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Saturday, 2 August 2014

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!
 

Friday, 1 August 2014

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

Wednesday, 30 July 2014

Thursday throwback, the graff pink

For my first Thursday throwback I thought I'd tell you about the most expensive piece of jewellery ever sold, the Graff Pink.

The Graff Pink is a pink diamond which is very rare in nature, but this particular diamond is rarer still because it is 24.78 carat, a typical pink diamond would be 5 carats.
It sold at Sotheby's in 2010 for £29 million after a hard fought battle of wills between four bidders, it went to a billionaire jeweller called Lawrence Graff. Graff has been named the king of bling after buying the previous world record breaking ring, a 17th century blue diamond called the Wittelsbach. 
The diamond was among less then two percent of the worlds diamonds categorised as 'potentially flawless.' After buying the piece graff gave it to his world class cutters who carefully removed 25 natural flaws and increased the colour of the piece, something only a handful of people can do. From there the diamond was sent for analysis at the Gemological Institute of America who declared the diamond flawless and richer in colour. All without loosing a single carat! 
It was now that Lawrence Graff named the diamond after himself. The Graff Pink

Saturday, 26 July 2014

A big thank you, and plans for the future!

Just hit my 1000th page view on here today and would like to take a moment to thank everyone for there continued support of Fashion Magpie Jewellery and let you know what I've been up to recently.

Thank you !!!!!!!

I've been ramping up the amount of time I'm spending promoting Fashion Magpie Jewellery, with more of a presence on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. I've also decided I should dedicate more time to my blog too. I love writing almost as much as jewellery making. Writing was my first creative love before Jewellery making, (believe it or not,) so it seems silly not to spend more time doing it. My plan is to do at least 2 or 3 blog posts a week and see how I go.
My idea is to do a Thursday throwback post showing jewellery trends from history and famous pieces.
A Folksy Friday post, explaining about folksy.com and the different finds I find on folksy. Eventually I'll use my folksy Friday posts for guest blog posts too but I'm still researching this at the moment so watch this space.
My third post will be a general post, used to update you on what I'm up to or doing tutorials.
Let me know what you think of my plans? Do you have any ideas?

Thought it would be useful to put a few links at the end of this post to help you find me.

Twitter @Lcw19861875
Facebook www.facebook.com/fashionmagpiejewellery
Folksy website www.folksy.com/shops/fashionmagpiejewellery



Next weekend hopefully I should have a tutorial for you with the glass globes I told you about (here)

Sunday, 20 July 2014

Why we should accessorise.

Had some trouble with writer block recently, but sometimes writer block, I've discovered can be a blessing in disguise! 
To me, writers block is an opportunity to research new topics. Research isn't to everyone's liking but I love it. I look through search engines for inspiration, find out what all my favourite blogging crafty people are talking about and look at the latest trends on the high street at the moment. My favourite high street store is accessorize, I absolutely adore them! There the perfect blend of delicate vintage design and bold statement jewellery that I love, I could honestly shop in there for hours.
It's shops like accessorize that show us the importance of the accessory in an outfit, sometimes they can be the difference between a good outfit and an great outfit!
For example a white blouse can be accessorised for day, night and work just by changing your necklace. Wear a statement necklace for day which has bright bold colour or patterns or a fun, young look, a sparkly little one at night for a classy chic look and a pearl necklace for work.
That's three looks for one blouse just by changing your necklace!
What's your views on the importance of accessories?

Thursday, 26 June 2014

New For Sale

Hi
As promised I've been busy today listing new things for sale on my Folksy page. Must say I'm feeling quite pleased with myself, think its some of my best stuff to date that I'm making now and I cant wait to get feedback.
Before I show you what I've listed today I wanted to give you a quick up date on the glass globes I ordered I mentioned in a earlier post (Click Here) I haven't so far made anything with them but keep watching my blog because I'm having great fun experimenting with different things to put in them and will show you how I'm doing at a later date.

So now to the pictures, if you want to buy any of these pieces, I have a link right of my posts on here. >>>>

Apple Necklace
£12.50

Angel Necklace
£12.50

Dragonfly Tribal Earrings
£6.00

Blue Bird Brooch
£6.00

Red and Green Wire Brooch
£6.00

Gold Bead Wire Brooch
£6.00

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

New pieces coming soon

Got a day off tomorrow from the day job so decided I'm going to take loads of pictures of new creations and put them up for sale. Got a few brooches and necklaces to list and if I've got time there's a bracelet I've been working on.
So watch this space and until then here's a sneak peak!