A short note about Custom Orders

Hi all.. Can you believe it’s October already?! This year is flying by faster than the Man of Steel & his sonic booms! Anyhow…

I’ve just been updating the custom orders page on my website, and wanted to share a few words.. After a really good conversation with my husband yesterday, I realised I am charging far too little for custom pieces.. I so want to be able to accommodate everyone, but the truth is, custom work takes 2-3 times as long as any other work – from designing (with options!), meeting clients, working out costs & quotes, and actually manufacturing – often trying something I’ve never done before! Anyhow, I’ve realised that I need to actually start charging for my time, or else it’s just not worth it for me to do

So – if you check out my website’s custom orders page, you can see a new pricing guide, with some minimum costs.. As you can see, I’m keeping custom name necklaces as low as possible, as these don’t take me long to provide a few font options – but for necklaces and rings, well, those have definitely gone up! I hope this doesn’t put too many people off – you will be getting absolutely awesome custom pieces if you order, but they will cost a little more..

Click here to see some new pics of custom orders recently made up, as well as new pricing guides: http://www.starbrightgirl.com/custom%20orders.htm

Have a fantastic day everyone 🙂 Megs xxx

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Friday – End of a super busy week..

Phew, I have to say, I’m glad it’s Friday – even though I’ll be doing some work this weekend.. It’s been a super busy week – with stock finished off & sent off to both Fringe Arts Cape Town shops, as well as the new Lonehill shop (JHB), as well as stock being dropped off at the KZNSA gallery, and a number of smaller orders!

(Update: I’m publishing this on Saturday – have to wait until some of the gifts at the bottom have been given! 😉 )

But, the week has ended on a really good note – as I received some jewellery production tools, which I ordered from overseas, this morning..

My awesome new jewellery tools

On top, in the picture, you’ll see a brand new, aluminium saw-frame. This is absolutely wonderful, as it’s really light-weight & nicely balanced, which I think will definitely help reduce the strain my arms and wrists have been taking! I know some jeweller’s who use these, and only have good things to say about them – and, so far – so awesome! The other nice thing (a technical detail), is that you can set your tension for your saw-blades – which means my chest/shoulder can rest easy – as I used to have to push my old frame against myself to tension it!!

In the box, is another totally awesome tool – a mini belt-sander for the bench.. I’ve been trying it out today, and it really is great.. Basically, it clamps to the bench, and then you connect your pendant motor to it. As I have a Foredom, variable-speed, motor, I can control the speed it runs with my foot pedal, which means no hot/burnt or sanded-off-skin-fingers! I ordered a variety of sandpaper belts to use – but must say, I’m taking a while to get used to the different grits – here it’s all 400, 600, 800 etc, but these are American, and so are 320, 500, 1200.. Sigh, why can’t the world be more standardised! 😉

Anyhow – here’s a pic of me using the set-up sander (yes, I’m normally right-handed, but that would have been an awful picture!)

Trying out my new Wolf Belt Sander

I was honestly surprised by how beautiful and flat the pieces are sanded – which is just perfect for my style & designs! To be honest, it is a bit of a mission to change the sandpaper belts, but for assembly production sanding – I can tell this is my new best friend!! 😀

To end off, here are just a couple of pics of things I have been busy with this week.. The Converse pendant isn’t quite finished – but I’m just so stoked with how it’s looking – must make more! The others are mostly gift items, so I’m just hoping they have all been given to their recipients by now! 😉

August 2013 – some custom orders

And that’s all from me – hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend 🙂 Megs xx

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When things go wrong…

So, it’s been a very topsy turvy few weeks for me – which started with my first ever Etsy return.. I have to admit, I was pretty devastated to begin with – but as the whole situation worked itself through, I decided to take it as a learning tool..

Basically, some of the items I offer on my Etsy shops, are blackened. To do this, I use a Liver of Sulphur solution, on a heated hotplate (standard for all jewellers), into which the item is dipped. However, in this case, the blackening didn’t take properly, and wore off within a day. The customer requested a refund, as they wanted a blackened piece.

I did try and offer a few alternatives, which to their credit, they did try, but unfortunately none worked, so I accepted that I would need to refund.

Luckily, Paypal is very sorted these days, so I asked for them to post me the item back, and Paypal would only refund once a tracking number had been entered! Quite impressed with that 🙂

In the meantime, I went back to the studio, and did multiple tests with the blackening solution – and determined that the solution was too old, and I needed to start fresh. I also did lots of research online, and found that adding ammonia to the solution helps the blackening – which I did. Lo and behold, I finally had perfectly blackened pieces! So, whilst not being a pleasant experience, I did learn something, and will definitely take added care when blackening in future (and will always test that the blackening holds well!) (I have also made adjustments on my Etsy shop for customers to note that it is a surface solution, and will eventually wear off – so they know it’s not permanent!)

Sulphur Powder – Yes, it smells as bad as it looks!

So, that was one aspect of the last few weeks – there was also a death in the family (my hubby’s grandfather, who will be greatly missed), a friend wrote off his car, another ended up in hospital, and my tendinitis in my wrists has flared up quite badly, so it’s been physio visits, and cortisone injections (with side effects!) for me..

But – there’s also been a lot of good – my business is going well, and I had a wonderful day at the I Heart Market last week. One of my best friends was out from the UK, so I got to spend lots of time with her, which was lovely – and another set of friends had their first baby – who we get to meet tomorrow.. 🙂

So, it really is about taking the bad with the good – learning from the bad, and just appreciating & enjoying the good..

This has been a deep post from me today (as deep as I go!) – so I’m going to sign off, say Happy Thursday – and enjoy the long weekend everyone in South Africa! Megs xxx

PS – One more note, for the geeky Supernatural fans (who’ll be the only ones to get this) – ironic isn’t it, that SULPHUR is used to blacken the pendant!! 😛

 

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Custom Orders for Near & Far

Hi again – and welcome to the new week – hope it’s going to be a great one! ;)Today I thought I’d write a little bit about custom orders..

I really enjoy doing custom orders for people – even though they stress me out, to be honest! Trying to match up with a vision in someone’s head is not always easy! But, I like to tackle them.. Plus, I have one fallback – I NEVER start making things up until people are 100% sure about the design!

I’m pretty lucky in that I do all my designs on the computer (vector files) – so I’m able to create a jpeg, and email to customers to check.. This is also useful when I have to make sure of, for example, a ring size – when the customer is on the other side of the world! I send a 100% scaled image, they can print it out, cut it out, and wrap it around their finger to check! I did this recently for a ring headed to Germany – and thankfully, it apparently fits perfectly! (Plus, I love the fact that most Germans I have met are really accurate – and these customers were great and gave me perfect diameters!) 😉
Here’s a pic of the design, and the finished ring 🙂

It’s also really helpful for designing – I get some interesting requests, where a customer will ask, for example, if I can combine a variety of images to form 1 design – see the example below:

It was highly useful to be able to send a rough design first, to make sure I was on the right track, before spending ages fine-tuning it all!

So basically – I really do love doing custom work, and I’m always happy to be able to work with people all over the world, to create something they’re going to love! 😉 I’ll leave you with a few more examples of work I’ve done this year.. Have a great week!! 🙂 Megan xx

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Cleaning silver Jewellery – helpful tips

A week or so back, I had an email from a customer overseas, asking how to clean her little Africa pendant she had purchased from me. I sent quite a detailed response, and was thinking it’s something I should share with everyone 🙂

For cleaning silver jewellery, I use a product called Silvo, which is a silver polish, to clean my pieces if necessary.. You get it at the supermarket here in South Africa – it’s the same stuff your mom probably uses to clean silver cutlery! I’m sure there must be equivalents to this in different parts of the world! 😉
Basically, you just shake the tin, then pour a tiny amount on a soft cotton cloth, then rub the piece gently over it – then use a clean part of the cloth to rub the polish off 🙂 You’ll see the cloth go black when you rub the piece!

I do use a small amount of a metal called Indium in my alloying process, which helps retard the tarnishing process for a while, but if you’re slightly acidic, or live near the sea (like me in both cases!), the silver will eventually blacken..

If there is still some polish left on the edges – another nice cleaning trick is to pop it into a container of just boiled water, then add dishwashing liquid soap, and a tiny amount of ammonia. Then use a soft toothbrush to clean.
This is also great for rings (and gold jewellery) etc – especially with diamonds & other stones, where dirt gets trapped under the stones – you’ll see how shiny they come up!!

You can also use Silvo & a cloth to clean chains – but another nice tip is to put a little bit of washing powder & water into your cupped hand, and to rub the chain in your hands, this can also help clean it..

These are things that can help on a daily basis, just to clean your jewellery a little – but I’ll be 100% honest – there’s nothing for the home market that works as well as what’s in a jeweller’s studio! If you want your jewellery to look like new – take it to a local jeweller, and ask for a clean & polish.. Chains will be tumbled, and solid pieces polished by hand, and they will once again look like new! (This shouldn’t be expensive, but might be worth a small outlay, especially if you want to wear something for a special occasion!) 🙂

Anyhow – hope this little bit of information has helped! Have a fantastic day everyone 🙂 Megs xx

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Charms, Totems & Amulets

First of all – Happy New Year! 🙂 Hope you all had a fantastic festive season – and for those in snowy climates – I am soooo jealous right now!! 😉

It’s been far too long since I last blogged, something I want to sort out this year (I’m not saying I’m going to aim for every week, but once a month would be good!) For this first blog post, I want to talk about charms…

Just before Christmas last year, my mom phoned me, and asked if I’d be able to make some little charms to go in the Christmas pudding – she said when she was young, they’d had silver charms in theirs, as opposed to money.. I said yes (even though I was hectically busy!), then suggested each charm be customised for each person.. This led to the following set of charms:

The star charm was for me (I’ve always loved stars, hence my business name), the bow & arrow for my husband – who loves archery, the airplane was for my uncle – who used to be an airplane engineer, the puppy was for my aunt – who has 2 golden retrievers, and the kitty for my mom’s best friend – who loves cats!

Even though these were just tiny, fun charms – it led me to think about charms – as well as traditional totems and amulets.. For thousands of years, different cultures have carried tokens as symbols of their tribe or family (totems), or as good luck charms (amulets), or simply to portray a piece of their history (where they’ve been or what they’ve done) or show off something they liked (like with charm bracelets)

I don’t know if I’m really a believer in something protecting you, but I love the idea of showing off your love of a particular thing – be it an animal or TV show.. I’ve done this for ages with my starbrightsilver geek range of jewellery on etsy – the designs are based on oblique references from geek culture, which allows only other geeks to recognise them, and thereby instantly form a subtle allegience with the wearer.. Some examples below:

I think this has had an effect on my design choices for the rest of my work.. I started doing Africa heart charms ages ago, and they’re probably my most popular item – I guess people love to show off where they’re from, especially when traveling. From this I progressed to making other “items” as opposed to just designs.. I have a range of little animals & birds with hearts (like a squirrel – which is probably my favourite animal) – and I love to hear people at the market exclaim how much they love a particular animal when they see the pendant on display! I also have some other objects – like the bicycle, and a classic camera – which fans of cycling and photography seem to love..

So essentially, for me a charm (whether to be worn as a pendant or on a bracelet), is about showing off the things in life you love..

Towards the end of last year, I also had a request to make a wild dog pendant – as the customer could not find one anywhere.. It was a challenge,but so wonderful to see her so happy with it when it was done!

So, I’m going to keep on doing what I do – creating items for people to show off a side of themselves that the world might not know about – whether it’s a geeky side, or just loving the cuteness of hedgehogs! Whether it’s a charm, amulet or totem to the wearer is irrelevant – as long as it’s something they love, I’m happy 🙂

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Happy 2012 – Year of the Dragon!!

So – a very happy new year to you all.. 🙂 Year of the Dragon – meant to be a prosperous one.. Fingers crossed for us all!

I’ve been a very bad blogger of late – I can’t even remember the last time I blogged! The good news out of that, was that I was honestly so busy, I didn’t have time! As you can imagine, for jewelers, Nov & Dec are our busiest months, with everyone doing Christmas shopping, and I was working like a machine trying to make enough stock! On top of that, I was practicing for my advanced Spanish Dancing exam (which I passed very nicely 🙂 ) – so had no time to spare at all!
But, here we are in the new year, and I’m busy doing new designs – so now is the time to blog and show them off!

What do you think of these – pretty cute? I like the simplicity, and the high shine finish of these… They’re similar to the designs I was doing last year, but by not including resin, I can make these pendants much lighter & daintier.. I’m also going to experiment with getting some of them gold plated (I’m one of the people in the world who still loves yellow gold – and I’m sure there are a few more!) The process of getting sterling silver thickly gold-plated is called Vermeil – so expect to see some examples soon 🙂

Just a reminder – The I Heart Market is coming up again soon – 4 February, and the Wonder Market in Umhlanga is the next day..

I’ve also been busy with some more custom orders – take a look at some pics below 😉

I really do love to do custom orders – I love the challenge, the design work, and just creating something unique! As a jeweller – it’s sometimes difficult to come up with a new topic, so when one is given, it’s great to just go with it!

Anyhow – hope everyone has a fantastic week – and to all in the Northern Hemisphere: I envy you sooo much – my brain is frying in this heat! (I will have to go through this thoroughly again, just to make sure I have made sense!) 😉 Megs xx

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Wednesday hmmmms

So. It’s Wednesday. Hmmmm… Feeling a little “Bleh” today, as you can probably tell.. Mind you, I really shouldn’t complain.. Working for myself, I don’t have to sit in rush hour traffic, didn’t HAVE to be at the studio at 8.. Instead, here I am – 8.45am, and writing up a new blog post, while I wait for the kettle to boil! 🙂

Woke up this morning to monsoon-sounding rain – gotta say, I love this time of year in Durbs.. There’s a sweet smell in the air with all the rain – plus, it reminds me that Christmas is coming! I know I know –  you’re probably all groaning at the thought – but I’m a Christmas-aholic, and will soon be re-watching my collection of Christmassy dvds! (First up – Elf!)

Anyhow – enough rambling!

Yesterday, I updated my website – re-worked it slightly, and added new pics.. I also created a “custom orders” page – showing some of the cool custom work I’ve completed. Check it out here: http://www.starbrightgirl.com/custom%20orders.htm

I really want to focus on marketing my business as a custom manufacturing one.. This is the work I enjoy doing the most – I love the collaboration with the customer, and imagining cool ways to interpret what they want – and I think I have a pretty sweet portfolio so far! I also love that, because of the internet & email – I can work with customers all over the world – come on – you gotta admit, it’s pretty cool! 😉

Anyhow – had better run now.. Need to do some resin on heart pendant for my lovely cousin, then head to the studio to put in a hard days manual labour!! (My fingers might complain, but my heart just loves it!) Ooh – and that reminds me – must take my camera today to take some pics of the new studio..

Have a lovely Hmmmday all (I really don’t like the sound of “Humpday”! – so am going with this!) Love Megs xx

 

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Etsy love

So – I’ve been on Etsy for more than a year, and I have to say, one of the things I love the most, is the personal interaction you are able to have with the sellers & buyers.. I’ve had some lovely conversations with customers, and have organised some awesome custom items with sellers – as Etsy people, having small businesses, are most often the most accommodation folk out 🙂 Gotta say – you’ll never find this level of interaction with big online shops!

Another lovely thing that happens occasionally – is Etsy trading.. Another seller will see something they like, and will ask if you’d be keen to swap it for something in their store.. Now, I’m not saying this will always work – but I happen to have been lucky 😉

For example – a while back Karen from Captured Starlight (http://www.etsy.com/shop/CapturedStarlight) emailed me about doing a swap for a pair of earrings she loved – and offered to make me a custom pendant in exchange.. Well, for years I have been wanting some sort of jewellery featuring artwork from my favourite childhood book trilogy – the Borribles.. So, I found a pic of the cover of the second book – and, voila – the most awesome pendant ever!!

It’s pretty cool – although I make jewellery myself – there are so many different styles and techniques out there – that I wouldn’t know how to start to make something like this! So – it’s awesome that Karen was able to make this for me! Her work is really awesome, please check out her shop! (link above) She lives in Ecuador now, pretty awesome 😉

I’m also now in the middle of another swap process – for a panda hat! (Which I have always wanted!) Again, the shop owner is more than accommodating – as with my pale skin, I asked if I could get a black brim – so she’s custom making one for me 🙂

It’s gonna be AWESOME!

So – if you haven’t already – please check etsy.com out! You can search for pretty much anything – I know you’ll be amazed by all you can find! And, take it from me – most of the sellers, are just awesome 😀

Have a wonderful weekend – I’m off to a little town in the mountains called Clarens, with my hubby & mom – so am looking forward to a weekend of tea, cake, galleries & gorgeous views.. Hope your weekend will be just as lovely as I’m hoping mine to be! Megan xx

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New Stockist & Some Finished Orders..

Hi all! Hope everyone’s having a good week 🙂 I’m pretty busy with orders and, alas, paperwork – ack!

Just wanted to give a heads up to folks in Cape Town – I’m sending off new stock for the new Fringe Arts shop in Kloof Street (99B) – so it should hopefully be in store by the weekend.. Please tell your friends, or go check it out – Prices are good, and some of my new stuff is really cool, if I may say so myself! Here’s a peek at some of the jewellery:

And don’t my new tags just look lovely?!! 😉

In other news – I’ve been busy doing some private orders, and thought I’d share a few pics.. This first one is a custom ear cuff I did for Ilana via twitter (@MymindisAlice) – I think it turned out very prettily 🙂

Then I did some items for extended family (sister in law’s sister in law, if you must know!!) 😉 2 pendants for guys – 1 featuring a kung fu broadsword, and the other a cutout speargun.. Pretty cool for guys, I think!

I’ve also been doing some custom work via etsy – take a look at these cute airplane themed items I made up:

So, I’ve been pretty busy – now need to replenish stock on my starbright silver store, with all my geeky items – my hubby says sales are good because comic-con is coming up soon! 🙂 Maybe next year we’ll get to join you folks in San Diego – the saving starts now!!

Hope you all have a great rest of the week.. Love Megs xx

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