Recycling gift cards into jewelry

If you've been following me for a bit, you know earlier this year I asked you to save me your used up gift cards.


I finally had the opportunity to get the collection of gift cards out and being making them into jewelry.  I've been saving every and all plastic gift cards that I can find.

My hydraulic press will come in handy for me to make these.

















I'm using my disc cutter to get perfect circles out of the cards.

Some cards are better than others when it comes to patterns.  The sets will never be "matchy-matchy" (in case you're looking for an exactly perfect match), but they will be complimentary.






This is one of the sets I got from a card.  (Ear wires and pendant jump ring have yet to be added.)

Another set, but this one is a bit more colorful.  I try not to include anything that identifies the company as to try to avoid copyright and trademark issues.

These will be available for purchase at the Downtown Festival and Art show, November 12 and 13!  If you would like a reminder about the show, be sure to sign up for my email list (sign up box on the right side of this page).

New resin jewelry shopping cart

I'm think I'm behind a blog post or two, but here's my excuse:  I'm working on that new shopping cart I've been talking about for months now.  I only have a trial use period of the software, so if I have computer time (which doesn't happen much), I have been working on the cart.

Drumroll please...........

It's ready for its 'soft' launch.  Here it is:  http://www.kmsdesignsonline.com/shop. 

This is YOUR invitation to go over, view, and make comments here on my blog.  Any and all thoughtful insights are appreciated.  It is a functional shopping cart by the way, so that means if you want to buy something.....you can.  AND, if you buy something AND you're in the USA AND you want free shipping, select that as your shipping option at checkout.

I will be adding new resin jewelry pieces throughout the month, but will be making the official announcement on September 1.  (Free shipping on all orders going to the USA ends at that time too.)

I'll have pictures up from last weekend's Hen Party at Linda Blondheim's studio later in the week.

Jewelry making on the 4th of July

Even though today is a holiday, I've been making more resin jewelry.  Why?  Because I took a few days off last week, full well knowing that I was going to have to make up for it when I got back.  I have two new accounts in Texas that have placed orders for my scrabble tile jewelry pendants.  Here's a preview of the "bohemian hearts" pattern assortment that they chose:

This pattern is a little different from what I've done previously in that they will have a horizontal orientation.

What I really like about the pattern is that it's not the "cutesy" pink and purple hearts.  It's more artistic and easily wearable throughout the year.

Resin jewelry - what's popular this week

I learned two things several years ago when I started doing street festivals.

I can never predict what jewelry is going to be popular.
The same jewelry may not be popular for the next art show.

Apparently the wholesale art market isn't any different.

One of my best selling patterns last week was my resin cowgirl jewelry.  I don't sell this jewelry on my KMS Designs jewelry website, but on my other endeavor, Cow Art and More.  I was replenishing my inventory yesterday and I had hubby grab a few random picture of the pouring process.

Horseshoes and longhorns are in this batch.












There's also a few of the geometric and dottie patterns.  These will be ready to ship late Friday afternoon.

Las Vegas show wrap up

The show is almost over, but I wanted to share with everyone that you will now be able to find more of my resin jewelry west of the Mississippi!  KMS Designs jewelry will now be in stores in Texas, California, Nevada and Utah just to name a few.  I am anxious to share the new locations with you and will do so when I'm back in the studio later this week!!

New resin jewelry in pewter

I want to share a preview of my new resin earrings and pendants with blog readers.  WOO HOO!  They will be listed for sale on my "new and improved" website coming soon!

Brief description:  earrings are 1/2 inch round or square and hang on sterling silver filled ear wires, earring "doubles" are 1/2 inch wide by 1 inch long and hang on sterling silver filled ear wires, pendants are 7/8 inches round/square and hang on a sterling silver plated snake chain.

5 biggest blunders men make when buying jewelry for Mother's Day

*Ladies, since so many of you responded that this article was helpful to your men, I am sharing it again.*

I love it when guys are buying jewelry for their ladies. It's such a sweet and thoughtful notion on their part. I LOVE to help them! Unfortunately, it doesn't always turn out well, so I wanted to share the top five mistakes guys make buying jewelry:

1. Not knowing the details. I have actually had men buy earrings for a gift and not know if the woman had pierced ears. Wow! Major gamble! Find out as much information about your lady as possible. A good start is to find out a ring size, bracelet size, preferred length of necklaces, color preferences, metal preferences and any allergies.

2. Getting her something she doesn't have. This is only a good thing if you have heard her say that she wants a ".....". For example, if she doesn't own any bracelets, there may be a good reason why. Maybe she has a job where it gets in the way or she would have to take it off frequently. Take a quick inventory of her jewelry and get an idea of what she prefers or take notes the next time you are window shopping together.

3. Not considering the "what ifs". Is your jewelry purchase sizable? Can you return or exchange it if she doesn't like it? What if she likes the pendant but wants a different chain? Understand the exchange and return policy on the jewelry BEFORE you purchase it.

4. Buying something that doesn't go with her body type. Believe it or not, how a piece of jewelry is shaped or formed impacts how it looks on a person. For example, round earrings do not look good on a woman with a round face. A small pendant on a short chain isn't particularly flattering to a curvaceous woman with a large bustline. When you're buying the piece, get the person helping you to give suggestions or even the model the jewelry if necessary to help with the decision making process.

5. Buying something that doesn't go with her style. Buy her something she will wear! If she doesn't go to a lot of fancy occasions, she may not get a lot of wear from a big, fancy cocktail ring. Inexpensive earrings may be a better fit for daily wear. If she does a lot of work with her hands, a ring may not hold up to her rough schedule, but a necklace might fit the bill

Mother's Day is coming up and I am happy to help the guys out there get a special gift for the moms in their lives. Contact me at the KMS Designs jewelry website for help getting your special gift.

Hey baby, let's go to Vegas!

Excited to announce that my next show will be at ACRE Las Vegas!  You read about my time at the ACRE Orlando show in January, so get ready to hear about Las Vegas!  (Yes, I swear to you I am going for business purposes.)  The show runs from June 5 to June 7.  If you are a wholesale customer and interested in hearing more about the ACRE show, or to get on my wholesale customer mailing list, drop me an email to kmsdesigns@hotmail.com. 

Look for more posts between now and June about getting ready for the show!

Resin jewelry making

Resin is rather a strange beast.  For any of you who have worked with it for any amount of time, you know what I mean.  You can seemingly do everything right and somehow it doesn't work.  (Enjoy my resin jewelry making mistakes here.)  I've posted some resin jewelry making tips before, but I've recently found a few quirky items to add to the list. 

The resin I've been using for my scrabble pendants mixes in a 1:1 ratio.  It doesn't matter how big a batch I make, but it has to be equal parts.  Most of the time lately, when I've mixed a total amount of 15 milliliters, by the time I get to the end of putting it on pendants, it's starting to get thick and I have a fair share of bubbles to get out of the pendants.  By happy accident one day, I found that if I pour a "smidge" (yes, that's a technical term) less hardener, compared to the resin, it will stay fluid longer, but still cure completely.  That has made it easier for the bubbles to rise on their own, or for me to get them out.

I use a toothpick to dop my resin onto the scrabble tiles.  This may sound incredibly stupid (or intuitive depending who you are), but I have figured out that the toothpick must go straight into the resin, then straight out.  Any slight "scooping" introduces microbubbles into the resin.  Perhaps that's why I had so many to get out to begin with.

Lastly, when I use a straw to get out the bubbles of the poured resin, I have to change it up after two batches.  (I won't talk about the actual technique of doing that because it can be dangerous to your health if you don't do it right.  I know I've got resin jewelry makers that read this blog and I don't want to endanger you.  However, if you watch enough resin jewelry making videos, you will find the technique.)  When I use a straw for more than two batches, there gets to be too much moisture placed on the pendants and they cure slightly tacky on top.

Just when I thought I knew what I was doing, resin once again claims itself as the boss. 

St. Patrick's Day jewelry

 By Tuesday evening, it had been a crazy week already (in a good way!), so I haven't had much time to think about a blog post.



I snapped these pictures as I was photographing them to include on the KMS Designs resin jewelry website.







If you're looking to get your "luck on", be sure to visit my St. Patrick's Day jewelry page.  They're the same lightweight scrabble tiles with St. Patrick's Day images.  The pendants are $8 by themselves, or $12 on a 24 inch silver tone ball chain (which can be adjusted to fit the wearer).

Random resin jewelry photos

A few random photos from the week.

A large wholesale order.  These will be sold online.  They are individually packaged and each has an organza ribbon necklace.

An assortment of pendants for a wholesale order.  These are going to Wild Ruby in Framingham, Massachusetts.












Detail view of the same group of resin pendants.












A group of delicious designer art deco jewelry.  (Had to insert some literary skills here)  Actually they are mostly flower and snowflake pendants.











These jewelry trays have more contemporary necklace styles: asian flowers and "kaleidoscope" patterns.

A close up of some of the flower pendants in green and pink.  Some need the silver tone bails attached.










By the way, in case you missed it, I put some new resin scrabble tile pendants on the KMS Designs website his week.

Resin jewelry making and the dreaded bubbles

Bubbles.  That is a very bad word to someone working with resin.  I do everything I can when mixing to avoid them and look over my pendants closer than a mama hen watching her chicks to get them out when I pour.  That said, sometimes the little dirty fiends show up anyway -- completely uninvited.

When I poured resin yesterday, I made a big mess.  The resin was mixed in the cup, but I managed to spill some that had to get wiped up pronto.  Being the frugal artist that I am, I didn't want to throw the rest of the resin away, even though it had cured to the point of thick Karo syrup by the time I went to use it.  (Normally it's the runny maple syrup kind when I pour). 

There were some bubbles.  "Not to fear, I've done this before!" I assured myself.  I got my handy dandy heat gun and blasted them.  Normally this works, but today it didn't.  Those bubbles weren't going anywhere.

In a completely unrelated experiment, I learned a few months ago, that while this particular resin is only about 6 to 8 hours into curing, it's in one piece but flexible. 






If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. 

I pushed them off the edge and waited a few hours for them to cure.  (At this point, even if my experiment failed, the pendant was a bust anyway.  I had nothing to lose.)







An exacto knife later, I had trimmed the bubbly resin off and had a usable pendant again.  That will teach those bubbles to mock me. 

Finishing up my last big resin jewelry order

In terms of my resin jewelry orders from the wholesale show last week, I saved the biggest until last.  It was an order for 160 of the scrabble tile pendants.  I decided to save this order until the end because there were so many patterns involved; I needed to make sure to keep everything straight!  Things were going well until I started to pour the epoxy resin.  Let's just say, I learned only to pour about 75 to 100 pendants in one day.  Between smelling the slightly noxious odor and seeing bubbles in my sleep (in the resin, not the kind in the picture, although that would have been nice), I had enough resin pouring in one day to last an entire week.  The good news is that they're done and curing and should get shipped out by the end of the week.  Maybe I will open a bottle of bubbles to celebrate.....

New retail locations for KMS Designs resin jewelry

Announcing several new places across the country to purchase my resin and scrabble tile pendants.

Florida:

Lyonia Environmental Center, Deltona

Vickie Lynn's Salon, Lakeland


Massachusetts:

Prelude Gifts, Needham

Missouri:

Trova, St. Louis

New Mexico:

Lilly Barrack, three locations in Albuquerque

Pennsylvania:

The Malone Flower Shop, Canonsburg

Tennessee:

Dandridge General Store, Dandridge

Stop in and say hi.  (Even if you don't buy anything, please tell them you think they're pretty cool.  *wink*)

Pictures of new resin jewelry

So I'm a bit nutty this week getting ready for ACRE Orlando.  I always have this last minute push to get new jewelry done, for whatever reason.  (I can be a bit hard on myself.)  Anyway, I don't have time to write much, but instead will show some pictures of work I just poured.  Look for them on KMS Designs next week.

Valentine's Day and snowflake jewelry

Yes, we did just get over Christmas.  Yes, I already have Valentine's Day jewelry.  (For those of you not ready to get your "love" on, I also have colorful winter snowflakes on scrabble tiles too.)  Pink is not necessarily one of my favorite colors, but I have to say that the color grew on me while I was making these pendants.







There are also snowflakes in a variety of other colors (there are navy blue and turquoise blue snowflakes in the picture at left). 










I don't have these on the KMS Designs website yet.  (Remember one of my three words for the year is delegate?  Photographing jewelry is the job I am dying to delegate to someone else.)  I have left some this morning at McIntyre Studio and Gifts of Avalon, but if you see something you like here, drop me an email or give me a call.

What jewelry questions do you have?

Have a burning question you're dying to ask?  Looking for answers to your jewelry making questions or just have a curious question about art jewelry?  Leave your response here or if you want to remain anonymous, send an email to kmsdesigns@hotmail.com.  I'll post the answers to the questions next week!

Jewelry projects - What I'm working on now

As far as my jewelry making business goes, holiday gifts are over by December 15. Most everyone has either purchased from me at a retail show, or have bought their jewelry and had it shipped. I sometimes will get a last minute order, but for the most part, the holiday is done. So what am I working on now?

These are a couple of new scrabble tile patterns I have almost finished.  I hope to have them photographed and on the KMS Designs website by the end of the year. 

Are those Valentine's Day heart jewelry patterns?  Yes!  While Christmas and Hanukkah may be over, the next holiday is just beginning.  In order for me to have enough Valentine's Day jewelry inventory, I have to start now.

This is a another tray of the resin and sterling silver jewelry.  This line of jewelry is at a crossroads for me.  I love to make it and customers are drawn to it.  The complication is that the price of silver continues to climb at an astronomical rate.  (As I write this, the price of silver is up 60 percent in the last four months alone.)  I am faced with the choice to continue making the pieces as I have been and raise prices, or find a way to make the pieces differently, at the same price, while still appealing to customers.  Stay tuned on this one.





The last (but certainly not least!) thing that I'm working on is getting ready for my first wholesale show in Orlando, Florida, next month.  I'm represented by wholesalecrafts.com and will be exhibiting there.  More to come on this big project!