Top 10, Week Ending 9/16/16

Oops!  I got distracted yesterday and forgot to post this.  Sorry about that.  Anyway, here it is:

1. SILVER
2. ART
3. PINK
4. BLUE
5. BEAD
6. GOLD
7. GLASS
8. PHOTOGRAPHY
9. WHITE
10. FLOWER

Now go make some inspired jewelry!

Top 10, Week Ending 9/9/16

Well, it's Monday, so here we go.  Top 10 trending words in handmade jewelry on twitter for last week:

1. SILVER
2. QUARTZ
3. ONYX
4. GREEN
5. BLUE
6. BLACK
7. GOLD 
8. TURQUOISE
9. GLASS
10. PINK

As always, this is not scientific.  

Now go, be inspired!

Top 10, Week Ending 9/2/16

You may have been wondering where my top 10 list was on Friday.  I was getting ready for a show, but I also decided it would be a good idea to switch this to Monday.  (Tuesday this week because of the holiday.)  That way when I have info for the week ending on Friday, I can get all of the Friday info included.  
If you have been following these, you know that I am still refining my data collection process.  This week I have greatly expanded the data, and in doing so, I believe I have just the handmade.  Hopefully it will get us more meaningful results.

Here goes:

TOP 10 HANDMADE JEWELRY TERMS ON TWITTER FOR THE WEEK ENDING 9/2/2016

1. SILVER
2. STERLING
3. QUARTZ
4. BLUE
5. GREEN 
6. PINK
7. TURQUOISE
8. JEWEL
9. GOLD
10. BEAD

Here are the usual disclaimers:  This is not scientific, and it is overwhelmingly handmade with a little bit of vintage. Happy creating!  

Top 10, Week Ending 8/26/16

Here are the top 10 trends for handmade and vintage jewelry on Twitter for the week:

1.  Glass
2. Silver
3. Seaside
4. Gemstone
5. Men (Tie)
6. Sterling (Tied with #5)
7. Flower
8. Upcycle
9. Leather
10. Copper

As usual, this is not scientific, and handmade is weighted more heavily than vintage.

Top 10, Week Ending 8/19/16

I'm starting to get this down to a weekly routine.  This week I deleted necklace, earrings, bracelet, ring because they would always take four of the top ten spots.  It's starting to get interesting:

1. BLUE
2. TREE (A THREE-WAY TIE FOR #2)
3. BEAD (TIED FOR #2)
4. STEAMPUNK (TIED FOR #2)
5. MEN  (A FOUR WAY TIE FOR #5)
6. PAPER (TIED FOR #5)
7. LEATHER (TIED FOR #5)
8. MURANO (TIED FOR #5)
9. GEMSTONE
10. SEASIDE

This weights handmade more than vintage, and is not an exact science.  

Top Ten WE 8/12/2016

1. Silver (including Sterling)
2. Earring
3. Pearl
4. Necklace
5. Bracelet
6. Ring (including Wedding Band)
7. Gold (including 14K)
8. Wedding
9. Turquoise
10. White

This is not scientific by any standard!  These are compiled from tweets having to do with handmade and vintage jewelry.  Handmade is weighted much more than vintage.

I'm thinking maybe next week I will leave out earring, bracelet, necklace and ring because they are always in there. Leaving them out may give us some more useful information.  What do you think?

Top Ten WE 8/5/2016

• Necklace
• Bracelet
• Earrings
• Sterling Silver
• Turquoise
• Gemstone
• Beaded
• White
• Crystal
• Flower

These are compiled from tweets having to do with handmade and vintage jewelry.  They are not exactly in order, but the ones at the top of the list were mentioned more than the ones at the bottom of the list, and handmade is weighted more than vintage.

Weekly Jewelry Trends 7/29/16

Today I am going to try something new.  I have picked (according to my calculations) the top ten trends this week for handmade and vintage jewelry on Twitter.  These are based on tweets.  We'll have to wait and see if this is successful, or if I come up with the same thing each week.  Success would be not coming up with the same ten items each week!

Anyway, drum roll please.....    Here they are:

• Bracelet
• Pearl
• Blue
• Necklace
• Sterling Silver
• Gold
• Agate
• Jasper
• Gift Ideas
• Gemstone

These are not necessarily in exact order, although the ones at the top were definitely mentioned more than the ones at the bottom.  It's not an exact science.

I hope these give all the jewelry makers out there some inspiration for the week ahead!  Next week maybe I'll even have a graphic!

Introduction to Precious Metal Clay

The other day I held a metal clay class at the Lakeland Art Gallery.  I thought it might be fun to share what we were working on.

This class was meant for people with no experience, and we were going to make a simple stamped silver pendant (or earrings).  I told them to think about what they wanted to make first.  The clay dries out rather quickly, so you have to have a plan.  That doesn't mean that you can't change your mind in the middle of it, but a plan helps.

Picture by Melodie Koher

Everyone had fun looking at all the stamps and textures I had brought, trying to decide which they wanted to use and how.

Once we got to rolling out the clay, some had a little anxiety, while others really got busy creating.  It is fun to see all the different things people come up with given the same set of instructions.  

Picture by Melodie Koher

In the end, everyone got their pieces dried, sanded and ready to fire.  It was hard for them to imagine that their fragile clay pieces would turn into solid silver.





The next week, after I took the pieces home and fired them in the kiln, everyone got their pieces back.  They had shrunk slightly, and were white, not silver.  A little brushing with soapy water though quickly revealed the silver under the white residue.  Then we got to experiment with a liver of sulfur patina.  We got some great colors, and everyone liked their patina so much, for the most part, they didn't want to remove any of it.  

Here is a look at the finished pieces of my students:

If you are in Northern Indiana and interested in taking a class, subscribe to my Facebook page for notifications on new class offerings.

Moving Pains: Jewelry Tips Blog

The last few months, I have been making a lot of changes.  It became apparent last spring that I would need to find a new home for my online store, which also seemed the perfect time to split it up into multiple stores that had a cohesive group of products.  In addition, my old store had my "jewelry tips" blog, which I admit has been neglected lately.

I initially moved the first jewelry tips blog post here on blogger, but then I decided that it might be hard for people to find just that series of articles.  So you may have noticed that my last entry here disappeared.  It has been moved to my website, where the jewelry tips will have a place all their own.

Jewelry Tips: Eye Pins and Wrapped Loops

In the future, you can find it on my website at www.shanghaitai.com.  You can also sign up to receive notifications of future jewelry tips articles by clicking here.

The new website has links to my new stores (which I will tell you about in the next post), news, a calendar of upcoming events, links to some free tutorials and other videos, in addition to the new jewelry tips blog.  I hope you will check it out and I would welcome your feedback in the comments below.

Fold Formed Leaves

Well, it's been awhile since I've posted.  I almost dropped off the face of the earth:  I had two partial knee replacements (and also got a new grand-baby and a new daughter-in-law!)  I haven't been going down the stairs to my workshop very much at all.

Meanwhile, here in Indiana we had a dry fall, which made for some beautiful leaves.  Unfortunately, there is no big hill around here that I know of to get a big sweeping landscape picture from.

Trees near my house

My first day that I could drive again, I had to go out and get some shots.  The leaves were at their peak and the rain that was expected that night would probably take a lot of them down.

It seems it always looks better in real life!

I have been wanting to get back into the studio and, inspired by the leaves, I wanted to make some fold-formed leaves.  This is something I've often read about but never tried.  So tonight I made a few.  Here are the results:

I probably went to a lot less trouble than some people.  First I cut out the rectangles with a pair of shears.  Then I folded them lengthwise and smacked them flat with a mallet.  Then I hammered with a textured hammer, especially getting around the edges.  This work hardened them, so they had to be annealed before opening.  Annealing them gave them some nice colors.  The four in front have the colors just from being annealed.  After opening, I filed and sanded the edges so they wouldn't be rough.  Then I flame-painted some more color on the two in the back.

Anyway, next I plan to drill some holes and make them into jewelry.  When I do, I will try and post some pictures.

Blown Away at Covington

Last weekend I was at the Covington Art Fair in Fort Wayne.  My husband always helps me set up, but he was going to be spending the weekend at some Boy Scout activities.  We took separate vehicles, and he only took my sandbag weights.  As I was leaving, I noticed it was starting to rain, so I threw in my pvc pipe weights just to be on the safe side.  It was odd, because I had been checking the forecast all week, and the weather was supposed to be nice.

So Friday night he helped me set up before he left.  We set up my EZ up with Florish mesh panels on three sides and sta-bars at the bottom to hold them, which give extra support.  We put on both sets of weights.  Here is what my booth looked like at the last show that I did:

My booth on a nicer day, in Louisville, KY

At least, that's what it looked like until I decided I got better sales by moving the cheaper items to the front and display cases to the back.  I was excited that I had just ordered three vertical banners with pictures of my jewelry to hang in the back of my booth.

Anyway, normally I set up my display cases the night before.  I had set up the legs and the wooden bases, but that's as far as I got.  My husband was in a hurry to leave, so I decided I would just set them up in the morning.  It rained all night long, and the wind seemed to increase.  I was sleeping in our little trailer, and it was so noisy on the roof I don't think I got any sleep at all.  I checked the radar a few times.  It showed nothing serious (green as opposed to yellow or red) and we were always on the back edge like it was just about over.

About 7:00 am I arrived back at Covington to finish setting up my booth.  As I pulled in the parking lot, I saw a couple of canopies had come down during the night.  This happens sometimes.  I was relieved to see mine still standing along with the others.  I went inside to start setting up.

After putting a couple of rotating displays up on the tables, the wind REALLY started to pick up.  It was scary.  I started holding the tent down, thinking that it will pass in a few minutes.  It didn't.  The wind got stronger and stronger.  Pretty soon water was pouring down on my head as I held on to the canopy leg as hard as I could.  I could hear things crashing outside -- apparently other tents were coming down around me.  

All of a sudden, I heard a siren.  Tornado warning???!!  It's time to abandon tent, I thought.  I was afraid to unzip the door of the tent, because it would let the howling wind in.  So, in spite of needing two knee replacements, I somehow was motivated enough to duck under the side wall.  Before I did, though, I quickly put both my rotating displays on the ground.  I got up next to the building where there is a large awning, and I took this video:

The siren I heard was apparently just a police siren.  I helped my neighbors get their last piece of painted furniture under the roof.  I still wasn't sure that we wouldn't have a tornado.  The roof above, all the way around the shopping center, was glass.  That is definitely NOT a safe place to be in a tornado.  So I went around the mall to see if the artist hospitality suite was open yet, pulling a few artists' possessions up under the roof as I went around.  If my tent was going to go, there was nothing I could do at this point.  I thought it was best to at least get in a building as soon as possible.  

The hospitality suite (an empty storefront) was open, fortunately.  After getting calmed down a little bit from my experience, but still soaking wet, I stepped outside the door and got another video:

Here is a still shot of the view from inside the hospitality suite:

Many of these artists had just lost their tents, and some of them had lost more than that, including their inventory.  They seemed to be taking it all in stride.  Everyone was so helpful to each other.  I finally got enough nerve to go back to the other end of the parking to see if my tent was still standing, and it was, but it was looking a little funny.  One of the cross braces had snapped, and the wind was still blowing.  Some other artists helped me start tearing off the sidewalls so the wind could go through.  As we were doing that, I stopped to take this picture, which shows the broken support hanging:

The table draped in black should be on the right hand wall.  The table didn't move, the tent moved.  The black legs you see sticking in the air are the legs to my display cases.  The green tub on it's side was full of display items, and it's not all that light.  The purple tub still upright is very heavy, and includes my display case glass.  You can see my weights still attached, but tipped on their sides.  My rotating displays, still wrapped in bubble wrap, were fine, though one had been knocked over on it's side.

I was going to text my husband, and let him know that my EZ-up had gone to a watery grave.  However, it was resurrected thanks to a couple of other artists.  Someone suggested that I salvage a crosspiece from one of the many destroyed EZ-ups that were now littering the parking lot along with several more expensive tents. Sarah Thompson, who's tent had blown over from the other side of the lot, was nice enough to give me one, and she and Troy Anderson actually even found a wrench and put it on for me!  

We took the tent down because of the wind.  Someone who counted said there were eight tents left standing.  I don't know if they counted before or after we took mine down.  Anyway, it did pretty good for an EZ-Up!  I read later that there were sustained winds of 50 mph, and gusts up to 70 mph!  The show was cancelled for the day.  After the rain quit, the clouds and wind stayed for several hours.  The whole thing lasted about 24 hours.  The storm just stayed in the same position and just rotated.  Since I was in no mood, or condition, to put that tent up a second time I opted to set up a couple of tables up under the roof next to the stores for the next day.  Many artists went out and borrowed or bought another tent and had it up for Sunday.

I hope I NEVER have an experience like that again.  But it was a learning experience, and here is what I learned:

1. Weight your tent down good!  
2. Most EZ Ups fail because water collects in the roof.  Domed roofs are superior, not because they are more aerodynamic, but because they shed water.
3. If there is a chance of bad weather, don't set up glass display cases, or breakable inventory, the night before.  (Had my cases been set up, I would have lost all the glass.)
4. If the weather is bad enough, it won't matter what kind of tent you have.  (Of the eight tents that survived, I know that one was weighted down with much hanging metal inventory, and another was tied to a large van that also blocked the wind.)
5. Strongly consider the need to have at least liability insurance.  (Some tents are destroyed when they are run into by other tents.  When someone finds your tent in their spot on top of their tent, you will be liable.)
6. I should have set up the tent again!  (It seemed as if I wasn't part of the show, and missed a lot of traffic, but I will know better next time!)
7. Artists are a caring, helpful community!

In closing, let me say I was very fortunate because, assuming my lights and inverter dry out, I did not lose anything.  Many other artists were not so fortunate.  I am really hoping my next show is NOT a learning experience.  I've learned enough for awhile, now I just need a good show!