Our colleague Rita submitted a design to the Soft Flex Trios beading contest, and it has been nominated as a possible winner.
Vote for Rita Hutchinson 
It’s voting season, so why not vote for the design: “Mystical Trios: Magical Butterfly Necklace”, by Rita Hutchinson?
Thanks a GR!
(Bead-supplier talk, for “thanks a million”!)
You might be expecting a top-10 list of craft tips. This is a 10-in-1…
Subscribe to the “feed” from the Design Gallery. You’ll have 10 new design ideas at a time delivered to your desktop.
How? Click the orange RSS link, the iGoogle link, or the MyYahoo! link. You’ll get a constantly updated list of our 10 latest jewelry projects.
Just like that! We’ve had plenty of people say that they turn to us first when they have a new project idea. Let us return the favor with some jewelry inspirations.
Enjoy!
Rings & Things’ own Metalman, Kurt Madison, took some time before our big design contest to talk about what makes a winning entry…
I have been reflecting on what wins an award in a contest. Is it the biggest / most elaborate entry? The one with the most obvious $$ spent?
What makes this a winning contest entry?
Lots of times, it does seem to look that way. When you feel like it works that way, try looking at several years of winners for that contest. There may be a unconscious bias working there somewhere. I feel I have seen some cultural bias in international art exhibitions — this happens and you can’t really complain about it. You can become aware of it and use it to your advantage, or at least know that it’s working against you.
So anyway….what makes a winner? I think it’s always design. The work has to have good design.
How to get to good design? Well, I guess my method is to collect ideas for a while, then I do small sketches (thumbnails) and play with my elements (beads/stones/etc.), until I start to get a real idea or concept in my mind’s eye.
Then I do some larger drawing. I really like an expressive/abstract style of drawing — this gives me more ideas. After that: I do a final design drawing to life-size, and really tight so I can cut metal to fit and all. Many times I get halfway through and the materials or visual ideas shift. That may mean a new piece gets started, or that the current one gets benched for a while, or just improvements.
So in this description, how many pieces got designed? Maybe 10 various directions — and from them, picking the best one and making builds for that GOOD DESIGN WINNER.
Our designer Evette sent me over an idea for a bicycle belt buckle that she made:
Tough enough for a biker, but made for a woman
Ingredients:
Instructions:
See how quick & easy it is to make hip jewelry! (Above the hip, I guess.)
As promised, I’m transferring some images from our digital cameras to our blog — To show your our recent Image Transfer Solution (ITS) workshop.
We had a whole crew putting this new product through ITS paces…
Busily trying all kinds of ideas
Everyone had lots of inspirations they wanted to try out…
So many images to transfer, so much jewelry to make!
In the spirit of yesterday’s belt-buckle blog post, here’s another approach…
Impressionist belt buckles, anyone?
You can do so many things with Image Transfer Solution…
Amazing images
It was neat to see how a transferred image works when it’s overlaid on another design…
Try layering contrasting images
While we were at it, we tried out some new products we’re introducing…
Game spinners & sprocket gears (available soon!)
We learned tons from doing this workshop! Soon you’ll see an ITS technique sheet on our website. We’ve been adding more ITS-related items to our store, too, to enhance your experience. Check out new Wetordry™ polishing paper for truly delicate hand-sanded results. And Renaissance® micro-crystalline wax polish is a fantastic way to protect your transferred images!
Have you tried Image Transfer Solution yet? It’s a marvelous way to create custom pendants, beads, and more…we’d love to hear of your experiences with it in a comment below!
These are one of the neatest new design ideas that our free-ranging design team has roped lately. Git along with it!
Top: "Cowgirl Moon". Bottom: "Dry Harvest".
Created by: Laurae Sather
Cowgirl Moon Belt Buckle
1 #21-340-03-030 35×50mm rectangle gemstone donut, sodalite
1 #30-193 Belt-buckle back, nickel silver
1 #82-500-08 8oz kit EasyCast epoxy
1 Artisan drawn or copyright-free image
Dry Harvest Belt Buckle
1 #21-340-03-031 35×50mm rectangle gemstone donut, tigereye
1 #30-193 Belt-buckle back, nickel silver
1 #82-500-08 8oz kit EasyCast epoxy
1 Artisan drawn or copyright-free image
Tools and supplies: resin mixing supplies (#82-599), Crafter’s Pick™ The Ultimate adhesive (#60-280), Mod Podge®
TIPS:
Cut image to fit buckle blank, coat both sides with Mod Podge and let dry. Glue your image to the buckle blank. Once dry, glue the rectangular gemstone donut to the buckle blank and let it dry overnight.
Follow the directions for mixing the EasyCast epoxy and fill the ‘donut hole’ over the image with resin. Let it dry overnight, attach a belt and you’re ready to saddle up!
See our Epoxy Resin Technique Sheet for resin tips.
To view (PDF files), you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. You can download it free here.
View more Resin design ideas, or post questions on the Rings & Things Discussion Forum. Don’t be shy! If you’re wondering, so is someone else!
Thanks, Laurae, for (excuse me) adding a new notch to our design repertoire!
Dave,
Of course I want to say “ham, bacon, sausage, ham hock….” But, instead I used the following R&T’s parts for the “Pearls before Swine” Necklace (this is from memory since Val has the necklace):
Qty Stock Description
1 Found Item Plastic pink pig (couple inches long?) (sub other plastic critters at will)
2 #44-150-7 Filigree, Harvest, AC
16″ #40-099-08-7 Chain, Ftage, Curb, 2.8mm, AC
9 #37-136-7 Jump Ring, Round, Medium, AC
1 #37-422-7 Head Pin, 2″, Standard, AC
3 #37-722-7 Eye Pin, 2″, Standard, AC
1 #39-343-7 Clasp, Lobster, 12mm, Brass, AC
4 #05-810-08-201 Crystal, Bead, Round, Pearl, LtCrmRose
Happy blogging!
Mollie
PS: This is Sondra’s pig–I pignapped him for the necklace; just a little jewelry surprise for her–she has no idea he is even gone.
You’ve received our new 2009-2010 catalog, haven’t you? We’re very happy with it. One reason is all the fun jewelry designs it features. Now…
Rings & Things has uploaded dozens and dozens of these new entries to our Design Gallery! (Finally done. I see the light at the end of the carpal tunnel.) ☻☺ At last count we had something like 668 designs up. We group this free inspirational material into some useful categories:
Every design is illustrated by a great big beautiful picture of the finished piece. The Design Contest Winners come with the artist’s statement. All the others are accompanied by a parts list, complete with links to our online store if you’re going to buy the components.
You’ll also find links to free downloadable PDFs with full instructions for making each design. The PDFs come in two flavors, faster-loading or higher-resolution. Hard to choose, right?
Subscribe to our Design Gallery RSS / Google Desktop / My Yahoo feed to keep updated! Whenever we upload a new design, we’ll send a blip right to your desktop or browser window, whichever you choose.
Have a favorite Design Gallery item? Ever been inspired by one of our designs? Saw your contest entry on our site? Leave a comment to talk about it!!
Planning ahead for March birthstone jewelry? Our crystal ball (actually a book we sell) says you can use aquamarine or bloodstone. Some folks use jasper too!
The zodiac says March is the month when most Pisces are born (February 20-March 20). Since Pisces is “the fish”, the hue of aquamarine (literally “sea water”) is a great color theme to use in birthday jewelry for these folks. Enjoy the organic feel of gemstone chip beads,
or make a more regular design by lining up some smooth round beads.
Perhaps better for quick-tempered Aries (March 21-April 19) would be bloodstone. An intriguing thing about this gemstone is how variable the colors can be, since it’s a combination of dark green with deep red in various proportions. Check out these 8mm rounds to get an impression of the color range:
And sometimes you’ll find this stone much more on the green end of things, like these 12mm rounds.
Jasper is a whole world unto itself. There are so many varieties in such a phenomenal range of hues–it’s worth browsing our catalog to absorb them. A couple of my favorites will give you an idea what I mean. There are fancy-jasper faceted diamond-shaped beads:
Another variety is leopardskin jasper, shown here in 8mm rounds:
Yet another type is ocean jasper. How about these tip-drilled puffed marquise beads?
And don’t forget to browse for color matches. We always have hundreds of styles, including aquamarine-colored glass beads!
Have a March birthstone-inspired jewelry tip? Share it here by Replying in the comments section!
The word “thong” has a funny recent history. When I was a kid in the ’70s, we wore thongs on our feet. Times changed, thongs migrated upwards a bit, and now we wear flip-flops. Or “foot thongs”.
Always on the go, thongs have also moved along to the world of bookmarks. Beautiful book thongs have been a trend lately, but you may have seen something like them before. Think of those fancy ribbons built into old, important books to help readers keep their place.
This trend has a couple of nice side effects:
The basic component is a length of cording, for example the flat suede lace that Liz at The Crimson Moon uses. Other approaches to book-thong cording include beading (necklace-style) on Beadalon or other stringing material. Finish the suede cord with a leather crimp end; other stringing materials can be finished effectively like a necklace but leaving off the clasp. The important thing is to have loops at the ends, because…
Your creativity really comes out in decorating the ends, attaching a dangle to each. This can be a focal piece like a lampwork art bead, a seed-bead creation, a pendant, a crystal, some charms… It’s a good idea to make the weight on the two ends pretty equal, so the thong doesn’t fly out of the book like Wile E. Coyote on a pulley.
Why not display your book thongs for sale “in action” in an artful stack of books? Or, because the thongs are long, wrap them around a paper card with your business information on it. If you make handcrafted paper products like diaries, or know someone who does, you could offer a package deal with a bookthong.
Have more book thong or bookmark ideas? Share them by leaving a Reply! ☻☺