New In March To Fashion Magpie Jewellery

Sometimes it's hard to keep up with all the goings on in your favourite shops, so once a month I write this blog post to help catch you up on the newest items to Fashion Magpie Jewellery.
I'm especially pleased this month with the pieces I've made, I may have excelled myself?! I particularly like the new crystal earrings and I'm going to be featuring crystals more from now on in my designs. I'm also pleased with the bow earrings, I love the old, rustic kind of look they have, plus there light and small which makes them great for every day use.
Which ones are your favourites? Please comment below the post and let me know what you think.

 Bee Necklace & Earrings Set

£19.99

 Bow Earrings

£6

 

 Red Tree Earring

£6

 

 Green Necklace

£12.50

 Necklace & Earrings Set With Crystals

£19.99

 

Tree Crystal Earrings

£6

That's all of March 2015 for you, if you would like to buy any of these pieces just click on the name of the picture and the link will take you to them.

Now with March it's time to start focusing on April and Easter.

 

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

 

To be the first to hear the latest news from Fashion Magpie Jewellery blog you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+

Featured Item. Swallow Bracelet

My featured item posts are a piece chosen by myself each week to be shown and talked about, this week is the swallow bracelet.

This piece was one of the first pieces I made using the wrapping technique around the bead with the wire, I think it works really well with the feel of this bracelet, as I wanted it to look a little rustic (you can see the wrap technique best on the last picture).
The beads I used were another first for me, I had been watching a set of mixed porcelain beads for some time but they weren't something I had ever used before. Before this my main choice of beads was to use faux pearls so this was something of a break with tradition for me.
I didn't want this piece to be to uniform so I experimented with using different shape beads from the pack but putting them in different orders on each side. Next I mixed the red with some small 4mm filigree beads to break up the colour a bit.

The main focus of this bracelet, of course, is the swallow. They can be brought in packs of 4 on eBay but I only wanted the one and spent a few days hunting to find just one sold on its own. Its perfect for a bracelet, sitting at just the right size over the wrist, the only thing I had to do to it, was slightly bend the wings down to create more of a oval fit over the wrist.
Lastly I added the fastenings with a small bronze leaf on the clasp side.

All Items come wrapped and in an organza gift bag
All the pieces I make are one of a kind and can be brought from my shop called Fashion Magpie Jewellery.
The Swallow Bracelet is £10.00 with £3.20 UK postage and packaging. I also post aboard.

 You can find Fashion Magpie Jewellery at the below links

Folksy Website www.folksy.com/shops/fashionmagpiejewellery

Etsy Website www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FashionMagpieJewels

Facebook www.facebook.com/fashionmagpiejewellery

Pinterest http://uk.pinterest.com/fmjewellery/

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

 

To be the first to hear the latest news from Fashion Magpie Jewellery blog you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+

Thursday Throwback. Charles Boutet de Monvel

My Thursday Throwback post are all about jewellers from history who I think should be celebrated.

This week is the turn of the French jeweller Charles Boutet de Monvel. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux Artes, which roughly translates as school of fine arts. The schools history spans more then 250 years and has grown an reputation for first training many of the great artists of Europe.

 

 

Here he studied metal engraving and later he went on to study with the likes of Hubert Ponscarme, who was one of the top metal engravers of the time.

 

 

Charles Boutet De Monvel had more of a English Arts and Crafts and Jugendstil influence then many of his other French counterparts which helped to set him apart from his contemporise.

 

 

He specialised in making jewellery with a organic feel to it using, marine plants, spiders, lizards, pea pods and others as his inspiration for pieces and exhibiting them regularly at the Paris Salons.

 

 

Hope you have enjoyed this look at Charles Boutet de Monvel and if you wish to share it you can use the social media links below or email a friend.

 

 

 

Fashion Magpie Jewellery Blog is a celebration of antique and handcrafted jewellery, with regular featured items from my shop, antique jewellery showcase, interviews, reviews and tutorials.

 

To be the first to hear the latest news from Fashion Magpie Jewellery blog you can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+

 

Featured Item. Dragonfly Necklace

The featured item this week for made for the lover of chunky necklaces. Most of my jewellery I make is dainty and delicate but after doing a few craft fairs I found people where asking for chunky pieces to, so I came home and set about making from something a little chunkier then my normal pieces. The result was the Dragonfly Necklace.

I started with the pendant which was a large Vintaj dragonfly and a donut of jewel enamel, made up of clear jewel enamel and blue sapphire jewel enamel. I wrapped the tail of the dragonfly through the donut as though it had picked it up. Next I set about setting out how I wanted the beads by placing them on a bead board until I had a order I was happy with before putting them all together.

 

The necklace is made up of various beads in turquoise, gold and blue with a bronze chain around the neck with the added exception of the bird case with hanging Swarovski crystal.

 

Measures 24inches
Will come wrapped and in an organza gift bag
All the pieces I make are one of a kind and can be brought from my shop called Fashion Magpie Jewellery.
The Necklace and earrings set with crystals is £12.50 with £3.20 UK postage and packaging. I also post aboard.
You can find Fashion Magpie Jewellery at the below links

Folksy Website www.folksy.com/shops/fashionmagpiejewellery

Etsy Website www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FashionMagpieJewels

Facebook www.facebook.com/fashionmagpiejewellery

Pinterest http://uk.pinterest.com/fmjewellery/

 

Thursday Throwback. Levinger and Bissinger

The company this week has gone by three names, Levinger which it was founded as during the 19th century before a brief stint as it changed it's name to Levinger and Bissinger from 1903-1909. Lastly it was named after it's founder Heinrich Levinger

The firm is from Pforzheim in ~Germany, where other well known jeweller companies such as Fehrner are from.

They specialised in Jugendstil, which is the German version of Art Nouveau, the word coming from an artistic journal, Die Jugend which detailed the artist movements styles in the magazine.

The company where noted for there plique a jour enamel pieces which where naturalistic in designs of silver.

They had many people of note work them including Otto Pruscher, an Viennese artist whose necklace is below and Georg Kleeman.

If you enjoyed this blog post why not tell your family and friends about it by clicking on the links below or emailing.

Featured Item. Crystal Necklace And Earrings Set.

As it is Mothers Day today, I decided the perfect piece to feature this week would be a piece my own mother likes from my shop. The Necklace and Earrings Set With Crystals.

This is a relatively new piece to my shop, made only a few weeks ago. I brought the crystals without a project in mind for them, I just loved the colours. When they arrived I found their pictures hadn't done them justice, they where even more beautiful. The colours where so rich and on the back they where still beautiful, they didn't have the usual plain white which some crystals have to enhance there colour, instead they have a green pearlescent colour to them.
As I decided what to do with them I found the purple hues of the front of the grade AAA crystals went really well with bronze so I began to experiment with various filigree pieces I had in my box. I didn't want to had to much to them, as I wanted them to be noticed for the crystals more then anything else, so I kept the design minimal adding a filigree bead cone to the top of each then a simple row of 4mm purple bicone beads.
With the success of this piece I've resolved to buy more crystals like this for future projects and I'll start a new line in Fashion Magpie Jewellery with the crystals.

 All the pieces I make are one of a kind and can be brought from my shop on folksy called Fashion Magpie Jewellery.
The Necklace and earrings set with crystals is £19.99 with £3.20 UK postage and packaging. I also post aboard.
You can find Fashion Magpie Jewellery at the below links

Folksy Website www.folksy.com/shops/fashionmagpiejewellery

Etsy Website www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FashionMagpieJewels

Facebook www.facebook.com/fashionmagpiejewellery

Pinterest http://uk.pinterest.com/fmjewellery/

Thursday Throwback. Andres Rambour

Normally when I do a blog post about an jeweller, I'll look through the internet and compile as much information as I can about that person then I go through my research and I'll decide the pieces I'm going to write about in the finished piece. This week however I found a man called Andres Rambour, his pieces of jewellery are beautiful and use the twisting and interlacing lines of the art Nouveau period. Finding pieces of his jewellery to show you was easy, however finding anything at all about the man himself has proved fruitless, he's invisible. So rather then write a piece about him I'm instead just going to show you the pieces he has made and let them tell you everything you need to know about the individual behind them.

 

Pick of The Week. Patina Earrings

The earrings this week are one of my favourite pairs in my shops at the moment and are the earrings that marked a change of direct with my jewellery when they where made, Fashion Magpie Jewellery's Patina Earrings.

The Patina Earrings are the first piece of jewellery I made with patina inks. Patina inks are a range made by Ranger for Vintaj, the inks adhere to metal and can be found in a wealth of different colours.
The colour used for these earrings is called Verdigris and came in a pack of three, the other colours are jade and moss.
I've used them a lot since I first brought this three pack and have added other colours to my collection. There easy to use, just dab them on and wait a few seconds then there dry. With the Patina earrings I dabbed the colour around the outer detail of the disc design then just as the ink became tacky just before it dried a lightly sanded the ink back off the raised surface. I love this effect in my designs and use it frequently.
I added a 8mm pale blue crystal bead above the disc and a stud fastening to finish.

All the pieces I make are one of a kind and can be brought from my shop on folksy called Fashion Magpie Jewellery.
The Patina Earrings are £6.00 with £1.95 UK postage and packaging. I also post aboard.

Also until the 15th March 2015 you can 10% off at either of my folksy or etsy sites with coupon code MOTHERS.

 You can find Fashion Magpie Jewellery at the below links

Folksy Website www.folksy.com/shops/fashionmagpiejewellery

Etsy Website www.etsy.com/uk/shop/FashionMagpieJewels

Facebook www.facebook.com/fashionmagpiejewellery

Pinterest http://uk.pinterest.com/fmjewellery/

 

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Lluis Masriera

Lluis masriera was born in 1872, the third generation of a jewellers family. So it was no surprise when he joined the family business and while studying at the family workshop he was also studying at La Llotja, which is the Barcelona school of fine arts.

From there he went onto study in Switzerland for a while, looking at enamelling techniques. However the place to be in 1900s was Paris where the art nouveau and Modernista style where a big influence, this was where he went next.

Using his new knowledge of enamel he set up as Masriera I Fills and introduced the world top plique a jour enamel, then started to combine this technique with metal work and began making the enamel more translucent. It was this initiative product he named "Barcelona enamel" and became his signature pieces.