When I first started making jewelry I noticed right away that the 20 gauge wire wasn’t strong enough to hold on the ends at the clasp. This was a big problem since first off the clasp is the most expensive part, secondly because my business is online sending items back and forth just isn’t practical. I have no problem with fixing the issues for people, but still isn’t great practice to sell jewelry that will fall apart. So I started adding two rings to hold the clasp in place, this worked well for me and I never have any issues with the jewelry falling apart. But over time just like with a single ring sooner or later one of those rings inevitably gets loose and falls off, then leaving you with just one weakened ring… so I beefed up the wire used to 18 gauge which is much thicker and stronger. Once again this works great for me and I never have any issues… For my customers however this creates a totally different set of problems. Although the end rings are now strong enough the inner links get bend and fall off thus creating the same issue. I’m doing what I can and working to make my jewelry stronger and have decided that the only way I can do that is soldering each ring. Once I start soldering the rings with copper or silver solder the issues of falling apart will be issues of the past. Problem is it is expensive… the least expensive route for me to go is a $950 torch, and with all the solder, ceramic heat shields, goggles, etc. well into $1k so the soldered work won’t be available this season… however next year for when I start going to faire’s and advertising more abundantly online the craftsmanship will be much better than before.
Archive for the ‘copper jewelry’ Category
Strengthening the ends
Saturday, August 29th, 2009Sale ends tomorrow for good!
Friday, February 13th, 2009Haven’t got your brand new handcrafted sterling silver jewelry piece?В Want one?В Maybe you need to get the hubby to purchase it for you?В Act quickly!В The sale ends forever tomorrow!В Last day to get that piece you always wanted with an amazing 20% off!В Get on and get that purchase in before the end of Tomorrow and you’ll be happy with a brand new piece of handmade jewelry!
Don’t wait until the last minute, this sale is too good to be passed up on, and if you wait until someone else purchases the piece you want you might have to wait for me to make the jewelry until you get it and that coule delay it for up to a week!В Sorry but I’m only one man can’t make jewelry for everyone 
First come first serve, get your sale prices before they’re no good!
Continuing sale!
Thursday, February 12th, 2009The birthday sale has been extended!В Act now to get your amazing 20% off through Valentines day!
Don’t miss out on this amazing sale, we all know that you would love to get a beautiful piece of sterling silver jewelry, copper jewelry, or other jewelry items for your loved ones!
Handmade Jewelry Care
Wednesday, February 11th, 2009If there is one thing that I want everyone to get from my blog that is how to take care of their jewelry!В Here very soon I want to add to the Jewelry Care section of my site with a handmade chainmail jewelry care PDF.В This is important because there’s a lot of little quirks and nuances about chainmail jewelry especially delicate handmade chainmail jewelry that most people just don’t get.В It would help people keep their jewelry nice for a much longer period of time if you have some basic care techniques that can both extend the life of your jewelry, and keep it looking its best all the time!
Copper Jewelry Galore!
Tuesday, January 13th, 2009Hey everyone!В We’ve just added a whole bunch of new copper jewelry!В Also to the lineup there are a few new items with magnetic clasps for magnetic therapy!В So for all of your pain, or repetitive injury relief we’ve now got you covered!
New Shopping Cart Installation
Thursday, December 4th, 2008I just thought that I’d update you on the new shopping cart installation.В The process is a little bit tricky, and therefore slow, everything can’t just be copied over, and I’ve run into a number of problems with the installation.В The new shopping cart is installed on another directory of this website… I’m just working now to get it switched over.В I have most of the products, and some other minor things switched over.В One issue now though is with the template of the website.В The site looks okay as is, and if I could take the current template and just copy it that woudl be awesome!В That’s not exactly possible though… And because it’s not exactly possible and I have to completely recreate the template I was thinking of just starting from scratch.В The template design that is on the site right now is aimed towards capturing a more high end market, crisp, clean, easy to navigate.В Nothing wrong with it… it just has no selling power… So I’m going to redesign it for hopefully increased sales, and definitely looking for increased browsing from the Ren. Faire crowds.
It’s obvious that my main group of people on the site are Ren. Faire types, so why not market to them?В I’m a renny myself and it’s becoming increasingly more obvious that is the only group that is going to purchase my items.В That’s fine, I plan on embracing this with an increase of stock as well.В Cheaper stock will start to flow into my store with steel jewelry, more copper, and hopefully some armor items added to the cart.В Anyways that’s where I stand right now… I’ve got a functional cart with all the same stock as on here, and once I have the new template made I’ll start the switch, which also means creating 301 redirects for every page and product on the site now to the new shopping cart.В This is a painstakingly long process… but hopefully it pays off in the end!
A new plan
Wednesday, November 26th, 2008Alright, so I’ve got a little bit of a new plan going on!В For the Holiday weekend I’ve been doing everything I can to “pimp out” Archmaille Designs.В I’ve been linking to the site to try and increase popularity of the site, and actually increasing advertising.В I’ve also changed the goal of some other sites… such as “ApplyMyWay” the site was going to be launched as a money maker/link popularity increaser for some of my other sites.В Now the link popularity that it will be increasing is Archmaille Designs.В I’ve had a recent invigoration that says this site is worth the effort!В I’m not really ever going to achieve “financial freedom” from this site, I mean, lets be honest here.
I guess it wouldn’t be unfair to say that my goal for online is to increase the amount of money I make from advertisements to $20 a day, keep my blogging income of $25 a day, and increase sales on this site to two a week.В Well either this site, or at art/craft shows in the area over the summer (Since I know that’s a hard sell time with any thing else).В It’s not an extravagent living, only about $450 a week or so… but it’s enough for me.В Of course as part of that goal I’ve also got to increase the stock of the website by like 10 fold… or at least get EVERYTHING that I have made up already on the site 
Anyways, that’s what I’m off to doing… increasing stock, and getting some stuff sold!
Delaying the site changes!
Monday, October 6th, 2008Hello world!В This is your captain speaking and we will be descending here shortly… lol, ok, enough with the flight jokes.В So Since I’ll be launching ApplyMyWay.com here very shortly, and then I would like to put up my own petition website, since I sort of put up TONS of petitions every year (think I’m up in the hundreds easily now).
So the site will be redesigned… no doubt about that it NEEDS it.В But it’ll be a little bit of time ya know?
Handcrafted!
Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008You know, I saw this one label once that confused me nearly to death.В You’re all lucky that I’m still standing here alive today!В The label was on a juice container when the “health craze” really started to break out.В The bottle said very boldly and obviously “100% Juice!” across the front of the package about as big as you can get, in fact I noticed it from across a couple of aisles… but I thought it was odd because it was made by like Sunny Delight or one of the other well known faux juice producers.В I was intrigued that this company would actually make a juice product that I had to see for myself… especially since in a clear bottle it didn’t really look like “juice” but more like a juice colored cool-aid mix.В Upon closer inspection they had in much smaller text under the 100% Juice! label that said “From concentrate”В alright… that sort of explains the odd look of it… and it’s really hard to find anything that’s not from concentrate anymore, so I was forgiving them… until I spotted in minuscule almost illegible text the words under that “With other ingredients”В Now… don’t get me wrong, but doesn’t 100% mean 100%?В How can it even be legal for this company to advertise that they have 100% juice if it’s from concentrate, with added ingredients?В Don’t the added ingredients take up some percentage?В I mean if it was like .5% other ingredients fine, but reading the ingredients label the reconstituted juice wasn’t even the first item on the list!В Which means that it can’t even be 50% juice, and I’d say you were lucky if it were…
I’ve been seeing the same kind of propaganda with handmade items any more too.В Many of the items I see sold as handmade or handcrafted should have a little label that goes along with them that explains that they were handmade by a person running a keyboard that input information to a computer that controlled a robotic arm that assembled pieces of the product.В It just makes me mad to see stuff like that, you know that there are people who fall for it too!В If they didn’t the companies would have no reason to lie like that.В Of course it still doesn’t really cut into my market being that I like to think that the people who are looking for my jewelry items, and purchase from me are actually looking for quality products, having some understanding of how to decipher the difference… I guess I could say that mostly I just feel bad for the fools who get tricked by such blatant lies.
Handmade Jewelry
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008And the weekend aproaches!В I’m so eager to get back to the St. Louis Ren. Faire too!В As I stated in the last entry I won’t be running my handmade jewelry booth out there this year, but I will most definitely be there. I would like to be running my jewelry booth, but it’s just not possible right now unfortunately.В For next year I should (fingers crossed) be running the Young Artisan’s Guild where I may have my handmade jewelry booth, or if not at least be out there running it.В If not a booth in the young artisan’s guild I will try to get more stuff made up so I can put up my own booth and have someone run that while I keep the young artisan’s section running.В It shouldn’t be a problem for me to have a booth within the young artisan’s section since they’re kind of wondering how they’re going to get some other young people out there anyways at this point… I have a few ideas, but if you guys got anything please drop me a line!