Folksy Friday Navigating the Main Page

The Folksy main page is full of things to look at so here is a quick guide to the main page.
Starting at the top you have your favourite finds and Recent activity. the recent activity feature shows you what is selling and how long ago it sold, this can be quite useful as a market research resource if you want to see what's doing particularly well. The favourite finds consists of the pieces folksy has found is featuring in the newsletters, such as the different themes they have such as the beach, back to school etc.
Mixed in with this is how to find folksy on other social networks like Facebook, twitter, instagram and so on.
The next feature is one that I especially like. Pinterest is a raising force in the social networking sites and folksy has grabbed hold of this and made a feature of it. All you have you do is make a Pinterest board of your favourite folksy items and don't forgot to make a theme. Next submit it to folksy and the successful boards are added to the main page. You get exposure for your shop as the creature of the board and everyone in your board gets exposure because you liked there items enough to include them in your board.  
Next Folksy has a feature known as featured sellers where they promote a seller they have chosen to put on their main home page for a week.

In that week the featured seller has a place on the home page all week and does a meet the maker article on the folksy blog. There items for sale are also starred for easy finding and so everyone else knows they where the lucky people to be featured.
Near the bottom of the main page is the recently added feature. This is the place where your items go when you first add them to your shop so everyone browsing the main page can see.
At the bottom of the page is the Best sellers, these are the people to look up to!
The only thing below that is the magazines folksy has been featured in other the years.
So that is it a quick guide to the main page.

Thursday Throwback. The history of the Titanic Necklace. The Heart of the Ocean

This weeks Thursday Throwback is the fictional 'Heart of the ocean' necklace which features in the blockbuster movie Titanic that came out in 1997 and was the first film to gross a billion dollars.
Did you know that the fake prop necklace used in the film was later re commissioned as a real sapphire and diamond necklace? It's true.

The Heart of the Ocean (also known as Le Coeur de la Mer) was originally made as a prop for the movie by the jewellers Asprey & Garrard and was made out of cubic zirconia's and set in white gold but after the movie they where requested again four years later to remake it for real this time to be sold for the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.
One of the biggest challenges facing the jewellers at the time was where to find a sapphire that big! They searched the world and looked at several candidates but eventually found a 174 carat triangle sapphire in Sri Lanka, which was re cut to the famous heart shape and down graded to 171 carats. Next was the diamonds, all 36 carats of them. All the diamonds where matched up on there sizes and then re cut to match each other, there was 103 diamonds in total.
They used beeswax and hand tools to position the diamonds just right in the platinum setting, often taking them back out for re positioning until they where perfect, next they added the centre piece sapphire, le Coeur de la mer.
The necklace sold at Sotheby's auction house in Beverley Hills for $17 million and with the agreement that Celion Dion could wear it to the 1998 Academy Awards ceremony, which she did 2 nights later.

Whilst researching this necklace I came across a real necklace that was actually on the Titanic. It wasn't heart shaped and it may not have even been a sapphire but it did have a love story like the movie. It belonged to a young woman called Kate Florence Phillips from Worchester, England she was running away with Henry Samuel Morley to elope. He was the owner of some “Purveyors of High Class Confectionery” shops in London and she was one of his employees, he was also married with a child. In order for them to run away together he had sold his shops and left his wife and child with some money before booking tickets on the unsinkable Titanic with Kate. As a present he brought her a necklace it had a blue square in the middle and diamonds around that. They boarded in second class as Mr and Mrs Marshall and where excited for their future together.
Unfortunately for them their dreams where shattered when the ship hit the iceberg and sunk. Henry Samuel Morley couldn't swim and died in the waters and Kate Florence Phillips survived with only the necklace and her nightgown on her. She was rescued by the Celtic and taken back to England where she found out she was pregnant and later gave birth to a baby girl.

 

Throwback Thursday. A quick guide to Celtic jewellery.

First today I'd like to say thank you to all those who are making my Thursday throwback posts a success. I'm really enjoying researching and writing about these subjects so it's lovely to see your also enjoying reading them.
This week is the turn of the Celts. I first became interested in the designs of the Celtic period when I was little and I'd go to stay at my gran's place. She had a series of books all about mythology and ledge sd, these books where beautiful adorned with the strong colours and intricate patterns of Celtic design. They captured my imagination and I'd love to draw my finger over them trying to follow the patterns like the picture above.

The celts date back to around 2000 years ago and originated in mid Europe, travelling north. Not a lot is known about their beliefs or knowledge because they communicated verbally instead of writing it down. However we can surmise that jewellery meant a lot to them, we have lots of archeological finds which show us there brilliant craftsmanship.

After 450AD the Christians adopted this way of design into there manuscripts, a great example of this is the lindisfarne gospels. Something I'd love to go see someday.

The designs are made of lots of different patterns the main ones being Celtic cross', motif animals, spirals and knots. 

Closer to our own time Celtic design inspired some of the art Nouveau period designs. I've recently discovered a jewellery designer from this time called Archibald Knox, who I will definitely need to look in to more. His designs are really beautiful

Below is my own take on a Celtic design, I've used tiny heart beads with a Celtic knot in the middle. These beads are some of my favourite beads I've brought

Celtic Bracelet And Earrings £10.00

Feeling excited.

I've spent the last year working as much as I possible can with my day job and promoting and making jewellery for Fashion Magpie Jewellery in the evenings. Eventually all my hard work has paid off and I've managed to save up for a holiday. I'm so excited, it was 2008 the last time I visited a different country so I feel well over due for a bit of foreign culture.

Travelling is something I love and I've been really fortunate to have visited a lot of the places I'd like to. However the world is a large and beautifully diverse place so I have plenty of places left to visit too!

This time will be my first holiday abroad with my fiancé and we'll be travelling to Zante which is in the Greek isles. It's not somewhere I know a lot about but I've been researching and it looks like it's going to be beautiful, they say it's famed for its clear waters which make the boats look like there floating on thin air. The pictures look very intriguing!

 

I'm leaving on Sunday and will be back on the 25th August so if you order any of Fashion Magpie Jewellerys items please bare in mind I won't be posting any orders until I'm back in the country. 

I've set up my Thursday throwback and folksy Friday posts to automatically post themselves next week, so hopefully if I've done it right you can still get them blog posts even though I'm away. Hope you enjoy them!

Right I must go make sure I've packed everything so until next time I'll leave you with some images of the new pieces I've listed for sale.

Grey Jewel Enamel Ring

Blue Button Ring

Blue Jewel Enamel ring

Heart jewel Enamel Ring

Button and diamante ring

 

Clock Blue Charm Bracelet

 

Folksy Friday. What is Talk Folksy?

I've recently discovered Talk Folksy on Folksy.com and I love it! Talk Folksy is a forum for folksy users and is full to the brim of lovely friendly fellow crafters.
There are seven categories to choose from when you log in, my favourites are Shop Talk and showcase. Shop talk is, as the name suggests, about talking about your folksy shop and discussing any issues or asking for advice. Showcase is for just that, showcasing your creative talents to anyone who will listen! Its good for getting people looking at your shop when your having a lull in sales, just basically find a topic and say hi. Fellow forum users are in the same boat as you and are always happy to say hi back and take a look at your shop as long as you return the favour ( it's only polite after all!!)
Another Category worth visiting from time to time is the Fancy a cuppa? Page, where you can have a general chit chat with people and make friends talking about anything, not necessarily craft related topics.
The other categories are Wanted, used for looking for supplies your having difficulty finding. craft talk, which is about talking about crafty things like tutorials. UK craft events which is finding or promoting a craft event in the UK and the last category is Meta which is asking questions about the forum its self, sort of like a help desk.
So there it is Talk folksy in a nutshell, hope this inspires you to join, it's well worth taking a look and saying hi.

Thursday Throwback. Art Nouveau part 2. Who was Rene Lalique?

I enjoyed writing last weeks post, what is Art Nouveau?, so much I decided to make it a two part post. This week is part two and I wanted to tell you more about one of the leading jewellery designers of the period, Rene Lalique. It was also an excuse for me to research the man behind some of my most favourite pieces of Art Nouveau jewellery.

Rene Jules Lalique was one of the founders of modern jewellery. Lalique was 16 when he took a job as apprentice to Louis Aucoc who was among some of the leading jewellers of the day. It was with Aucoc that Lalique learnt jewellery production and design from the ground up. In 1878 he joined crystal palace school of art Sydenham, London and studied graphic design and developed his naturalistic approach to his pieces. After 2 years in London he moved back to Paris where he grew up, it was here his career started to really take off and he made pieces for Cartier and Boucheron as well as having some rich private clientele too. In 1890 he opened his own shop in the opera district of Paris. It was during his time at his new shop that most of the pieces he'd come to be known for where made, brought up from the depths of his creativity through experimentation with glass.

Lalique embraced Art Nouveau and it's design elements especially the naturalist and japonisme. He used materials not widely seen in the jewellery industry before his time, especially high end jewellery. My particular favourite he uses is glass, I'm a big fan of the effects he uses to make the glass frosted and the detail he then has in the glass, when a light is shone through them they look just like a black and white photograph, the shadowing is the best you've seen. It was this form of craft he would go on to use more and more in his later life becoming a world class glassmaker of not just jewellery but also wall lights, vases, screens and just about anything else. His best known pieces would include the dining room and salon room of the SS Normandie and the font of st. Matthews church at Millbrook in Jersey.

In 1897 he was awarded the croix de la legion d'honneur for the jewellery he exhibited at the world fair in Brussels. The best way to describe what this honour is, is to compare it to the British knighting of a sir, so pretty impressive! 

Lalique died 5th May 1945 in Paris, he was buried in Pere Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Rene Lalique has been a truly interesting man to research, his jewellery is wonderful but I now also think a lot more of the man behind the jewellery. He worked hard and was rewarded with a great professional life!

Folksy Friday favourites

Folksy Friday this week is all about favourites. Folksy gives you the option to favourite an item or shop that you like.
Thought I'd show you some of my own favourites.

My favourite shop on Folksy is Josephines. The necklace below is one of my favourite at the moment I love the picture of the blue tits and the use of the pearls.

Vintage Cameo... Necklace

Another favourite of mine is babooshka, she makes 50's inspired jewellery.

Art Deco Raspberry Swirl Cabochon Bead Pendant

It' not just jewellery shops I favourite on Folksy either. There is a whole wealth of different craft stores available. There is one I like called Genevieve Cseh Art, they do the most beautiful paintings. The one below Is a print of an acrylic Painting I love. It's the colours that drew me in, I love autumn and going for walks with the leaves fluttering down around you, this picture sums it up perfectly.

Autumn Walk

Hope you've enjoyed my pick of items from Folky.com.



Throwback Thursday. What is art nouveau jewellery? Part 1

Art Nouveau is by far one of my favourite time periods for jewellery, but what is Art Nouveau?

In the later years of the nineteenth century there was a lot happening such as the Japanese where invited to exhibit at the 1862 international exhibition in London. This was the first time many had seen work like this, today when we see a Japanese print or wood cuts we take it for granted, we've seen it all before but back then it was all new and was named japonisme.

Another movement was the emergence of arts and craft in England which incorporated art into everyday items.

From japonisme and art and crafts came Art Nouveau, which blended the two main movements of design into one beautiful period in time.

The name Art Nouveau came from a shop in Paris owned by the art dealer Samuel Bing, who was looking to relaunch his business with a new name. He named it "L'Art nouveau" and invited all the big names of the time to his art gallery to exhibit.

The main feature of most designs of Art Nouveau is what's called the whiplash. This is the free flowing line in a design used to show movement, it was best seen in a revival of Celtic design in England which at its heart has knots, circles and squares all intertwined.

The woman's hair in this brooch is an example of whiplash

 

Art nouveau covered many areas of design but it is jewellery I'm most interested in and was first drawn to this period through. The jewellery normally has some kind of insect, animal or mythical being interpreted on and there are various uses for enamelling used. It was the enamelling that first caught by eye. I, as you probably already know if you read my blog a lot, use jewel enamels in my own designs. It's a different kind of enamel to the kind used in the art nouveau period but it still gives the same beautiful lustre to a piece like the genuine article. One use for enamel used time and time again in this period is to decorate the wings of a beetle, it's something that's definitely on my to do list for future project!

Before art nouveau came the Victorian era, which for all it's wonders and developments was also a little bit reversed when it came to human form in all it's glory. So art nouveau came as something of a shock to purest Victorians who had hardly even seen a woman's ankle never mind her whole body laid bare in the form of a brooch or other adornment. One of my favourite jewellers of the time was Rene Lalique who also became known for his pieces of jewellery showing the female body. Personally I like some of his others more then the trademark pieces. In next weeks Thursday throwback I'll be going into more detail about the man behind the jewellery and more pictures to show you of the beautiful pieces he made.

Another favourite of mine from the period was a company what is still around today, Tiffany and Co. They set out with the aim to make one of a kind pieces usually with unusual gems, pearls and incorporated the flowing lines and motifs of the time into each piece.
Unfortunately as with all good things it had to end somewhere. With war in Europe looming art nouveau shrank back and it wasn't until after the war some of the design elements of this fabulous period where picked up again in a new movement called modernist in the 1930s.

Glitter Globe Tutorial

Had lots of fun with this one, ideas have been flying around in my head for weeks. Discounted a lot of ideas because put simply the hole through which you put stuff into the globe is tiny, so I had to be quite selective of what I used because not everything fit. Had one idea to put a paper flower inside, unfortunately though the flower stubbornly refused to fit through the hole. So the idea has been discarded for now, until I can find I better sized flower!

Here is a picture of two designs I have made, the blue glitter globe is the one I'm going to be taking you through how to make and the other is a 80's inspired globe. Normally when I design vintage inspired jewellery I'm thinking more along the lines of the 40's, Victorians and Edwardians but my 80's globe just fit. As soon as I tried the beads inside I knew I wanted it to be inspired by the 80's, the colour combination was perfect and reminded me of track suits and the bright neon's of the make up. click here to buy 80's necklace

 

To make the glitter globe necklace you will need

Glass globe

Beads

Glitter

Stopper bail

Eye hole findings

Chain nose pliers

Wire cutter

 

(the picture was my inspiration for this piece)

 

Step 1.

The first thing is to put the glitter (or anything else your mind can think of) into the globe. If you are using glitter bare in mind that it, even if your very careful, still can get everywhere!

Step 2. 

Glue the lid on. I used super glue for this but anything that bonds glass to metal can be used.

Step 3.

Making your necklace can be as simple as just threading a chain onto the bail end of the lid. In keeping with the picture that inspired me though I decided to add some beading to my design for a bit more interest.
To do this thread your bead on to a eye hole finding, now bend the wire 90 degrees with chain nose pliers then back again to make almost a loop, cut the excess wire off and finish the loop. Do this again but before finishing your loop thread the last bead you made on to the loop, then finish looping the wire. Repeat as many more times as you like until you have your desired length. I like to make them so that the beads starts from collar bone and the rest of the length is chain as I have done with this design. See the pictures below if you got confused reading my instructions for step 3. (I find it hard to explain how to do the loop on a bead, I could show you in 2 minutes but writing it down is harder!)

 

Here is a picture of the finished necklace available now in my store for £12.50. (Click here)

 

Step 4.

Enjoy!

 

Folksy Friday. What is folksy.com?

Do you ever get sick of not knowing where your purchase was made? Wish you could buy more local? Then folksy.com is the place you want to visit. Folksy is a place to buy and sell handmade products made right here in the uk, by everyone from the most professional veteran crafter to tiny cottage industries and everyone in between.

I have been a member since 2010 selling my Fashion Magpie Jewellery store items. It's really easy to use, everything's straight forward. I highly recommend it.

It was founded in 2008 by James Broadwell, a former researching and designing digital services for the BBC, and is celebrating its 6th anniversary this year! It has over 1 million sales of independently crafted sales with a community of 13,000.

One of the best things about folksy is talk folksy their forum a great place to meet the community you belong to, It's also helpful if you need advice. Recently I meet a lovely lady on there who gave me the opportunity to write a guest blog for her.( Read it here) it's definitely something I want to do again someday.

To visit my shop just click here