Wednesday's lesson is.....

Today being Wednesday, I learnt a new beading technique.  Daisy chains.  This is deceptively easy and I found that making the plain daisy chain much easier than it would be to make the real thing.

I started off so well and it was fairly easy to do,

 so I got creative..... Maybe I should practice a little more.

There are a million variations to daisy chain and so much you can do with it, from bracelets, necklaces, rings and broaches to hair bands and possibly even earrings.  A little more practice is needed by me before I do all of this though.

I found when I opened my Google profile and in the picture sections were photo's that I can't find in my pictures folder.
I found one picture of a watch that I made in 2011 and sold before it was even completed, I wish I could find this watch face again

The morning after the night before

As some of you may have noticed, I didn't post last night, the reason for this is twofold,
1. I am on night duty for this week and somehow the days seem shorter.
2. I am not yet organised enough to write up a post in advance and then schedule it to automatically post when I want it to, maybe one day.

So for this week I am not going to post on Tuesday and Friday.
I have started on a new project and will hopefully be able to post on Wednesday, I will hopefully have time to work on it at work.

I often get ideas from the beads that I see in the bead shop, and I look through magazines and fashion blogs to get more ideas.  So I now have a computer and phone full of photo's of jewelry I want to make and probably won't (at least not in the near future). Most of my beading books I have chosen an item to make and then changed it to what I want.
 Please excuse the quality and positioning of the photo's, this is way in the beginning and I was still new to jewelry and photography and my edit program.
The first photo is one of the very first pieces I ever made, (my mom owns it now), all the rest are variations of this piece.

 Sorry about the crick in your neck from turning sideways to look at these, I hadn't yet learned how to take good photo's of my work.
I also found a photo of a version of a necklace that I spoke about in last weeks review of inspirational beading. Here it is.

This is my version

This is the inspiration

Look out for Wednesday's post.

Majorly encouraged.

This morning when I went on to Facebook to check how many reaches yesterday's blog had, I received a huge, fantastic shock, at the bottom of each blog post it gives me a little note saying how many people where reached and the opportunity to boost a post, which I do at the beginning of the month, but choosing the post that had the most traffic. Well this morning it said that my post had reached 53 people! I haven't boosted anything since the beginning of this month and that is usually the only way I reach so many.
It was an amazing way to start my weekend and at the time I am writing this post I have reached 100 people!
It is the most wonderful feeling and just makes the struggles with a temperamental computer and internet connection worthwhile.

This week I watched an instructional video on how to make dramatic earrings, please read the review in books and movies. This is what I made from the video.

Is it an Indigo Sky?

It's Thursday so it is color day and today I researched the colour Indigo. Today's blog was once again researched on http://www.empower-yourself-with-color-psychology.com/
The color indigo is considered the color of intuition and perception. It apparently promotes deep concentration during times of introspection and meditation, helping you achieve deeper levels of consciousness. It relies on intuition rather than gut feeling.
Indigo is a deep midnight blue. It is a combination of deep blue and violet and holds the attributes of both these colors.
Indigo conveys sincerity and integrity, service to humanity. It is powerful and dignified.
the meaning of the colour indigo is great devotion, wisdom and justice along with fairness and impartiality. It is a defender of people's rights to the end.
People in the indigo colour of the colour spectrum pavotentially love rituals and traditions, religion and the institutional system, conforming to things that have worked in the past while planning for the future.

The negative color meaning of indigo relates to fanaticism and addiction. Its addiction encompasses everything from a need for recognized qualifications to a need for illegal drugs, from the workaholic to the religious fanatic.

Indigo can be narrow-minded, intolerant and prejudiced.

The indigo personality is honest, compassionate and understanding. Integrity is extremely important to them.

These people tend to need structure in their life. They are conscientious and reliable people and good to have around in a crisis.

They may be the permanent student with one qualification after another. People who have indingo as their favorite color may sometimes be moody and introspective.

Indigo is not my favorite color and when going through my shop to see what I have, I discovered I have only two things made by Dudu a member of my shop. Every purchase of one of Dudu's beaded creations gets money donated to charity.

Bead woven bracelet

Beaded necklace

I posted this last week when I looked at the colour blue, but some of the beads fall into the indigo spectrum

Weaving on a Wednesday

After the rather pathetic attempt to learn to make macrame bracelets (Liora's has made quite a few since then) I moved on to this weeks challenge of learning Right Angle Bead weaving. This I mostly managed easily, except for the part where my invisible beading thread kept getting knotted.

 I printed the pattern off Fusion Beads website (it is free), I found that I had swarovsky elements in the same colors as were shown in the patter so I used them and I think it did help.

The only thing the pattern does not tell you is what to do if you run out of thread halfway and how to tie off, I had to go look on YouTube for that, because if I used as much as I needed I would still be tangled in the mess.

For the entire project I used 1,5m (40 feet) of thread, the instruction sheet is only for 240 cm (8 feet) which makes up about 5 rows. Even doubled (which is how you work) it is a lot of thread which is why it kept getting tangled up. I learned the benefit of magnifying goggles as I need to regularly untangle the threads.

 The whole project took me about 4 hours and a lot of patience! (also in total 130 beads), it was worth while and I have listed it on Etsy. 

I have lots of ideas using this pattern but they will have to wait, there is lots more to learn and more beads to use up.

This is a very short blog tonight as the computer is giving me grey hairs, it has taken over 2 hours just to do this short piece.

Oh and I also learned a different weave and made new earrings just for tomorrows color blog.

Interview from Madrid

This is what caught my eye for today's interview. These handmade bangles use recycled plastic from juice bottles!

This talented jewelry designer comes lives in Madrid, Spain, but her creations are universal. You can find out about Isabel Aguirre in the interview page. Enjoy meeting her.

by Isabel Aguirre

Today is a very short blog as today was my second day on trainingfor ACLS (advanced cardiac life support) so I didn't do any jewelry. I did do some work on learning a new beading technique for tomorrow's blog.

These retro styled rings are available in my shop and are adjustable to fit most fingers. They are made with glass pearl beads and swarovsky crystal elements. I have a few more colors in the making.

Enjoy your read!

Keeping stock

In my revamp I have another problem, I have so much inventory from when I began making my jewelry as a hobby, half of the problem is that I don't know what some of the beads or stones are called and the other half is I don't know what I paid for it.

To find out what the things are I used an online bead shop called "Fusion Beads", but this is taking time as I have to page through their enormous inventory!

These glass beads, I have listed as trinket beads because the name I know them as is a registered name and can't be used.

A lot of these bead strings also have no prices on them, there are two main shops where I buy my beads, one has a higher quality of product and most of their strings have prices on, but even their pendants don't always have a price on, the other shop has no prices on anything, for example my colored skull beads, there was a little sticker on the wall above the peg with the price but that's it. There is just a hand written sign that says unmarked packets are R 10 ($0.95 or £0.55) and since I have been so lax in keeping an inventory and I have opened and discarded the packets, I have no idea which where from R 10 and which were more expensive. Some R 10 packets had 2 pieces in and some had 4 or even 8. I an going to have to leave my purse and cards at home and spend about a day wandering up and down the isles of both shops with a note book, pen and camera!
Then how do I work out the cost of a seed bead as I buy them in a 500 gm packet!
At least I remember the price of the watch faces I use, but I have some pendant watches that I haven't used yet and I can't remember those!

I have started my inventory list with completed jewelry, and what I have done is put a picture of the item in the first column and then a description, and because want to sell in South Africa as well as on Etsy and Misi I have 3 price columns one for rands, one for dollars and one for pounds and the last column is the shipping fee. This is time consuming, but I think in the end it will be worth it.

To work out my shipping fee I got a book from the South African Postal Services (SAPS) and I use a kitchen scale to work out the weight of the item I want to mail, this includes the box it will be mailed in and the padded envelope, I have found that so far using the SAPS I have not encountered any problems, it takes 10 working days to reach it's destination, (as long as they are not on strike!) If someone wants their order as a speed delivery I have to take the parcel in get a price email the client and then go back to mail the item, this sometimes means that the postage is double and can then be more expensive than the item itself! All my items are mailed with a tracking number. I looked at courier companies and nearly passed out in shock, and item that I can overnight from SAPS for R 300 ($30 or £16.70) costs over R 1000 ($94 or £55) normal postage rates is on average R 100 - R 120 ($100 or £5.60), this makes a big difference when I have to set a price.
 One of the items lacking in my inventory is the boxes and the envelopes to  mail the items in, I usually have to go and buy when I get an order, not the most efficient method as I can't always get the box I want, also because the boxes are not made for Adiesdesigns specifically I often have to get them in whatever color is available. Once I have gotten properly set up it is an item that I would like to have custom made with my shop name printed on.
This my order waiting to be mailed to the customer in England.

Hindsight is always 20/20. How I wish I could wave a magic wand and my inventory would be all complete!