04.10.09
Posted in News from SilverFrogJewelry studio, STYLE NEWS, Thoughts of the day at 5:56 am by silverfrogjewelry
Register on ArtFire.com
Founded in 2008, we are small Tucson, AZ based company with about 15 employees, with a passion for handmade, art, and indie business. As an interactive handmade market place and craft community our mission is to support your business and your brand with innovative features and functions. We are an e-commerce company and we focus on support of member’s needs by taking a service first approach.
We utilize a system of site design we call Community Directed Development (CDD) which put our members in control of the development of functions and features of the site, and puts senior managers and developers on the front line of service. CDD is a system that ArtFire designed in an effort to best serve the individual and collective needs of the ArtFire community.
Register on ArtFire.com
Permalink
03.29.09
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:02 am by silverfrogjewelry
Permalink
03.24.09
Posted in Jewelry Care at 12:59 am by silverfrogjewelry
How to Care for Your Jewelry
Cautions when Cleaning Jewelry and Gemstones
To care for your jewelry and keep it clean and ready to wear, gently wipe off excess make-up and skin oils after each wearing. Use a nub free, 100% cotton cloth and gently wipe the piece clean using only the soft pads of your fingers. Store in jeweler’s tissue or a soft bag.
To help retard tarnish on sterling silver, wrap the piece in jeweler’s tissue paper and place it inside a plastic zip lock bag and seal.
When cleaning sterling silver remember that it is a very soft metal and can easily be marred by a fingernail or wadded piece of fabric pushed roughly against the metal surface. For this reason, use one of the following methods to clean heavier soils and tarnish:
To remove fingerprints, light grease or dirt, add a small amount of mild liquid soap to a half cup of warm water, soak 2-3 minutes, rinse thoroughly with clean water and dry completely before storing in an air tight plastic bag.
Be very careful when using any soaking method to clean jewelry that has soft stones such as amber, lapis lazuli, or turquoise. Extended soaking in any solution may harm the polish on the stone.
When caring for your jewelry, never use anything but 100% cotton as a polishing cloth since paper, polyester, and coarse fabrics often contain wood fibers or synthetics. These materials may impart fine scratches in the metal, especially on sterling silver.
Gems requiring special care:
Opals require special care. Never use an ultrasonic, never use chemicals and avoid heat. Don’t put your opal ring on the window sill when washing your hands or the dishes as strong sunlight can dry out the water in opals which could cause hazing or color change.
Pearls. Protect from scratches; perfumes and household chemicals which can wear away the nacre or cause color change.
Soft stones like lapis, malachite, turquoise, amber and opals can easily be scratched by pin stems and the edges of other jewelry. Protect pieces with these gemstones by wrapping them in jeweler’s tissue and storing separately.
Permalink
03.11.09
Posted in Thoughts of the day at 7:51 am by larimar
For those who are struggling now with disappearing sales at this uneasy time, my word is – use difficult times to your advantage!
Yes, your read it right and I am not crazy. People are buying much less of everything not essential to survival, so jewelry sales are not on the rise no matter of what are you trying to do. That’s why my 3-dimentional action plan for difficult times like that would be:
#1. Invest in yourself
Learn new techniques of jewelry making, improve your skills, take a training course, re-think your strategies, designs, re-structure your collection, re-do your website, learn how to take better pictures of your jewelry. Everything that you have learned – it’s yours forever, no matter of what!
#2. Network and promote
Get involved in professional groups, make new connections with fellow designers, with jewelry retailers, with manufacturers; promote yourself on internet social networks. Information can become useful in no time – good times are ahead!
#3. Volunteer
Find local charities, hospitals; give free lessons in your local community, donate some jewelry to a good cause. It’s all can turn into future sales.
That was my thought of the day.
If you agree with that, or even more so – if you disagree with me – please, leave your comments. I will be happy to hear from you.
Permalink
03.03.09
Posted in News from SilverFrogJewelry studio at 11:49 pm by larimar
Please feel free to leave a feedback!
This is something new that I want to do – make some nice drawings and use them for picture of my jewelry. What do you think?
- Earrings on my drawing
Permalink
Posted in News from SilverFrogJewelry studio at 11:45 pm by larimar
I am trying to find better ways to display and photograph my jewelry. Here just a few attempts:
Permalink
02.18.09
Posted in New Items this month at 5:30 pm by silverfrogjewelry
Here what heavenandearthjewelry writes about green garnet:
“Green Garnet is a gemstone, which may belong to one of several branches of the garnet family– grossular, demantoid or uvarovite. Garnets‘ hardness ranges from 6 to 7.5, and the specimen on this card comes from Mali, Africa.
Mystic Lore: Intuitive sources say that Green Garnet is a powerful aid to the manifestation of prosperity and abundance in all earthly endeavors. It is said to be a ‘gemstone of good fortune‘ in matters of money. Green Garnet is also said to activate the heart Chakra, awakening compassion & charity. ”
green garnet against the light
Once upon the time I walked in to a treasure cove – a small bead store that was hiding at the back of small shopping center. For next few months I was there almost every day, right after work I was driving there and I was immersing myself in a world of wonderful gemstones. Most of beads were fro India – hand-faceted, covering walls with cascades of colorful sparkling gems. But I discovered something even better! Owner had a big quantity of broken strands that he stored in a huge basin. “Help yourself,” he said. “Put aside whatever you find – and I will give you a good price.” It was real treasure hunt!
One of my great finds there was handful of green garnet beads.
Here is my experiment with green garnet pendant. I decided to put it on a strand of tiny Peridot beads in combination with gold Vermeil.
Here some pictures of this work in progress:
green garnet pendant
[
Permalink
02.14.09
Posted in News from SilverFrogJewelry studio, Silverfrigjewelry on the web at 3:08 pm by silverfrogjewelry
WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, just announced that SilverFrogJewelry Studio (“I Do!” wedding jewelry vendor) has won the 2009 Bride’s Choice Awards™!
In its inaugural year, the Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and honors vendors from the WeddingWire Network that demonstrate excellent quality of service, responsiveness, professionalism, value of cost and flexibility. This year’s recipients represent the top three percent of WeddingWire’s vendor community, which includes over 100,000 wedding vendors from across the US. That means SilverFrogJewelry is one of the very best jewelers.
Unlike other awards in which winners are selected by the company, the Bride’s Choice Awards are determined exclusively by recent newlyweds through surveys and reviews.
“We are excited to launch this annual award program to honor high-performing vendors based solely on the experiences of our WeddingWire community,” according to Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. “This year’s recipients have set the bar high, exhibiting excellent service and expertise in the wedding industry.”
SilverFrogStudio would like to thank our past clients for speaking on our behalf and helping us win the 2009 Bride’s Choice Award!
Permalink
02.10.09
Posted in New Items this month at 11:13 pm by silverfrogjewelry
Close up
[caption id="attachment_58" align="alignnone" width="128" caption="pearls and smoky quartz necklace"]
[/caption]
Very nice materilas are used in this necklace – natiral Keishi pearls with faceted Smoky Quartz rondells. Center peace is formed by large Smoky Quartz teardrop bead and 18K Gold vermeil spacers. This is going to be a real gem in SilverFrogJerelry’s wedding collection.
Permalink
« Previous Page — « Previous entries « Previous Page · Next Page » Next entries » — Next Page »
