– I moved recently to a larger flat and that means I now have a room all to myself where I was able to finally set up a proper work room for my jewelry, computer, sewing machine, etc.
It has one really long table on one side (actually 3 tables side by side) and the opposite wall is intended for storage cupboards although it only has one at the moment.

For the first time ever I’m able to leave beads on the planning board without fear of my son or cats messing with my unfisnished work because I can just lock the door. I’ve dreamed about this for ages.

The one think that’s still missing is an area for photographing my jewelry. In summer that won’t be such a problem because I can take it outside to the balcony and do it there. But when it rains I need an indoor alternative. I’m going to try and figure that out today because I made a lovely pair of earrings that are meant as a Christmas gift and i want to take a picture before wrapping them. i feel it’s important to document my work for future reference and because it’s fun to look back and see how I’ve evolved.

Happy holidays everyone.

– 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 (calluses 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.

– Por muito que goste de fazer peças mais complexas como colares e pulseiras, os anéis são as peças mais populares e as lojas estão constantemente a pedir-me para levar mais. No entanto, fazer modelos de anel novos não é fácil e por vezes isso implica passar uns dias a fazer rabiscos no papel e a dobrar arame até sair alguma coisa interessante.

Depois de ter consultado livros e sites de inspiração, ontem sentei-me com o bloco de notas e comecei a fazer bonecos. Esta manhã comecei a transformar os desenhos em formas tri-dimensionais e o resultado até agora é o que se vê na foto do lado.

A diferença maior em relação aos anéis de arame que fiz em anos anteriores é que estes são todos martelados para espalmar o arame que fica fino e largo. São todos ajustáveis – uns abertos atrás e outros de lado – e as variações possà­veis são inúmeras.

Depois destas primeiras experiências vou pegar nos modelos que considero mais promissores e fazer versões em prata para poder lixar o anel de forma a ficarem com um acabamento mais perfeito.Por muito que goste de fazer peças mais complexas como colares e pulseiras, os anéis são as peças mais populares e as lojas estão constantemente a pedir-me para levar mais. No entanto, fazer modelos de anel novos não é fácil e por vezes isso implica passar uns dias a fazer rabiscos no papel e a dobrar arame até sair alguma coisa interessante.

Depois de ter consultado livros e sites de inspiração, ontem sentei-me com o bloco de notas e comecei a fazer bonecos. Esta manhã comecei a transformar os desenhos em formas tri-dimensionais e o resultado até agora é o que se vê na foto do lado.

A diferença maior em relação aos anéis de arame que fiz em anos anteriores é que estes são todos martelados para espalmar o arame que fica fino e largo. São todos ajustáveis – uns abertos atrás e outros de lado – e as variações possà­veis são inúmeras.

Depois destas primeiras experiências vou pegar nos modelos que considero mais promissores e fazer versões em prata para poder lixar o anel de forma a ficarem com um acabamento mais perfeito.

– 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 jewellery 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 jewellery 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 😛

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.

– I’ve decided to try coloured wire to make some coil rings. The color surface is a bit fragile but the colours are so beautiful and shiny that’s it’s a really tempting material to use. I used colourful wood beads as a focal point for the rings and the contrast between the materials – rough and smooth – works really well.

I also used this wire to make a chain maille bracelet in a variation of the japanese weave. It took days and was really hard work because the jump rings were tiny but the result is quite lovely. I tumbled the bracelet after it was done, to work harden the wire a bit more because I was afraid the smaller rings would open too easily and to get rid of some burrs they might still have. I feared the tumbler would remove some of the color coating but it didn’t.

Here’s a picture of the finished bracelet:

I’m considering buying the coloured wire in thicker gauges to make chain maille because I really love the way you can make patterns by using different color jump rings in a weave and it eliminates the need for beads as decoration.