Not all all that glitters is gold!!!

Most of my jewelry is sterling silver as this is my personal favorite color and material. Even in the rare cases when I wear gold, I prefer white gold. However, there are many people who love the color of gold or prefer gold jewelry because they are sensitive to other materials. For these people I have started developing my goldfilled line of jewelry.

What is goldfilled? Gold may be a desired metal but it is also a rather expensive one. Several alternatives were developed for those who want gold but prefer their jewelry in a more affordable price level. Gold coating is one option. A thin layer of gold coats another less expensive metal. Because the coating is thin this eventually wears out. So this is not a good solution if you are allergic or if you want a jewelry that will last for long. Sometimes you can send the item to be re-coated.

Gold filled is another alternative. It is made of a solid gold layer bonded to another base material . Goldfilled has about 100 times more gold than in gold plating. It is more durable and with normal use will probably last forever. No need to worry about allergies, if you can wear gold, you can wear goldfilled. For these reasons it is my preferred option for gold jewelry. You get almost the same look and feel as gold at a fraction of the price.

So here are some of my new goldfilled designs. I will be listing many more in the coming days so be sure to check my store for more stuff. Enjoy.

Winter colors - White Gems and Pearls

I wanted to write another post about the colors of winter and thought about white. Though it's not exactly a color of winter, it's more like an all-year-round color, It does goes great with winter time. Maybe because the color reminds me of snow (as we don't have much snow in Israel, I'm fascinated with snow when I get to see it). Usually the darker colors are more dominant in winter but you can never go wrong with white!!

There are several white stones that I've used in my jewelry. There's Opalite which is a synthetic stone with a pale semi transparent white color. I love the delicate color of this stone. There are also Jade and Crystals.

But the top Queen of whites in jewelry is without a doubt - pearls.

These treasures of the ocean (or more common - treasures of sweet water growing farms) have a magical shade of white like no other. I love using pearls in my designs. It gives them a classic look that combined with a modern design turns out rather chic don't you think?

Shop makeover

It's been a few days since my last post. I have been busy working on 2 things. The first is my tax report. Thank god I'm done with this for 2 more months. The second and more interesting thing that's been keeping me busy is a total shop makeover I'm doing.

I decided I was not completley happy with the pictures in my store so I tried many different backgrounds and many different camera settings until I reached a result that I think looks good.

My dining room has been taken over and is now a photographing room. Got my light tent and my lighting on the dining table with all my accessories around it. Got all my jewelry waiting their turn to get their new photographs taken. Now it's only a matter of time. It takes some time to complete over 180 items. Some of the items were sold and I have to remake them before I can take a picture. But all in all I think my shop is starting to look different and better even if it's not all done yet. What do you think of these before and after pictures?

This is before the makeover:

This is after the makeover:

After I am done with my "DvoraSchleffer" store I will do the same with my "RainbowMetal" store.

2 designing techniques

When I want to make some new designs, there are 2 basic ways in which I can approach this: one is the "free your mind" technique and the other is the "challenge yourself" technique.

Free designing is the easiest, more conventional way. You think of ideas, make some sketches or any other way you prefer to write down your thoughts, than you get the supplies you need and begin making the design you planned.

The challenge technique is where you set a specific limitation and need to invent a design that takes that limitation into account. When I was in metalsmithing school this was the technique they used to develop our creativity. We would get a theme and make a related design. For my graduation project we has to design jewelry inspired by a children's book. I choose Hensel and Gretel and made a necklace shaped like candy and chocolate.

As an independent designer, there's no one to give me such challenges but I did find one way to challenge myself and be economically wise at the same time . Most of the time I design free of any limitations. I think of a design and simply make it. But every now and then I sit and look at the supplies I have in stock. Gemstones, findings, silver wires etc and I challenge myself to come up with designs that utilize what I have. This is of course a wise thing to do in any business, but it can also be fun from a designing point of view. A lot of my most popular designs were actually born this way. Fun and useful - that's a good combination don't you think?

How I became a consistent blogger

It's been almost a month since I re-started my blog. Wasn't sure I'll be able to keep it up, but so far I am! I tried to figure out what is different this time around and came up with 3 main reasons that I want to share here. So here are my 3 tips for being successful in keeping a blog going:

1. Do it for the right reason - when I started blogging it was because I have read a lot about how important it is. Then I got busy and stopped writing. Now I am doing it because it's important but also because I enjoy it. It helps me arrange my thoughts and share with others what I want to say. It's much easier to keep up things you enjoy doing. If you're not having fun - don't do it.

2. Make a list of subjects - one of the main problems of keeping up a blog is that you don't know what to write about. You have to write frequently for the blog to appear active and interesting and you don't always have an idea at that particular moment. What I did is prepare a list of subjects that I want to write about. Every time I get another idea I add it to the list. So when I come to write a post, I have all the ideas in front of me and I never get stuck.

3. Decide on a logical frequency - I know that I am not able to write every day. So I decided I will write every 2-3 days for now. This is something I can handle and therefore I am less likely to give up on the whole thing. If you can only write once a week, it's ok. Just make sure you are consistent and that your readers know what to expect.

I know I've only been blogging for a short time and I'm not exactly an authority on blog writing and success, but these are the things that have helped me get this far. Hope these will help me continue and maybe even help others that want to write a blog and get stuck on the way.

Hoops!!

Though I love making and wearing earrings, I was never into hoops. When I thought of hoops the image that came to my mind was of a bare hoop in various sizes and wire thickness. This seemed a bit boring to me. So I focused mainly on dangling earrings which were what I liked to wear myself.

But I was wrong!! Hoops can come in many different and interesting shapes. It's just a matter of finding the right design. Lately I have been designing and creating hoops that are completely different from that image I had. Hoops that have different looks and details. Several of these designs even became some of my best sellers!!

I'm glad I decided to give hoops a try. They are fun to make and they challenge me to re-invent the hoop concept, everytime I make a pair. Hope you like my hoops as well.

The colors of winter - Garnets

For the past few days it has been raining heavily. It looks like winter has arrived. I must admit that I am not much of a winter person. I prefer clear blue skies to these dark cloudy skies. But since it's here whether I like it or nor, I might as well enjoy the good things about winter, like the colors it brings.

Winter is the time of the darker colors. Brown, black, dark blue and my personal favorite - deep red. This is the season for Garnets with their deep dark wine red color. I have been working on some new designs using Garnet gemstones. Some are brand new others I'm remaking for this winter season. I love the color of Garnets. It's so deep, warm and gorgeous.

I will be writting about other winter colors in threads to come. What's your favorite winter color?

What a small upgrade can do

Some time ago I made a pair of filigree earring. Had the idea for it sketched in my notebook and it turned out exactly as planned. But for some reason, something was not working. I felt there was something missing. I was not happy with how the earring looked but just couldn't figure out what to change. Anything I tried didn't seem to make a difference.

Finally I put these earrings aside and continued to other designs. Last week I picked the earrings up and suddenly - inspiration!! I knew what to do to change them from nice to gorgeous. And it was so simple, just one small dangling gemstone that completely changed the look of the earrings.

Now that I was happy with them, I listed them in my Dawanda store, and before I even had the chance to list them on Etsy as well, they sold!! That's what I call a successful make over don't you? (Not to worry, they are now listed in both stores again).

Here are the earrings before the change:

And here they are after:

I guess some designs just need a little more time to develop.