Pubished! ..... Almost

What this?
It's a little sneak peak of the article that will be coming out in the Winter 08 issue of Belle Armoire Jewelry magazine featuring an article & a photo tutorial by yours truly. I am very excited! This week the editor sent me a draft copy of the layout for review. They photographed the 3 pieces of silver that I submitted for the article and edited the text a bit. It was fun to see what they did with what I sent. I'll post more about this article and how it came to be when it hits the shelves!

Do It Myself Business Cards

Uh oh. I've almost ran out of my business cards. It's hard to believe I have handed out 250 of those suckers already. When I first designed them, I guessed what my company colors were going to be, but I did not have a logo in mind yet, so I just used the colors in a striped background and as textures. Now I have a logo that I have been using on my jewelry cards and websites, so I am using that on my new business card so everything will match finally.
Here is the old design:



Here is the new design:


I hope the colors come out well when printed. It is so hard to tell. My two monitors, test print, web, windows image viewer, etc. all show something different, so it will be a surprise to see if they match my shirt & packaging. I already know the color of the water is a bit different from what I have elsewhere. There's a bit of a robins egg tone vs. the dutch blue as used on this blog. I just wanted it to pop a bit more. The original cards were a bit more 'grown up' looking I guess which may have been a good thing, but my jewelry and my art is a bit whimsical so I decided to let my folk art self go and this is the outcome. Since I do my own design and have a really good and inexpensive pro printer, it's not too great of a loss if they don't turn out perfect. I can always redo them. The posibilities are endless.

Here are my existing business cards for my photography:


I really enjoy designing cards and have done some design for other companies as well which is fun and challenging. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. One of my flickr friends started a group that is devoted to fun indi card designers and designs. Check it out Creative Calling Cards

New "Uniforms"

Tee hee.... I mean, T-shirt. I just designed a tee with my company logo on it. It was fun. Not sure why it took me so long to do. It's great free advertising on the go as I walk around with it and if I do a craft show, it would be fun to wear my company "uniform" so people can tell me appart from a meandering shopper.

I plan to have a whole line of t-shirts targeting crafters coming out one of these days. And maybe even shoes! Yes, shoes! Like canvas Ked types with custom printing. Check back for those!!

An "Oops" Turned Around - Rescuing Precious Metal Clay from Boo Boos at Any Stage

Funny story... the brown stone you see here is actually blue tanzanite. I made this pure silver pendant with a blue stone and the words "blue moon" stamped at the bottom. However, the stone is more heat sensitive than I realized...when I fired it in the kiln, it turned brown. Luckily it is a gorgeous brown stone with red & gold fire (the picture does not do it justice), but it was obviously out of place with the words "blue moon", so I thought hard about how I could salvage this pendant that I really liked and came up with the idea to cover "blue moon" with "eclipse' because the moon looks brown during an eclipse, right? So the pendant ended up being something completely different than I planned, and the "oops" turned into something that is kinda cool and different I think.

So far there is nothing that I have done with metal clay that has not been salvagable no matter how hard I try to screw it up!

Before the clay is fired...

• In the wet stage, you can always ball it up and start over or augment with more clay.
• If the clay starts to get dry before you are done forming, spritz with water.
• In the dry greenware state it can be turned right back into clay by spritzing generously with water and sealing in plastic or an airtight container for a day or so.
• If at any time you make it too wet, expose to the air until it is the right consistancy.
• If you break a piece in the leatherhard or greenware state, you can use the metal clay paste to glue things back together.
• You can refine edges and smooth flaws with a wet paintbrush or with sand paper. (If you sand the greenware, be sure to salvage the 'dust' from you sanding and add it to your paste jar. The moisture will turn the dust into more paste or slip so there is no waste.)
• If cracks form while drying, you can 'spackle' them with silver paste.

After the clay is fired...

• You can repair breaks using silver OIL paste and re-fire (Kiln only), then sand and polish until the seam is not visible.
• You can add another element made from metal clay and use paste to adhere it to the original piece then refire.
• You can enamel, paint, or collage over mistakes (as I did in the eclipse pendant) to turn the item into a mixed media piece.
• You can file off small mistakes using metal files and different grits of sand paper or if you have metalsmithing tools, you can saw off boo boos or drill, etc.
• If all else fails, the item is .999 silver and can be melted and poured into a mold or can be sold to a precious metal buyer for the going rate for pure silver.

I just love a hobby with built in safety net!!

Introducing our new line of vintage inspired jewelry!!

Hello, Well it has been too long since I have blogged (again I neglect you my poor ol' blog) but I have another good excuse... I have been busy working on a new line of jewelry for TreeBySea.com. Until now we have only carried fine silver jewelry. (http://www.treebysea.etsy.com/).

Just yesterday I launched a second store featuring soldered glass slide pendants, collaged ephemera pendants, and romantic victorian jewelry with swarovski crystals and antique metal.

Please visit the new store on Etsy!! http://www.treebysea2.etsy.com/. Thanks for visiting! Wish me luck!

My New Handmade Jewelry Cards

Please forgive me for I have not crafty blogged for while which is a no no in bloggerland I know, but I am happy to report that the reason I been absent is because I have been too busy being crafty. My jewelry business (http://www.treebysea.com/) is doing pretty well and I have been working hard to get a bit of stuff made up so I have more stock on hand to be prepared for some future craft shows and some wholesale marketing I plan to do.


I have just developed my new packaging. (shown above) What do you think? So far I have had possitive feedback. Since I am a graphic designer at heart, I enjoyed creating my own cards via Photoshop CS. I printed them with my inkjet on cream colored speckled acid free recycled paper from PaperZone. I found some cool 2" reach paper punches that let me punch in the middle of the card. They are made by McGill (http://www.mcgillinc.com/shop/). They work great and make the cards look professionally die cut.

I have small circles for hanging earrings and a punch that is two 1/4 inch parallel lines that are perfect for feeding ribbon through to tie my pendant to the packaging. I also found a great resource for self-adhesive flap clear covers that really add a lot as well as protect the cards and the jewelry. Go to http://www.clearbags.com/. Great prices, customer service & quality. They come in just about EVERY size you can imagine.

I also found an easy tidy way to hang the necklaces. It's not an original idea... I have seen many manufacturers use the same technique, but it is good to know I can mimic the technique and it works. I punched two small holes about 1" from the top of the card and 3/4" from both sides of the card. Then with sissors I cut from about 1/2 inch from the top of the card at a diagonal towards the hole on both sides. I slide the necklace in the slits to the holes and it holds it perfectly.

I will be writing again soon. Part 2 of the Soldering Slide Pendants is coming. I took a class today conducting by one of the Simply Swank owners, Lisa Bluhm and it was great. (Lisa, if you are reading this - Hi. Nice to meet you. Thanks again.) Both of the owners are dolls and their products rock. More on this soon! Caio 4 now.

Silver For Sale in My New Jewelry Store... Opening Soon (I hope)

Happy Weekend! Too bad it's almost over. Well at least I finally had some time to start taking some photos of my work for my online jewelry store that I will be opening soon. I will be selling my pure fine silver metal clay jewelry, charms & beads as well as beaded & glass jewelry under the name "Tree by Sea" (I think) on Etsy.com.

In the interim, if you see something here you are interested in, please contact me direct for pricing & purchase information. Lisa@kamerakat.com THANKS!!

I will send announcements when the store is officially up and running!

Here's my store header:





Here's a few sample shots. Hope they look OK.