrings and can make them uncomfortable to wear. These are light because the beads are small and the hoops are made from a relatively thin wire (hammered to keep its shape, obviously).

Wire wrapped bracelet

I've spent some weeks making a new line of my less expensive glass and silver plated wire jewelry for the stores that carry my stuff, but then I received an order of really yummy natural stones and so I couldn't resist making a few sterling silver pieces as well.

Yesterday I finished a wire-wrapped bracelet with some chinese turquoise beads that I like a lot. I feel that I should have twisted a couple more wires but on the whole am pleased with the result.

I've also made a few new earrings using some of my favorite stones - aquamarine and peridot rounds and some orange carnelian faceted rondelles.

I'm completely in love with aquamarine beads, even without the supreme clarity of fabulous gemstone quality beads so I couldn't resist making another pair, this time using some faceted ovals framed by faceted rondells of aquamarine, peridot and apatite - another stone with an amazing blue color.

I wasn't sure how many pendants to add as a crown - should I go overboard, and add duzens of beads, like the cascades from some of the fabulous passementerie earrings or leave them a bit more discreet? I opted to add just enough beads to make the crown flare out a bit but to not make the earrings look too heavy. If I change my mind I can always add more later on.

I made the hooks and the headpins but didn't have the time to remove all the firescale before completing the earrings (incompatibilities regarding the noise of power tools and a sleeping baby). I did that today and took another picture that shows the finished pair looking much better than in the picture shown here.

Bending wire

I've been working on designs for new rings. My coil rings continue to be popular and I can make them much faster now and without as much pain (calouses are your friends indeed) but I get fed up with doing the same thing all the time.

I love just bending wire randomly and seeing what comes out and I also had tons of sketches in my little sketch book so there was plenty to get me started.

I made all the rings on this picture in one morning, each taking about 15 to 20 minutes to make. They're all adjustable and have some hammered bits to make them more interesting. My favorite is the one on the right that makes me think of an octopus. I think that design may be the one I'll work on for further pieces. It's different from the rest because it's open on the side rather than at the back.

New knitted necklaces

I recently sold the last of the knitted necklaces I had made last year so I started making new ones. This time, instead of scattering random beads along the necklace and adding a pendant for the focal, I had fun making a mosaic at the center of the necklace with some 4mm cube beads I've had for ages.

The blue necklace in the center was the first. I tried making the mosaic as a sepate piece and then weave it into the necklace later. I like the look of it but it has a more antique feel than the others. Since the other cube beads were all in very bright colours, I thought that making the mosaic part of the main knitted band would give it a lighter and more modern look.

My favorite is the one on the bottom right corner since it's the most colorful and shinny of them all. The one just under the shell necklace was made using optic fiber beads and was claimed by a friend as soon as it was done. It's also colorful but a bit more discreet because the colours are not as bright as the ones frem the glass beads.

The necklace on the bottom left corner was an experiment using a diagonal mosaic rather than a square one and I think it looks great on the neck.

Finally, the shell necklace. For a while now I've been trying to come up with a good way to use the shells in jewelry. I wanted a natural look but something more interesting than just stringing.
I felt that knitting might be the solution but the silver wire seemed too cold for use with the shells. One day I tried knitting with crochet thread and I liked the colour and texture of it but the shells were too heavy and they pulled the thread, deforming the pattern. The solution was to use both wire and thread at the same time. I'm really pleased with the result and am working on another one using pale blue thread.

The hunt for a jewelry price calculator

I've always calculated the cost and pricing for my jewelry with pen and paper, by writing down all the components and lengths of wire used, figuring out the material cost and the amount of time it takes me to make a piece and then use some some common sense to get to the final price tag. I double or treble the cost value, add the time spent at my hourly rate and the tax and see what happens before deciding on the profit margin.

It's always useful to know how much a necklace or a pair of earring costs in the area you sell your jewelry because that's your direct competition. In my case I've found the problem is that a lot of people don't appreciate the amount of work and time required to make a handmade piece of jewelry and they don't understand why they should pay extra for it.

Actually, I've found the reverse is true. People just assume that it should be cheaper than the mass produced pieces they find in stores because a lot of crafts people work at home and don't have to pay rent on a store, import the merchandise or pay wages to employees.

This makes it very difficult to price handmade goods fairly and I'm aware that many times I'm seriously underpricing my pieces. A lot of the pieces that take longer to make usually make no profit and many times I have to give up charging for the full amount it took to make the piece to get to a price that's not deemed obscene by buyers. That is very often the case with necklaces. Since they take more materials and longer to make they are rarely profitable.

When it comes to selling my pieces at stores I have to go through the calculations again. Usually I can't make it 50% less than retail price so I have to lower it as much as possible without losing too much money.

There are some pieces I know there's absolutely no point to selling in stores because their 50% markup would make them so expensive it would be ridiculous to think someone would actually buy them at that price. Others do very well.

But in the end I didn't have a simple way to calculate all this and it was always very time consuming, so I started looking for jewelry price calculators.

First I found one by Eni Oken that looked interesting but I didn't really want something based on excel, I wasnted a more flexible database. As I kept looking I found a free version of a pricing software at beading-software.com. I tried it and it's very complete but the free version doesn't let you save more than one item of jewelry at a time. It is, however, a wonderful tool to help you define hourly rates and overhead costs.

As I was looking at this program I started to think that I could probably make something like that myself - not the rates and overhead calculation, but the jewelry pricing bit.

I have a database software called filemaker, that I've been using for years for invoices and such, and so I started designing the layout for a materials database. That was easy enough so I moved on to a jewelry pricing template. It took longer to make - all day, in fact - but I think I finally did it. I can add a photo of the piece, a list of all the materials used where each item is entered automatically from the materials database so I don't have to keep writing the same thing over and over again, and then it calculates total cost, cost plus work minutes, wholesale price with a smaller margin and then retail price. I may still have to adjust the retail price at times if it goes too high but I can consider my wholesale price as the bottom value and go from there.

It was a bit of work but it was worth it. I guess I really am a DIY girl :P

Last night I started the tedious job of entering materials into the database and I hope to start trying it out today in case there are still adjustments to be made.