Archive for the ‘Rings & Things products’ Category
Friday, November 6th, 2009
Crystal fans — heads up!
We can all expect to see small increases in the price of CRYSTALLIZED™ – Swarovski Elements over the next few months.
Still pennies per crystal bead!
Why?
- The value of the Dollar against the Euro continues to worsen.
- Materials costs continue to rise.
- For nearly a year, Swarovski held the currency surcharge at the same level, despite the fall of the Dollar. But in late October Swarovski announced they are increasing the surcharge, thus making Crystallized Elements by Swarovski cost more for all US distributors and retailers.
The effects of the surcharge increase, plus an expected across-the-board price increase from Swarovski in early 2010, will ripple through the jewelry and bead markets as new goods arrive or as vendors implement across-the-board price changes.
Rest assured, Rings & Things plans to keep bringing you genuine Swarovski crystals at the best prices possible!
Tags: bead prices, beads, crystal prices, CRYSTALLIZED - Swarovski Elements, crystals, Swarovski, Swarovski beads, swarovski crystals, swarovski pendants
Posted in Rings & Things products, Trendspotting | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
This week’s featured beads, just in time for the holiday season, are crystal snowflakes.
Bright stuff coming down!
These crystal pendants are the classic Swarovski #6704 style, perennially popular for the way they gently glisten.
Make your list now, and check it twice! You have enough time to stock up some great styles for Christmas and Hanukkah shoppers.
Like real snowflakes, these come in many forms. Sizes are 20mm, 25mm, 30mm and 35mm — in other words, from nearly an inch to an inch-and-a-half. Choose from “pure” crystal, crystal AB (aurora borealis coating), and crystal/moonlight (also coated).
Crystal snowflakes fit for a princess
PS: You can also get new snowflake beads in raku, as well as other styles. Merry browsing!
Tags: beads, cinderella at midnight necklace, crystal snowflakes, Featured Bead, let it snow necklace, snowflake beads, swarovski 6704, swarovski snowflakes
Posted in Featured Bead, Rings & Things products, beads | No Comments »
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Strung on #61-723-49-02 Beadalon, this keychain held up in daily use for over 2 years!
How burly is your Beadalon?
This is a nice testament to the durability of the stringing materials you can buy here. 
Thanks to Rita who works here, for pointing out that you can learn from broken jewelry too!
FYI, the big cool bead is #28-900-01-01 (George O’Grady borosilicate glass). It’s been restrung on #40-099-28-3 beading chain, finished off with a #41-151-99-20-3 crimp tube at one end and #41-256-02-3 crimps at the other end. The crimp at the end of the tassel is covered with a crimp cover from the #48-289-00-3 set. The clip itself isn’t ours, but is similar to our new #30-610-01-1 teardrop clip.
Dare to share — have a jewelry failure that we can learn from? Spill it in a comment here!
Tags: beadalon, breakage, clip findings, crimp findings, crimp tubes, jewelry failures, keychain, stringing cable, stringing cord, stringing materials, teardrop clips
Posted in Projects, Rings & Things products | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
Rings & Things has added a bunch of Christmas lampwork beads this year…so that’s the featured bead this week.
For jolly happy souls!
Add goofy grins to the festivities with the snowman-head beads above — or with the fun snowmen, Xmas trees and Santa beads below!
Making spirits bright...and helping mittened fingers zip jackets!
(There’s also a really fun bubble wand in our Design Gallery, featuring these same three beads.)
Besides these designs, check out such festive baubles as lampwork Christmas stockings…
Stocking stuff!
…and many more!
Have holiday plans involing beads? Share the inspiration here!
Tags: christmas beads, christmas lampwork, christmas stocking beads, christmas tree beads, Featured Bead, holiday jewelry designs, holiday zipper pulls, joeman earrings, lampwork beads, santa beads, santa claus beads, snowman beads, snowman earrings
Posted in Featured Bead, Rings & Things products, Seasons greetings, beads | No Comments »
Friday, October 16th, 2009
In which we yank the shroud aside…
Introducing “Search by Color” for crystal beads in our CRYSTALLIZED™ -
Swarovski Elements section! Thanks to Melissa for a ton of hard work to make this happen. (Maybe I should say a gross of hard work…uh…)
Now you’re just a click away from seeing every single crystal bead color that we have, laid out in an attractive table. As you can see, similar colors are grouped together — which makes it easy to build on a color theme, or find a substitute for a color you can’t get.
Let us know how you use “searching by color” in your crystal shopping…
Tags: crystal bead colors, crystal beads, crystal colors, CRYSTALLIZED - Swarovski Elements, search by color, search crystals by color, swarovski bead colors, Swarovski beads, swarovski colors
Posted in About Rings & Things, Featured Bead, Our website, Rings & Things products, beads | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Get to know a multi-faceted, many-faced bead!
The telling of the beads
Reddish-brown rudraksha or rudraksh beads are the seed of the fruit of the rudraksha tree, from India. (This tree, genus Elaeocarpus, also grows in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, New Guinea, some Pacific Islands and Australia.)
Numbers are often mentioned in connection with these beads. Rudraksha beads commonly have 5 mukhs or mukhis (faces of the bead), but you’ll find various numbers of faces on them. There are 108 beads per strand traditionally in a Hindu mala or prayer garland. Malas are used like rosaries in meditative prayer, as well as in traditional Indian medicine.
Go ahead, stare 'em in the face
Rudraksha beads show a great deal of versatility. Because they’re a natural material, they work extremely well with your more organic designs. Because they’re exotic here in North America, they lend a funky, ethnic flair to jewelry. And because of their texture, rudrakshas can pair up in interesting ways with the more unusual beads, like lava, wood or nut beads.
Ever handled rudraksh beads? How would you describe them in 25 words or less? Leave a comment!
Tags: hindu beads, hindu malas, mala beads, malas, prayer beads, prayer garland, rudraksh, rudraksh beads, rudraksha, rudraksha beads
Posted in Featured Bead, Rings & Things products, beads | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009
Citrine: the November stone
A great thing about citrine is that you’ve got options, options, options. Both the natural stuff and geometrically perfect lab-grown citrine are available, and each has its charms.
Shapes you can only find in natural citrine — small but rugged chip beads:
Bring chips to the birthday party!
Citrine that’s manufactured by humans is much more regular in shape:
Extra-faceted for extra shine: manmade citrine
With artifice comes pizzazz–dig this jazz:
A dash of lime-green quartz!
You’re not dreaming, there are lots of ways to do your citrine-ing! Look what you can do with a megadose of “vitamin C”:
Several milligrams of citrine beads...
Riff on the theme, drop a comment below!
Tags: artificial citrine, citrine, citrine beads, citrine birthstone, citrine with green quartz, faux citrine, lab-grown citrine, manmade citrine, november birthstone, pop rocks bracelet
Posted in Rings & Things products, beads, birthstones | 3 Comments »
Thursday, September 17th, 2009
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!
Tags: belt buckles, game spinners, idea-ology, image transfer solution, its, polish, polishing paper, renaissance, sprocket gears, tim holtz, wax polish, wetordry
Posted in Fun, New products, Rings & Things products, Trendspotting, designing | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
Where we check into possible birthstone plans for the upcoming month…
A great design you can make with tourmaline beads...
Tourmaline beads, the birthstone of choice for October, show some appropriately magical properties. Did you know that if you rub this stone, it generates a charge that attracts small objects like bits of paper or strands of hair? (I couldn’t find an image of this. Bummer. Please submit one if you’ve got one.)
True to its name (which originally meant “stone of mixed colors”), tourmaline is found in a very pretty palette of blue, yellow, pink, red, black, green and clear stones. Here are most of those colors in a strand that we sell:
Rings & Things also sells strands of the nice black tourmaline alone:
Here’s a great idea for using black tourmaline in a rosary:
David's Rosary uses the black tourmaline beads
And don’t forget tourmalated quartz. These beads technically include tourmaline, so they add to your options for “October babies”:
You’ll find lots more neat background reading at our Gemstone Index ‘tourmaline’ entry! And this is the time of year when you can come to our BeadTour bead shows to look for great new tourmaline, tourmalated quartz and many more gemstone beads not found in our catalog!
Tags: bead shows, BeadTour, birthstone beads, black tourmaline, black tourmaline beads, october birthstone, tourmalated quartz, tourmalated quartz beads, tourmaline, tourmaline beads, tourmaline birthstone
Posted in Rings & Things products, bead shows, beads, birthstones | 6 Comments »
Friday, August 28th, 2009
“Hollow” means a lot of different things when you talk about beads and findings. Let’s look at hollow sterling beads…
Hollow sterling silver beads all have one thing in common — they’re light in weight and they’re more affordable than solid silver beads.
- There are organic-shaped hollow sterling nugget beads. They’re hollow because they’re a continuous surface like a pebble, only empty inside:
Hollow...
...toroidal...
- Silver teapot charms are hollow because they’re shaped like a real teapot, with room inside for a tiny drink:
...concave
If you really think about it, “hollow” could mean even more things…how about those deeply pockmarked lava beads? Leave a comment to suggest more ideas about hollow beads!
Tags: hollow beads, hollow silver beads, hollow sterling beads, hollow sterling silver beads, lava beads, nugget beads, roller beads, silver nugget beads, silver roller beads, silver teapot beads, sterling nugget beads, sterling roller beads, sterling teapot beads, teapot beads
Posted in Featured Bead, Rings & Things products | 2 Comments »
