Contest -- how you could win a free piece of gorgeous Dalkullan Jewelry!!!

Valentine's Day contest! The lucky winner will win any one item from my shop, worth $70.00 or less. How to enter? Just post a comment on the Dalkullan Jewelry fan page on Facebook between now and 6 p.m. central standard time on Feb. 14th. It needs to be an actual comment, not just a 'like'. If you'd put up a link from my shop of the jewelry piece you'd like if you win, that would be great, but that's up to you. :) Any Facebook fan of Dalkullan Jewelry can enter, so please tell your friends! The contest results will be announced at 8 p.m. on Valentine's Day. Wishing you good luck!

Been away for awhile

I haven't been able to craft jewelry for about a year due to illness.  It's great to be back at the jeweler's bench, it was like I'd never been away when I picked up my torch again.  There's something about  solder as it melts under the flame of the torch that is very refreshing to my spirit.  It's very enjoyable to be hammering, sawing and filing away, so grateful to be able to create jewelry again!

I'm working on new designs -- incorporating new gemstones,  new settings, and I'm signed up for classes to learn new techniques, which I'm really thrilled about.  Here's a picture of my latest design,  an almandine garnet ring, and my first listing at Dalkullan Jewelry which employs a prong setting.

Some of the new techniques I'll be learning are keum boo, a way to combine 24k gold foil permanently to sterling without using solder, engraving and carving metal, and enameling.  Whew!  I'm going to be busy! :)

It's great to be back, I've missed my blog and hearing for you, my wonderful blog followers!  Thank you so much for stopping by!

We're having a sale at Dalkullan Jewelry!

I've never had a sale at Dalkullan Jewelry before, and decided now is the time. Well, I've had sales, as in sold jewelry, of course, but I've never marked down my prices on certain items before. I'm taking Dalkullan Jewelry in a different direction than I was charting originally. I'm going to be focusing on fabricating jewelry from precious metals, and incorporating precious and semi-precious gems. I'm very excited in the new work I have in my shop, and in the lovely creations still on my jeweler's bench and my sketch book!

This new focus brings with it a great opportunity for you to own some gorgeous handcrafted jewelry at a very favorable price. I've marked down all the beautiful flameworked bead jewelry, 9 different colors and styles of earrings, all with sterling handmade earwires. The entire Lifesaver Line, shown in the picture above, is marked down from $25.00 to $20.00, and the shipping to U.S. and Canada is free. They'll arrive in a jewelry box, gift wrapped, and ready to give to that special someone, or for you to treasure.

This is a one of a kind earring, and it's on sale, too. I bought these lovely flame worked beads at the Bead & Button Show in Milwaukee a couple years ago, and thought they'd make a gorgeous pair of earrings. Hope you agree!

Don't you just love that shade of green? So fresh and spring-like. And they ship free to the U.S. and Canada.

There are more earrings on sale, just drop by Dalkullan Jewelry to see them all.

Happy shopping! Wishing you joy today and always.

A Gift For My Daughter

My lovely daughter Angela graduated from the teaching program at San Diego State University last month, and received her teaching certificate in bi-lingual education. To commemorate this very happy occasion, I decided to make her a one of a kind ring.

It's the most elaborate ring I've made yet, and is completely hand fabricated. I started with some silver wire and tubing, and 3 royal amethyst stones, each 2mm in diameter.

It required many soldering operations, creating the dainty leaves, and melting silver to form the tiny spheres. After I'd put the ring together, there was the matter of cutting the dinky little seats in the tubing and setting the amethysts. Thank goodness for magnifying visors!

It's so gratifying to put a design on paper, and then to actualize it in metal and gems. I'm very thankful to have a skill that I can use to make a unique and lasting gift for my loved ones. A special ring for my beautiful and brainy daughter!

Ups and Downs

Running an online shop can have its ups and downs. Getting on the Etsy Front Page for the second time and having 5 orders in quick succession (for me, I'm not a major force on Etsy, lol) was quite exhilarating. I was hoping that things were really starting to gel, and that getting a couple of orders a week would be the new norm.

Sad to say, that hasn't been the case. Since then, things have been exceedingly slooooowwww at Dalkullan Jewelry. It's times like these that try women's souls, or okay, maybe it's not that bad, but at least try one's patience. But when the going gets tough, the tough make lemonade, or something like that.

While maintaining the requisite stiff upper lip, I've been working on some new designs. I'm not ready to list them yet, but here's a sneak preview of a new earring design. It's got carnelians, lapis lazuli, and turquoise cabochons.

It's really hard to hold the earrings securely to set the stones, so I'm going to try sinking the backs of the earrings in thermoplastic mounted on wood in a vise. Then a setting punch and a chasing hammer to smooth the bezel cups around the stones. That should get the job done. Afterwards, I'll just pop the earrings out, and polish them up bright and shiny.

Thanks for dropping by!

Sterling Celtic Earrings

My latest design at Dalkullan Jewelry is inspired by Celtic symbols. I'm part Irish, and would love to visit the ancestral homeland someday -- some of my ancestors are from County Cork. But in the meantime, I have a lovely new pair of earrings to remind me of my heritage.

I made numerous drawings of the design before I settled on the one I finally crafted in sterling. I'd originally thought to put a cabochon in the center of each of the 3 silver swirls per earring, but that would have been too heavy. I toyed with the idea of using nephrite jade for the cabochons, but genuine jade is a darker green than I wanted for my design.

Aventurine is a lovely, spring green, with some darker inclusions. It reminds me of green connemara marble. It has such a wonderful contrast with the brightness of the sterling, I think they go very well together.

This is the first design I've crafted where the earwire is soldered to the earring -- it just flows from the main part of the earring. It's a graceful look; I like all the swirls and curves to the design.

If you would like to add Sterling Celtic Earrings to your jewelry wardrobe, I'd be happy to craft a pair just for you!

How to Find Out When Etsy Treasuries Open

There are a lot of great features on Etsy. One of which is the Treasury, which is a collection of 12 items that anyone with an Etsy account can pick, and if you're lucky enough to time it when the Treasury opens to new items, you can have posted.

Trying to time it correctly is problematic. Just lurking on the Treasuries, waiting for the number of current Treasuries to drop below the magic number of 222 for the Treasury West, and 333 for the main Treasury, at which they open, is time consuming and nerve wracking. There's a better way, which I'll now divulge. (-:

Just go to http://www.craftopolis.com and click on "Treasury Clock". It will tell you how long before the Treasuries open. One work of warning. I spent a pretty boring and annoying time when the Treasury West was supposed to be opening any minute, because it was at 222 Treasuries. But since the next Treasury to expire wasn't going to do so for 4 more hours, I had a long wait. So open 2 pages on the Treasuries, and use one to click on the link "expiration" on the upper right of the Treasury page. Then click on the last page to find out when the next Treasury will expire. It could be hours away.

Once you've determined a Treasury will soon be opening, leave the page up on the Treasury you're waiting for, and don't refresh the page. Things will happen very quickly once the Treasuries do open. The page will update itself, so just sit tight. Of course, sometimes things don't work out, and for some unexplained reason even though you're diligently watching, the Treasury opens and closes and you don't get a chance to act. That's part of the game, and one must soldier on!

Why the interest in Treasuries? They're fun to make, you get a chance to help promote other Etsians, find out about some of the lovely things for sale on Etsy, and hopefully generate a little buzz about your own shop, too. And a major plus is that if you're very lucky, your Treasury could make it to the Etsy Front Page.

It's a nice courtesy to send a convo to the people you put in your Treasury. You can list one of your own items, and 11 other shops items, plus 4 alternates, which won't appear on the Treasury, unless something sells, then one by one they'll move over to fill in the blanks. Not everyone does send a convo, though, so there is another way to find out if you're in a Treasury.

Go to http://www.craftopolis.com and click on "Treasury Hunt". Then enter your shop name in the field provided, and you'll find out if you're currently in a Treasury.

If you haven't made a Treasury yet, I hope you'll give it a try! I'll be posting next about how to make a Treasury. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Art and Gift Show

I've just been accepted for my first Show, and I'm really excited about it. My parish is having an Art and Gift Show for Christmas shopping. We're a pretty big parish, around 4,000 families, so there should be a lot of people there.

It will be at Holy Cross Catholic Church in Batavia, Illinois. If you live in the area and are interested in selling there, you should contact the parish office, just google to find out the phone number, or send me a message. It's very reasonable to sell, they provide you with an 8 foot table, or two tables if you need them, it's indoors, in the Church hall, and only 25$ for the table, plus 20% of your profits after you subtract your overhead. It's going to be the weekend of Nov. 13 and 14.

If you'll be in the area, please stop by and say hello, I'd love to meet you! I will only be there on Sunday, between 8 a.m. and 2 p.m.

I'll have all my jewelry from Dalkullan Jewelry, plus I'm crafting a lot of new earrings just for the Show. I've never had to set up a display before, and would appreciate any ideas from you about cheap yet beautiful displays.

Thanks so much!

Moon and Stars -- Sterling and Pearls

Moon & Stars, in sterling with pearl dangles, is a completely hand fabricated design. I begin with a sheet of sterling, and punch out two disks. The next step is trickier, taking out the central disk, to leave the hole in the first disk.

I have a heavy sheet of plastic, with holes of various diameters cut out in it, and line up the correct size hole over a sterling disk, until I have it just right, then mark the location with a Sharpie. I use that mark to line up the disk in the cutter, then punch out the hole. I could also use a jeweler's saw to make the disks, but I prefer to use a disk cutter -- it makes perfectly round disks every time.

The next step is to metal pieces of sterling scrap for the round sterling balls. I put the scrap on a charcoal block, and melt the silver with a torch. It's a lot of fun, the metal gets shiny, and then begins to curl up on itself, until it forms a nice round ball with a flat bottom. If I want to make a completely round sphere of sterling, I'd just scoop out a little hemisphere in the charcoal block to place the scrap sterling in before melting.

I do the finishing of the disk before I solder the sterling balls on. It's much easier to file, sand, and texture the disks beforehand, which is something I've learned from experience. I used a coarse file to create the texture on the disks, suggesting the surface of a moon after oblique meteor impact.

After sweat soldering on the sterling balls with medium solder, I attach the two jump rings using easy solder. Since the medium solder needs a higher temperature to melt than easy solder, the sterling balls stay securely soldered.

The final steps are attaching the freshwater pearl dangles using wire wrapping -- pearls are too delicate to take the heat of soldering, and adding handcrafted sterling earwires. And voila! A new earring design is complete, ready to be photographed and listed at Dalkullan Jewelry.

craftyGAgal

Meredith Crosby -- craftyGAgal is a wonderful, kind, friendly, and amazingly talented person. Here's a little more about Meredith, from her etsy profile:

I am a Mom to twins boys who amaze me more each day (and at 7 yrs old that is a lot of amazing days), wife to my best friend, etsy lover, a yarn junkie, a beadaholic, a coffee addict, and ALL Round Good Southern Gal who happens to have a bad case of Crafter's ADD! I suffer from chronic pain due to a failed spinal fusion and hurt every minute from the second I open my eyes BUT everything happens for a reason......and now I am here! I craft to keep busy am hoping that it will turn out to at least fund my crafting habit. Wanna know anything, and I mean anything, else- just ask. I am "convo" friendly and love to chat chat chat.

The following are questions that Meredith asks people she profiles on her blog, and she was gracious enough to let me use them, and to answer them for me.

1. What kind of handmade items do you sell in your etsy shop?

Handmade Stained Glass Jewelry, beaded and gemstone jewelry, and coming soon- crocheted items. I also have another etsy shop with a partner http://dylanblue.etsy.com

2. Explain your craft/art for people who may not be familiar with it?

Stained Glass Jewelry is a multi-step process. I do the complete stained glass process myself. I cut, grind, wrap in copper foil, apply flux, solder, clean and finally polish EACH hand chosen pieces of glass. I use the copper foil method and always use LEAD FREE Solder.

Beaded and Gemstone jewelry is a little more simple..I try to let the beads/gems speak to me, and I try to listen.


3. What is your favorite part of the creative process?

My favorite part is when I am all finished and I can see the effort of my hard work. I also like Shopping for supplies & stash.

4. If you have to pick one item in your shop as your Favorite which one would it be?

My favorite, like everyone else,if I HAD TO PICK, would be http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=27357768

WINDOW TO THE SOUL Amethyst Gemstone Necklace with Handmade Stained Glass Purple Pendant because it is the first time I've mixed mediums, both stained glass and gemstones.

5. Where do you hope to see your etsy shop in 1 yr?

I would love to be making money.... to make a living doing what I love. Simple!

6. Is etsy the only place people can find you online?

For right now etsy is the only place that I have stuff for sale (besides my other etsy shop I mentioned above). I also love blogging- http://southernhandmadegifts.com , love being a social media butterfly- love Facebook, Twitter, and about 50 more I am members of.

So please visit Meredith's etsy shop, follow her on twitter, become her Facebook fan, and visit her blog. She's a great person to know, a truly caring and kind person, with a wonderful talent.

Etsy Gift Guide

A pair of my wire wrapped sterling earrings were picked for an August Etsy Gift Guide -- Shades of Peridot. Peridot is the birthstone for August, and my Silver Cherry Tree leaves come already wrapped in beautiful Swedish paper. If you know any ladies with an August birthday, they'd make the perfect gift!

I crafted the Silver Cherry Tree Leaves earrings from sterling silver, and embellished them with genuine semi-precious Peridot and the soft gleam of freshwater pearls.

Please drop by my Etsy shop, Dalkullan Jewelry, to see more pictures of these gorgeous earrings, and also my complete line of handcrafted, original designs.

Moon and Stars -- Mixed Metal Earrings

Just listed these at Dalkullan Jewelry.
The lovely color variations on the brass disk are the result of heating the brass.
I made the shiny balls by melting sterling with my trusty torch, and then soldered them onto the disks.
I've been thinking about this design for months, but needed to get the right tools, and hone my torch skills, so that I could make them. Thanks for dropping in and taking a look!

Sterling Disk Earrings

These earrings were fun to make, with the added plus that I learned a lot. They're the first pair of post earrings I've made, and soldering on the wire took a bit of doing.

But, first things first. I started by using my trusty disk cutter to punch out .5 inch circles from sterling stock, and then textured the disks with the sharper end of a riveting hammer. My sweet hubby was kind enough to file and smooth the rivet hammer so it makes a nice impression on the metal. And first impressions are so important, don't you think?

I marked the center and drilled a hole part way through the back, to provide a little pocket for the tip of the earwire to fit. This makes a stronger join than just soldering the wire tip to a flat metal surface. I fired up my little torch, and soldered on the earwires to the disks, and also melted a couple pieces of sterling into nice round balls.

Alas, the little round balls didn't stay round for long! I put them on my bench block and pounded and textured them, too. Then they were sweat soldered (that sounds a bit disgusting, but it's just melting the solder on the back of one piece, laying it solder-side down on another, and then heating it to soldering the two together) and I followed up with a bit of filing and sanding.

Then a few hours jostling in the tumbler, and they were ready for their photo shoot. Hope you enjoyed reading about how the Sterling Disk Earrings were made, and thank so much for stopping by!

Hammered Brass Earrings

Here is the finished project. I decided against adding the bronze dyed freshwater pearls, I think just the two metals look so lovely, and the simple elegance of the design doesn't need any more adornment.

I textured the brass part of the earrings with a ball pein hammer, and then annealed the metal. Annealing is heating with a torch until the crystalline structure of the metal becomes malleable again. When metal is worked, it becomes harder and brittle, but annealing it makes it easy to bend again. Then I did a final dapping, to shape the earrings. With the addition of handcrafted sterling earwires the earrings were finished.

The background in the photo is a pottery piece I inherited from my Aunt, the same Aunt from Dalarne in Sweden that Dalkullan Jewelry is named for. My Aunt owned an inport shop in Chicago called Dalkullan, which means 'girl from Dalarne' which she was, and I chose the name to honor her memory, and my Father's, who was also from Dalarne.

Fabricating Metal Earrings

I'm working on a new earring design, and it's one that I'm fabricating from sheet metal and wire.

The picture to the right is a piece of brass sheet metal, and you can see the holes where I've punched disks out. Using a disk cutter, I slide the sheet metal into it, strike a couple blows with a household hammer on the cutter, and out pops a lovely round metal disk. It's a lot easier and more accurate than the way I used to make circular metal disks, using a jeweler's saw.

Next I cut an addition hole out of the first disk, this one off-center. Then I hammer the metal with the ball end of a ball pein jeweler's hammer, to texture the metal. And finally I give the metal a rounded form, using a dapping block and punches.

A dapping block is a heavy piece of steel with hemispherical depressions tooled into it, and the corresponding punches are bars of metal with spherical steel ends that mate up with the holes in the dap. Using a dap makes it possible to evenly round a piece of metal.

The earring still needs to be filed and polished, and have an earwire attached.
I'm going to use a sterling earwire, and maybe a bronze colored freshwater pearl. As you can see, it's a work in progress, but I hope you've enjoyed getting a little glimpse into how I make jewelry.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Soldering Class

Last week at the Milwaukee Bead & Button Show I took a class in soldering. I've done some soldering before, I've made a couple pairs of earrings for myself and one of my daughters, but wanted to improve my technique. And this was definitely the class to do just that.
The class was taught by Mr. Joe Silvera, you can reach him online. He crafts amazing jewelry, and also teaches jewelry making classes. Joe is very patient, encouraging, and explains things clearly. He provided a lot of demonstrations in different aspects of soldering, which I really enjoyed. It's always fun and relaxing to watch someone else work, and to learn something too is a definite plus.
We melted sterling wire to form little balls of silver, learned to solder jump rings closed, and to solder jump rings together. In class we completed a pair of soldered sterling earrings, with a hammered and soldered motif at the bottom. Unfortunately I was a couple hours late to class, but I did manage to finish the project during class time. Overall I'm pleased with the outcome, I met my objective in learning more about soldering, and saw some wonderful demonstrations. The hammered motif on the bottom of the earrings has some symmetry issues, but the soldered joints look really good, and they're strong, which is what I was focusing on. With more practice I feel confident that I'll soon be incorporating soldering into my designs for my shop, and that's exciting! There are so many ideas I have which I really need to solder to execute. Jewelry crafting is a creative adventure, one that I'm enjoying immensely.
The earrings were a lot of fun to make,and I'm looking forward to crafting my own designs, and perfecting my soldering technique.

MZ Glass

There were so many venders with so many beautiful beads at the Milwaukee Bead & Button Show, it was pretty overwhelming. Very exciting to be there, and just drink it all in. I walked around for a couple hours, seeing what was available, and enjoying being in the same room with hundreds of people who all shared the same interest -- beads and jewelry. The picture on the right shows only a fraction of the vendors at the show.
My strategy was to only buy beads that I had a definite plan for, and not succomb to the temptation I'm sure everyone who's ever shopped for beads has experienced -- the urge to buy beads because of their beauty, and hope to devise a design for them later on. I've heard it referred to as 'releasing your inner magpie', something I've done on more than one occasion.
After my first circuit of the marketplace, I got down to business. Beautiful, handcrafted beads, made by the vendor herself, was my quest. And I found just that in MZ Glass, Margaret Zinser's amazing flamework beads.
Margaret is a wonderful person, warm and friendly, and it was a pleasure to meet her and to chat. You can reach Margaret through her website
and view and order online her gorgeous flamework beads.
Her work is also featured on the cover of "The Flow" magazine. I bought some lovely beads, just what I was hoping to find, which I'm going to make into earrings, and will have listed in my Etsy shop in the coming weeks.

The Show Floor

I'm heading back to Milwaukee today to attend the Bead & Button Show, this time to buy beads and supplies. I can't wait to see all the beautiful beads and jewelry. If you ever get a chance to go to the Show, don't hesitate, it's really something.
There are cases displaying all the contest winning jewelry pieces, and they are incredible. Photography really doesn't do them justice.
I'll be posting more on the Bead Show, and my class soon. The class was awesome, Mr. Joe Silvera and his assistant were just the kindest, most patient, and incredibly skilled jewelers.
Hope you have a wonderful day today, and thank you for reading my blog!
Heather

I've Got An Etsy Treasury

After weeks of lurking around the Etsy site, trying to score the ever elusive Treasury listing, I've met with success! It's titled "Au Printemps" and it's got some really wonderful things from a lot of very talented Etsians. Stop by and take a look, but you have to be quick, because the Treasury is only going to be there for the next 2 days.

http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=58208

Hope you stop by and see it, you'll be happy if you do. (-:

Etsy Showcase

Today I have a showcase running on Etsy.com, featuring the earrings pictured above. If you want to see it, go to etsy, click on showcase, then select 'gift guides' from the pulldown menu.
I'm hoping that buying this showcase time will increase my site traffic, and hopefully net me that elusive first (hopefully more!) sale. So far I have noticed more traffic than usual, but not a lot. It will be very interesting tomorrow to see what Google Analytics has to say.
It's hard to get noticed online. There are so many people selling stuff, and it seems like most of them are selling jewelry. I keep improving my website -- etsy is really tops in providing information on how to do that! -- and working on creating new designs.
I've got high hopes for the showcase spot. If the numbers look good from Analytics, I think I'll buy a slot on the main showcase. The gift one was $7 and the main one is $15, so it's a pretty big investment, but versus having a brick and mortar store, it's very cost effective. At least that's what I keep trying to tell myself. Having a 100% negative cash flow is worrying. I spent a couple hours in the middle of the night laying awake in bed wondering if I'm doing the right thing in pursuing this.
I just bought a tumbler, more sterling wire, and mixed stainless steel shot for the tumbler. It takes a lot of expensive equipment to be able to fabricate jewelry, and so far my husband has been very supportive, but I do feel increasingly guilty about the amount of money I'm spending.
Maybe the middle of a major recession isn't the best time to try and start a small business, lol.