Handmade Beaded Jewelry | Recycled Beaded Jewelry Ideas | Bead Jewelry Business

It’s the holiday season already and it’s time to start gift shopping for everyone on your list. Some artists and crafts people are very specific about the tools they use or the materials they work with, so you may want to look for gifts that are a little more helpful or fun instead of necessary. Obviously beginning jewelry makers will have different wants than professional jewelry makers, but there are some things that everyone appreciates. So here are some great gifts and gift ideas for jewelry makers:

Gift the Gift of Sparkle, with Jewelry Cleaners – The one thing every jewelry artist has is lots of jewelry! A jewelry cleaner will help keep her own jewelry dazzling and may also brighten up any jewelry she’s trying to sell, especially if she has a lot of stock. There are several different types of jewelry cleaners. The ultrasonic jewelry cleaners are inexpensive and work well for most general cleaning. The semi-professional steam jewelry cleaners are a little more expensive but they are also what many professionals use. These cleaners may not be safe to use for some costume jewelry, but for the higher end handcrafted jewelry made with real gemstones they should work well.

Gift the Gift of Display, with a Jewelry Tree – Decorative jewelry trees have been around for several years, but now they’re really “branching” out and getting more and more elaborate and beautiful! LOL! A decorative jewelry tree is the perfect place for your special jewelry maker to display her earrings, bracelets and even necklaces in her own home or at her sale table. I know several jewelry artists who use their tree for a dual purpose: they display their own jewelry at home, but then they pack up the tree and use it on the road to display the pieces they made and want to sell. Some jewelry trees are small and relatively simple, but others have gotten quite large and can be considered art objects in their own right!

Give the Gift of Inspiration, with Jewelry Magazines – I like to browse through all sorts of jewelry making and bead magazines just to get some inspiration for my own projects and to see what other people are doing. And unlike other magazines, jewelry magazines can be saved and read and referenced again and again. Sure, the styles change from year to year but the basic skills and tutorials don’t and sometimes you come across pieces that you didn’t have the skill to try the first time you read the article. Here are just some of the jewelry and bead magazines you can buy subscriptions to:

Jewelry Artist
Art Jewelry
Metalsmith
Bead & Button
Simply Beads
Step By Step Beads
Bead Unique

Give the Gift of Sight, with a Jewelry Making Light or Magnifier – This might fall under the category of “jewelry making tools” but giving someone a better lamp or some sort of special magnifying glass could be a very thoughtful gift. Some people I wrote an article about some of the lights and magnifying glasses and can be used for making jewelry recently, but that’s really just the tip of the iceberg. A decorative or inscribed magnifying glass could make a wonderful gift that has the chance to be cherished for many years.

Give the Gift of Organization, with the Bead Manager Pro Jewelry Inventory Program – If you’re shopping for the jewelry maker who is serious about turning her hobby into a business, then you may want to consider this affordable program for the MAC or PC which will allow her to keep track of all of her jewelry supply inventory, as well as customers and jewelry pieces she’s made and sold. I’ve written about different jewelry making programs before. Bead Manager Pro is affordable, easy to learn has lots of great jewelry and business management features!

Gift the Gift of Surprise, with Mixes Beads and Gemstones – When all else fails, you could always surprise that jewelry maker or bead lover with a big box of beads and gemstones of every sort! Now I’m not saying blow your budget and give her a box full of rubies (though I wouldn’t complain! LOL!) but you can get some great mixes of beads and stones for a relatively good price online. Another option is to hit some yard sales and buy up old jewelry pieces and combine them with a good mix of beads. For most jewelry makers being given a box filled with beads and jewelry for plundering is like being given a treasure chest of possibilities! You could even get clever and hide a little gift card to her favorite bead store or jewelry website at the bottom of the box!

Give the Gift of Fun, with the Nintendo DS game Style Lab: Jewelry Design – This one isn’t just for the kids! If you have a Nintendo DS (I know a few moms who have one for themselves!) then you can use this fun game to design your jewelry online the screen and then order real jewelry that’s made according to your virtual design specifications! Pretty neat! This is a great way to introduce jewelry design to beginners or just give the kids (or you, Mom!) something to do when you’re waiting somewhere and can’t pull out all your boxes of beads and jewelry supplies!

Give the Gift of Learning, with the 2010 Bead-A-Day Calendar – My husband got me one of these a few years ago and now I ask for one every Christmas (that’s how I know he reads my blog!) It’s basically 365 days of great bead jewelry making tips and tricks. Some tips are for beginners, some are more advanced, but like the jewelry magazines you can go back to them year after year and still learn something new each time!

Want even more great gift ideas for bead lovers and jewelry makers? Check out some of these gift lists from previous years:

More Gift Ideas for Beaders and Jewelry Makers
Even More Gifts for Jewelry Designers and Makers
Yet More Ideas for Bead Jewelry Makers

Yep, some gift ideas even show up on different lists year after year! There are lots of great things you can give that special jewelry maker in your life. If you share a home with a jewelry maker then sometimes one of the most precious things you can give is just a little time to let her be creative! Offer to take the kids out for an afternoon and let her blast her music and make some jewelry!

Whatever you do, I hope you and yours a Happy Holiday and a Merry Christmas!

If you’re looking to pick up some truly beautiful and classic retro and vintage looking jewelry, then you need to check out Ida Jefsen Design to see some of her amazing pieces!

Here’s one of many classic jewelry pieces from Ida Jefsen!

Ida Jefsen is a one-woman whirlwind of artistic endeavors and amazing talent with an international background that would make most of us here in the United States jealous! She currently lives and works in Oregon, but she grew up in Denmark and pursued a degree in Fashion Design in none other than Paris, France!

You can see all her international influences and more at her Ida Jefsen Design website. Her jewelry has a classic vintage feel that is never overdone or ostentatious. Ida’s jewelry mixes and matches many contrasting and different shapes and colors into sophisticated and coordinated pieces which really feel as though they came from a time long past. Almost everything she makes includes some intricate wirework and is hung on antique looking or brass chains, which really adds to the authenticity.

Thankfully, she hasn’t limited herself to just one medium with all that creativity. Her Ida Jefsen Design website features a variety of creative pursuits including jewelry making, photography and even graphic design! As an amateur photographer myself I’ve started to pay a lot more attention to how jewelry is photographed, and I was totally blown away by some of the photos on her site. Some of her photos of jewelry could easily be printed on canvas and stand on their own as a beautiful piece of artwork.

Her website has multiple large photos of each of her jewelry pieces, wonderful descriptions and she loves doing custom jewelry design. Some of her pieces are even designed to match with others and her site helps connect you to jewelry that coordinates with the piece you’re looking at. Even her website photos of her jewelry are beautifully and thoughtfully laid out. She makes bracelets, earrings, pendant and even photo necklaces (with her own photos of course) and they’re all like mini pieces of wearable art!

She sells most of her pieces through Etsy, so visit her website or cruise on over to the Ida Jefsen Designs Etsy store soon. She’ll even guarantee Christmas delivery if you order before December 10th!

Okay, so I have to tally from the month of October’s drive to donate jewelry money to breast cancer research. I’m going to give the money to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation because they seem to be one of the larger breast cancer fund raising organizations out there. Here is the breakdown of jewelry money raised by category:

Yay! We raised over $110 for Breast Cancer Research! The graphic is a quick screenshot of the donation my husband and I made today on our credit card!

And please remember that you can donate money to the Susan G. Komen Foundation or any other breast cancer charity or cause throughout the year, and not just during the month of October.

There are lots of worthy causes and lots of organizations that can always use donations, no matter how small or how large they are. I’ve written about a lot of different charity beading and jewelry organizations in the past and I’m proud that we were able to join their ranks with our small contribution!

I’ve been making beaded jewelry for well over five years now but about six months ago I started to notice that I was having a hard time seeing some of the smaller details and holes in my beads and clasps. I went to the eye doctor a few weeks ago and now I have a pair of glasses that I wear just for close-up jewelry work or reading or anything else that requires holding something close to my eyes. And while the glasses make a world of difference, I’m also finding that I wish I could sometimes magnify my hands and beads even more when I’m working.

Luckily, I didn’t have to search far! My local craft store had a ton of neat magnification tools, desk lamps and lighted magnifiers to help those of us who are starting to have a hard time seeing our jewelry as we make it. I thought some of the prices were a little high, so I looked online and found some great deals on products to help me see my handcrafted jewelry (and even my “real” jewelry) a little better! Here are some of the types of products I found which could really help my old eyes when I’m making jewelry:

Jeweler’s loupes and magnifiers are surprisingly useful and affordable for any sort of jewelry making!

3 Piece Jeweler’s Loop – I used to think jeweler’s loops were expensive specialized equipment that could only be used by jewelry designers who worked with high-end materials like diamonds and gemstones and gold. Then I took a chance and picked up an affordable set of loops just to see what I could do with them. I’m sure there are better sets out there, but an inexpensive set like these can do the job quite well. I’ll sometimes use them to look at damaged prongs, broken clasps or to just check out the quality of a beads I’m working with. Swarovski crystals look especially nice in them!

Magnifying Desk Lamp – I often don’t get much time to work on my jewelry until it’s later at night, so I rarely have any sort of natural daylight to work in. I have gone through a couple different lamps over the years, but now I’ve settled on a combination magnifying glass with a lamp built in. I like the desk mounted lamps as opposed to the magnifying lamps that just have a heavy base because I inevitably find a way to knock them over. There are several different types of lamps you can get with magnifying glasses such as fluorescent lamps with cool and not very bright light, incandescent lamps with brighter lights and warmer bulbs, halogen lamps that are very bright and very hot and my personal favorite, “daylight” lamps which are very bright and are acclaimed for their ability to help people fight SAD or “Seasonal Affect Disorder” that many people are prone to during winter months when there’s less sunlight available.

Good Old-Fashioned Magnifying Glasses – A magnifying glass is handy in so many different situations that I can’t even count them. It’s sometimes easier to use than a jeweler’s loop and magnifying glasses have a much wider field of view so you can see a lot more jewelry at one time. I usually keep a magnifying glass in my purse, one at my jewelry desk and another one in my “junk” drawer. I’ve learned that you don’t have to go for an extremely expensive magnifying glass, just something that’s durable and has a decent magnification.

Growing older isn’t necessarily fun, but with a few helpful things I can continue to enjoy making jewelry without squinting.

Making Jewelry for Breast Cancer Update: I just wanted to give you all a quick update on how much money we’re raising to help fight breast cancer! So far I sold two sets of my own earrings this month, two people have bought jewelry software and we’ve had about ten jewelry making items ordered from Amazon! The grand total raised so far is: $56.89!

This October marks the 25th anniversary of The National Breast Cancer Awareness Month (NBCAM) organization which has spent this last quarter century trying to educate and empower people about breast cancer and make them more aware of the disease and what can be done about it. It’s around this time that you start seeing lots of pink products in the stores and pink ribbons on buildings and packaging, all indicating that a small portion of the proceeds from those sales will go towards breast cancer research and education.

Around this time each year I usually give a small donation of my own, either to my local hospital or to one of the larger breast cancer organizations out there, but this year I’m going to do something different: I’m going to give a portion of all my jewelry sales for the month of October to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. But since I don’t sell much jewelry online, I thought I would also try to involve my friends and readers across the internet as well!

You, the Bead Jewelry Blog Visitor and Reader, get to decide how much money I will donate to fighting breast cancer! There are two ways you can do this:

100% of the Jewelry Making and Beading Commissions I receive from Amazon.com will go towards breast cancer research during October 2009!

For the entire 2009 Breast Cancer Awareness month I will donate 100% of the commission I make from selling jewelry making supplies, items and jewelry books I sell through Amazon.com. Amazon doesn’t pay much, usually only about 6% or so on most sales, so if someone buys $10.00 worth of beading supplies through a link I might make 60 cents if I’m lucky. But every bit ads up and I’m willing to donate all my jewelry making and beading supply commission to breast cancer research. I’ve written about the good prices and wide selection of jewelry making supplies and beads Amazon.com has before, and their ordering process couldn’t be easier. To make sure I count your and beading and jewelry item purchases, please visit this direct link to Amazon’s Beading and Jewelry Making Store.

I’ll donate $10.00 to breast cancer research for every sale of Bead Manager Pro in October 2009!

In addition, I’m going to donate $10 for every sale of one of my essential jewelry business tools: Bead Manager Pro to fighting breast cancer. I’ve written about several different bead jewelry software programs before, but Bead Manager Pro is what I use because it’s relatively affordable, it’s easy to use and it does everything I want it to do. If you’ve been thinking about buying beading and jewelry inventory software and want the chance to have some of that money go towards fighting breast cancer, then October is the month to take the plunge!

I write this blog as a means to share my thoughts with the world and I don’t really make much money with this jewelry blog, but I do like to point out products and books that can help others make and sell their own jewelry. Unfortunately, I only make a tiny portion on each sale, but that’s okay because I just use the money to pay for website hosting and the software and services I sometimes need to purchase to keep this site running.

I was just going to turn my site pink for the month, but I thought this would be a more serious way of making a small difference. I’ll post a grand total for October’s donations at the end of the month. Of course, if you want, you can always makes your straight out donations to any number of different local or international breast cancer awareness and empowerment organizations, and I strongly encourage you to do so!