Newest Creations

Well, I finally managed to get two new pairs of earrings done. I've a third pair waiting to be put in the tumbler this weekend so that they are nice and shiny.




One pair is in a pattern called Wiggly Chain, almost like Mobius Flower joined one to another but only using two rings for each section.

The other pair is the beautiful Byzantine pattern. This time I used tiny rings made from 20g sterling wire and they were a bit more difficult to to put together. Look fantastic though! I added a Swarovski pearl on the end and am quite happy with them.
















Both can be found at my shop http://www.lasuzcreations.etsy.com/

Back At It

Well, it's been a while since I've posted on my blog. Had a stint in the hospital which drained every ounce of energy from me and I'm only now back at (almost) full strength. Which gave me the motivation to start making jumprings again. :-)

Finally hauled out the dremel and jumpring cutter which I purchased a few months ago. Have a new supply of sterling silver wire so I made up some coils and tried out the cutter. Wow! That is sooooo much faster than sawing through the rings. Takes seconds! I've got two sets of jumprings in the tumbler right now getting all nice and shiny. I plan on making up some earrings using one design I've done before and a new one that looks really fun. Will see how fun it actually is ;-) Both are chainmaille designs.

With Christmas coming up really quick I must get some new jewelry into my shop.

I did sell some necklaces and earrings in the past few weeks so have to increase the inventory again. Anybody need some lovely jewelry (jewellery) gifts for Christmas?!

Great Etsy Seller

Have you visited www.Etsy.com yet? I've just made a purchase from a great seller located here in Toronto. ShannonsIrishBliss sells handmade soaps, lip balms, bath items and a few other things. I can't wait to receive the products I've ordered as they sound so yummy! Have found out she's a cat lover like me, so she has to be great ;-)

Successful First Craft Show

Well, I survived my first craft show. Saturday was pretty slow but things picked up on Sunday when a lot more people were around. Sold a few items and was happy to hear the comments about my jewelry. One lady in particular said my jewelry was clean and elegant. Can't get much better than that!

Thanks Jose for thinking of me, though a little more notice wouldn't hurt next time ;-)
Thanks also to Stone Church for hosting the event, I met a lot of really nice people.

My First Arts and Crafts Sale

Well, this coming weekend, Sept 13-14, 2008, I will be selling my jewelry at my first event. Am I nervous? Oh you bet!

Have you heard of Art of Stone? This event will have an arts gallery, live music & theatre, a digital photography workshop, children's programs and an arts cafe. A friend of mine has roped me in to sell this weekend. Now I'm frantically trying to gather supplies for my table and designing more jewelry so I'll have lots to sell. Plus do my regular full-time job. Whew! Going to be a busy week!

http://www.theartofstone.org/

Need Wedding Photos?

Are you located in the UK? Then give a thought to hiring Celynnen Photography. They're based in North Wales but can work all over. My friends Ioan and Nicki have a wonderful photography business and their photographs are incredible. They do all kinds of work, special photos for a birthday? A graduation? If you want professional photos then these are the people to call. This special team will make sure that you are thrilled with your photographs.

http://www.celynnenphotography.co.uk/

Global Anchor Anne-Marie Mediwake

Well, Anne-Marie Mediwake of Global TV Ontario wore the necklace that I designed today. Was happy to see that it looked really good on air. Here's a couple of pictures to show you how she looked wearing it. Had to get co-anchor Leslie Roberts in one of the pictures :-)

Busy Weekend

Well, I was busy, busy, busy this weekend. Headed out to one of my favourite bead shops on Queen St. West in Toronto. It's called Arton Beads. They've got a great selection of stones and are quite friendly. Also picked up a set of transfer punches to use as mandrels for making jumprings. Much cheaper than buying mandrels marketed to jewelry designers and they do the same job.


Went home and started coming up with some new pieces. My first was made with tourmaline beads, a necklace and earrings set. Tourmaline are great beads, such varied colours so they'll go with almost anything in your wardrobe.

I managed to make up three new necklaces and six pairs of earrings. Need to get more done to add to the stock at my store www.lasuzcreations.etsy.com

So much to do, so little time....

Trial and Tribulations of Jumprings

Well, I had my first attempt at making jumprings using a saw. I think that it is not the way to go for me as my hand started cramping up, and it was only a coil a few inches long. Will probably go a more automated route in making the jumprings and use a cutter.

I did tumble the jumprings that did make the grade, and didn't have excess saw cuts on them. They came up nice and shiny :-) Am so happy I purchased the tumbler, it makes such a difference to the look of your sterling silver. Made up a few earwires while I was at it and tumbled them too. Also managed to make up four new pairs of earrings and hope to post those soon. The unfortunate thing is my good camera has gone on the blink :-( Not sure what the problem is but I will have to take it in and have it looked at. I really don't want to be purchasing a new camera just yet.

Sold a rose and clear quartz necklace to the other day. She's a co-anchor on Global TV's Newshour at 6 pm. She's promised to let me take a photo of her on the anchor desk when she's wearing it so I can post it on here.

Have just ordered business cards so hope to have those in a few weeks to hand out.

Shaggy Loops

I just added some new items to my Etsy store http://www.lasuzcreations.etsy.com/ and a couple were made with the chainmaille style called Shaggy Loops.

It's a cute, fun style and I jazzed up one of the pairs of earrings that I created with Swarovski crystal Cosmic squares. I'm such a big fun of the Cosmic line, have used the squares and circles in a few items and I have more ideas up my sleeve.

Stay tuned!

I rule my domain!

Well, after reading a forum posting about purchasing your domain names in case you want them for future use, and to stop others purchasing them, I now have http://www.lasuzcreations.com/ and http://www.lasuzcreations.ca/ I have redirected both to my shop on http://www.etsy.com/ which is http://www.lasuzcreations.etsy.com/

Maybe at some point my sales will be high enough that I'll be able to start selling from one or both of those sites. I really hope so :-)

Tumbling, Sawing and Polishing

Well, I've decided that instead of spending so much money buying the sterling silver jump rings that I've been using in creating chainmaille jewelry, that I should bite the bullet, buy the equipment needed and make my own.

The wonderful people on the community forum at http://www.etsy.com/ were great in helping answer some of the questions that I had about saws and blades. I've now purchased the saw, blades and tumbler. The tumbler is what you use to polish up your jewelry after you've made it. It also gives a lovely shine and makes it look great!

The only problem with making chainmaille jewelry is that it requires math! Yuck, thought I'd managed to leave math equations behind me so many years ago in high school. I am very thankful that so many people have posted advice about the aspect ration of jumprings so that I have an idea what of what to. One of the contributors on the etsy forum, Karen Hung, actually pointed me to an article in Step By Step Wire Jewelry, a magazine, that she had written and that spells out, in fairly simple terms, how to determine aspect ration. Basically, in order to create certain chainmaille designs you have to have the right sized ring or they just won't be strong enough to hold the jewelry together. You need to know the interior diameter (ID) and the width of the wire you are using (WD) to find AR. A variation of those will help you find what you need if you already have a pattern in mind. Of course, I keep running into problems when the pattern is in metric and I know linear or vice versa. Some patterns suggest ID of 1/4 and my measurement is in mm. The conversion is a right pain in the butt! And to throw more confusion into the mix, the United States and Canada use different wire gauges for wire, AWG and SWG. I could go on and on about the insaneness of it all but I'll restrain myself.

The only other thing I still need to purchase are more mandrels for making different sized jump rings as I only have even numbered ones at the moment. The expenses continue!

Seriously Impressed

Well, I have to say, I am really impressed with the jewelry supplier Rio Grande, http://www.riogrande.com/. I ordered some items yesterday afternoon, decided to ship UPS as it was cheaper than regular post (go figure) and the parcel showed up this morning!! Wasn't even delayed at the border! I hadn't even had time to go out and buy the vice that I need to use with my new supplies.
Soon I'll, hopefully, be making my own jumprings instead of having to purchase so many. Should save myself some money. Now, if I can just manage to wrap my head around the Aspect Ratio problem :-(

Aahhh, I Forgot Someone!

I'd realized after I'd finished my first post that I totally forgot to thank Beatrice Politi, also a reporter at Global News. She purchased a couple of pairs of earrings from me at Christmas time and wears one of them on the air. Her short hair shows them off to perfection :-)

I've realized since opening the online store that I'm really going to have to make more items to sell. The quality is really important as I don't want somebody to return an item of jewelry as they aren't happy with it.

The chainmaille items are becoming a favourite of mine, however time consuming they may be. Have had to purchase a tumbler to make sure they are nice and shiny once I've finished using my tools on them.

My First Post!

Well, I've finally joined the community of bloggers with the encouragement of my friend Ioan who persuaded me that it will help to bring exposure to my new jewelry business.

I started making jewelry in 2006 after my lovely friend Diane showed me the ins and outs of designing and creating jewelry. She took me to my first bead show and I was hooked from that point.

I started my business in 2007 after my first designs were tested on friends and relatives as gifts for Christmas 2006. Their reactions pushed me to open Lasuz Creations. In case you're wondering, Lasuz is a combination of my first two names, Laura Suzanne.

I have been lucky enough, so far, to sell my creations at my full-time job at Global TV in Toronto. Several colleagues have purchased items and I really have to thank Susan Hay, Christina Stevens and Allison Vuchnich for purchasing and even wearing my designs on-air.

I have recently started selling my jewelry online at a fantastic website which is for business which focus on handmade items of all kinds, http://www.etsy.com/ My store is located at www.lasuzcreations.etsy.com

The picture is one of my creations and are Byzantine Rose earrings which are made using the chainmaille design called.......Byzantine Rose ;-) Chainmaille designs consist of jump rings which are individually opened and closed together in various different designs. It can be quite time-consuming but the final results are always worth it.

Well, that's my first post, will update periodically.

Cheers,

Laura