Matching you jewelry

Matching your Jewelry

with your wardrobe  

 

 

 

When it comes to color for fashion or the home, the company Pantone has a great deal of influence.

 

From their website:

 

"Pantone LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of X-Rite, Incorporated,

is the world-renowned authority on color. For more than 45 years, Pantone has been inspiring design professionals with products, services and leading technology for the colorful exploration and expression of creativity."

 

Checking out their website and their listing of fashion trends for Fall 2011 you can decide if you agree or disagree with their choices.

 

Whether you agree or disagree it does give you some information about the colors you will see in fashion this fall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They came up with something new this year. Colors for women and colors for men. Several of the colors are the same but the pinks and blues differed somewhat for each gender. The color phlox (shown above) appears on both pallets. It happens to be one of my favorite colors so I was glad to see it on the list.

 

But another color on both lists was deep teal.  I like this color too.

 

Well, what does all this have to do with jewelry?

 

Do you like colors in your jewelry? Or are you a plain silver or gold jewelry wearer?  I've decided that is like only having a black purse for winter and then white purse for summer or only black and white shoes.

 

Personally, I'm a silver person. Plain silver. (Oh, yes I have a black purse)  However, since I've been designing jewelry, I'm a little more experimental.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is an example of mixing it up. One of those that should go with everything. Oh, back to the black and white safe theme.

 

Actually, there is some meaning to the choice of colors here. They are "Chakra" colors. Very important in Yoga.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is one of my favorite bracelets. (Unfortunately, it is only one of a kind and sold)

 

In looking at the colors in the Pantone list, it really doesn't match any. Closest to the "Dark Teal" but not close enough to work.  Which is probably why I go with plain silver.  ;-)

 

 

 

 

So, what do you think of the Pantone fashion trends for fall 2011? I'd really like your input.

 

Which brings me to a question for all of you. Are there any colors you would like to see in my new designs? I plan on going to a bead show this Friday and can look for anything you might have in mind.

 

Look at the Pantone website to see what will be popular this fall. Do they fit into your favorite colors?

 

Send me an email if you see anything you would like.

 

Until next week,

 

Bev

 

website: http://ringbyringdesigns.com

 

Email: info@ringbyringdesigns.com

Cleaning Silver Jewelry

Jewelry Care for Silver Jewelry

How to:  

 

 

Jewelry care for Silver Jewelry starts with protecting your pieces from things that will harm. You should protect your jewelry from scratching, chemicals, extreme temperatures, swimming pools and intense sunlight.

 

Sounds sensible, right?

 

 

 

You can clean silver jewelry regularly with warm soapy water. Rinse the piece well, pat dry with a soft cloth and polish gently with a jewelry polishing cloth. Making sure your piece is dry, you can store your pieces in zip-lock bags. There are even some zip-lock bags now with tarnish resistant properties and some jewelry boxes with tarnish resistant inserts. Just make sure the specific piece will not be harmed by water. I mention this because of all the leather jewelry, I've been making lately.

 

 

Silver Jewelry presents special problems at times. Weather, especially high humidity, can make pieces tarnish quicker. The atmosphere in beauty salons will quickly tarnish silver.

 

(I have a recipe for cleaning copper. If you would like the recipe, let me know)

 

 

Most all of my silver pieces use Argentium Sterling Silver. Argentium Silver tarnishes very, very slowly. All Sterling Silver must contain 92.5% silver. Refined 99.99% silver or Fine Silver, is very soft and not used in pieces that get a lot of wear. (Fine Silver does not tarnish) Regular sterling silver has copper added to make it harder, which is the reason for the tarnishing. Argentium Sterling Silver adds Germanium to replace some of the copper.  This addition slows down the tarnishing. 

 

 

In addition to using Argentium Sterling Silver, all my silver pieces are tumbled for several hours to make each piece shine brilliantly.

 

Then washing with soapy water if the piece gets sticky or with just general wearing usually will keep your piece shining nicely for a long time. Remember to store properly.

 

 

 

You can read more about  Argentium Sterling Silver on my website.

 

If your pieces get tarnished such that washing will not work any more, I'll be happy to tumble them for you. The difference is really amazing.

 

There are many "dips" available, also,  to remove tarnish. I have a jar and use it occasionally.  The thing to remember about dips is that they remove the tarnish chemically and thus take away some of the silver. Other methods should be tried first. Sometimes just polishing with a silver cleaning cloth will be sufficient after soap and water. Never use dips on silver plate jewelry. (I dip my thin silver chains as they can get tangled when being tumbled)

 

I hope this information was helpful. If you have any questions about cleaning jewelry be sure to ask.

 

Time to start shopping for the holidays?  Check out the silver jewelry on Ring by Ring Designs website.  (I have many more silver pieces that are not on the website so contact me if you want to see more.)

(Notice you can go directly to the website by clicking on the link on the right column)

Bev

Leather Bracelets

Leather Bracelets

  New 3-wrap

 

 

I very fortunately received an order for eight 3-wrap bracelets last week. First thing that happened, was that my unfinished bracelet from last week's class is still unfinished.

 

I only had two finished 3-wrap bracelets in my inventory so, I needed to check my stash and go the the bead store to be able to fill the order.

 

 

I had just purchased some blue/green crackle beads so this was one of the first ones. I named it "Oceania" like the 3-row leather bracelet hoping it would not be confusing.

 

Next came a Hematite one. That is a repeat, called "Black Magic".  I had a good start.

 

 

Now off to one of my favorite bead stores. (pflora beads) where I  found some great Fire Polish beads in a Copper/Jet black color. The copper color does not show well in the picture.

I named this one simply  "Copper - Jet"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I think my favorite one, however, is the one made with white pearls and black leather. It looked like a "White Tuxedo" to me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then I found these great cranberry and black beads that went nicely with black leather and a cute black button for a "Cranberry" bracelet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also, found some nice amethyst "stone" beads to go with some amethyst leather and a vintage silver button..

 

Have you found a favorite yet?

 

 

 

 

Well, I packed up the eight bracelets and mailed them off Monday. Now, I don't have any inventory.  But maybe I can finish the class bracelet now. Or, I can always make more and put off the class bracelet again for awhile if anyone would like one of these.

 

Time to start shopping for the holidays?

 

Send me an email if you see anything you would like.

 

Until next week,

Bev

info@ringbyringdesigns.com

Hurricane Irene

Hurricane Irene

  We were lucky!

 

 

Hurricane Irene as she was getting close to the US east coast.

 

I never got around to writing a post last week due to hurricane Irene. We, compared to lots of others, were very lucky. Around noon on Sunday as Irene approached New England,  we lost all of our Comcast connections. That includes Internet, phone and  cable

TV. We still had electricity, so things were pretty good. Just a little inconvenient.

 

Then on Monday, my husband and I went out for lunch. The weather was sunny and beautiful. The restaurant had TV and electricity but it was fairly empty. On our trip home we took  the longer way home to see what had happened in our area and noticed  trees down in many places. One in particular that was near a friend's house down the street had several utility trucks there. We stopped and talked to another friend and heard that everyone up and down the street was now without of electricity. (The rumor was that the electric company had turned on the current before they should have and blam!) So, now we joined the others with out electricity.

 

We gathered all of our flashlights and candles etc. The grandkids thought it was great fun except they had no TV. Somehow, no electricity makes for funny actions. When I went to the kitchen with flashlight in hand, I dutifully turned on the light switch. Felt a little silly but just as dutifully, turned it off when I left the room. Habits!

 

Do you have any stories of things you try to do when there is no electricity?

 

Monday evening, we all sat around a card table with a battery operated light and some battery operated candles while our youngest grandson read us a book. He even showed us the pictures even though we really couldn't see them. (He watches his teacher closely) His brother got very comfortable in a chair and promptly fell asleep. What a great evening all together - in the dark!

 

The next day, the kids took all their electronic devices with them when they went swimming at a friend's house. Their friends had electricity and they wanted to charge their devices. Before they came home, the lights came on here!  All was well. TV, phone, internet, electricity and we were back in business.

 

I had taken a class on Saturday before Irene and while it was still light on Monday, I started finishing it. However, it soon became too dark. Sometimes, I need extra light even in the day time for some beading. This one was no exception.

 

 

 

Here is a picture of what I've finished so far. Looks strange half done.The base of the bracelet is Peyote. So, I was able to learn a new technique for me.  It was a fun class and I've been practicing Peyote since with a few patches made with some of my stash of seed beads. I'll have pictures next week.

 

 

 

 

Hopefully you all survived the hurricane, if you are on the east coast, and all is well with you, too, where ever you are.

Until next week,   Bev   website: http://ringbyringdesigns.com   Email: info@ringbyringdesigns.com or         bevcarlson@comcast.net   Also find Ring by Ring Designs on Facebook http://facebook.com/ringbyring and Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/ringbyring