Rose of Sharon Jewelry

I’ve been gathering up jewelry components of silver, gold and copper that needed antiquing. I mixed up a nasty batch of liver of sulfur from my bag of chunks. Mom and I spent the evening merrily dipping, swabbing and wiping with some very interesting results.

A wax-casting gold mounting was toned down so the real gold looked less like plastic and more like 14K. The finding (surrounding a turquoise cab) was purchased by my Dad several decades ago when gold was affordable. With a little antiquing, the pendant is now ready for Mom to repurpose into one of her necklace creations.

Some bright, bright silver chandelier earring components were transformed by the process. Some came out antiqued like a vintage piece. Others took on a peacock shine with blues, lilacs and pinks. A few sets immediately turned golden, then took on a rose gold tone. Yummy!

After smelling that rotten egg smell for way too long, I decided  to order some of the new gel formula of liver of sulfur known as Patina Gel from Cool Tools. Reviews have been very favorable in use, storage and effectiveness. I’ll keep you posted.

I’m a gadget and tool geek. I own tons of useful and plenty of not so useful jewelry making tools. What your newest favorite tool?

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Tiny mars on my silver wire  really bug me, especially when making the tiniest loops for silver earrings. Beadalon as an solution – nylon jawed round nose pliers! The nylon jaws are replaceable and the construction seems durable.

I haven’t seen these in person but it appears that the points aren’t very fine but any good tool is a very good tool!

These should be available at your favorite bead store or Beadalon wholesaler.

 

 

As a professional business person, I would never want to compete with my customers so it seems strange that jewelry suppliers market and sell finished jewelry.  Would you run your business that way?

To keep costs low and quality high, I am always searching for trusted suppliers. This means I am always searching the Web for “wholesalers” and suppliers. So many sites advertise that they offer “wholesale to the public”. I’ve worked in several different industries as a marketing professional and I find simply false advertising. Either you are a legitimate wholesaler or you are just a company offering a progressive discount system for anyone with a credit card.

But it is the companies that sell beading supplies at “wholesale” and imported finished jewelry that offend me. As a handmade jewelry artist and managing partner of Rose of Sharon Jewelry, I spend a lot of my time establishing our brand and our perceived value. This is a critical action for anyone creating a craft/art/design that value is set by desire and what the market will bear more than commodity items.

If you’ve ever heard “I could make that for half that price”, you know that setting value can be tough. And many crafters/artists/designers tend to cave in and lower their prices. The last thing we need is to have the suppliers we do business with contributing to this obstacle.

Beads bounce! Seed beads spill. Earring backs fly! So many beads so little time to crawl around looking for strays. But I do hate losing costly Swarovski crystals in the studio carpet. And my 3-year-old grandson,  Kael just loves to use my bead soup container as a maraca! Shake – shake – shake – oh, oh!

So when I came across the Craft Vac by Darice in a craft catalog, I thought I might have found a solution to bead runaways. The $9.95 plus $5 shipping seemed okay and since I hate running around town to save a few pennies, I ordered it through their web site. That was my primary mistake – not being able to look at the product and read the package fine print.

Upon opening the plastic packaging, I immediately felt I had wasted my money. The pink Craft Vac pieces were ill-fitting and the battery cover was hard to keep in place. But the biggest issue was the extremely flimsy and torn filter. As everyone knows vacuums need filters and only the torn filter was enclosed. With the instructions clearly warning “Do not operate without filter”, I had a useless vac.

These magnificent faceted honey quartz beads were posted by a Flickr friend - Gemsbeads. They post tons of pics every week and I can never resist the feelings of lust. If only I really were a bead millionaire. . .

So if anyone knows of a source for silver-plated peace signs larger than charms – probably 2 inches or more, leave a comment and link here. Thanks!

Mom (Betty) and I thought we’d like to do some retro looking necklaces with peace signs. I’ve seen peace symbol jewelry in several fashion magazines and even on Michelle Obama.

But we searched for several days on the auction sites, our standard wholesalers, etc. and didn’t find any larger pendant style versions that we thought would be suitable. Weird, huh?

We are making these necklaces for an upcoming Toyota Scion promotional concert where we’ll have a booth courtesy of son, Josh, who is the Scion Guru for the local Reno dealership. Young crowd so we are really having fun making lots of bright colors and bold designs. The peace sign pendants need to be priced for impulse buying so those diamond encrusted one’s Mom found for $3,900 probably wouldn’t work.

 

Peace be with you!