What's Your Favorite?

Is there a type of jewelry that you're always drawn to when browsing the racks?

I LOVE earrings. Hence the name DandLs DangLs.

 

Back before I made my own jewelry, when I'd shop for jewelry, I couldn't get away from the earrings. If I'm only going to wear one piece of jewelry, it would be earrings.

(This is other than my wedding rings. Those never come off!!)

It's hard for me to come up with necklace, ring, and bracelet designs. When I want to create with the goal of de-stressing, earrings it is!

Do you prefer necklaces? Bracelets? Rings? Brooches? Anklets? ??

How to Open a jumpring.

I didn't learn this til late in the game. It was so nice to know when I did finally learn it. And if you're interested in trying your hand at chainmaille jewelry, this is a simple must-know!

How to open (and close) a jump ring.

You need two pliers. I use my chain nose and my flat nose pliers. You can also use bent nose pliers rather than chain nose as I explain here. Whatever works best for you!

Grasp your lil' jump ring with both pliers on either side of the cut and twist open like so:

It's important that you don't pull the jump ring from the seam as it will misshape the ring. Twist one of the pliers up and one of the pliers down. This will be your open ring:

Be sure to close it the same way. Your nice round jump ring will remain nice and round and it will be simple to make it flush and appear seamless.

So simple, right? Life as you know it just got a tiny bit easier.

Green Coils Bracelet

On Black Friday last November, the husband ventured out to find some deals.

No, I did not go with him. I will probably never go with him.

But now that I know he likes going out bright and early on Black Friday, I'm totally going to be prepared next year with a nice long list!

Anyway,

He didn't find much (as I hadn't thought to make a list for him!) but he did come home with some goodies for me completely on his own!!

One of which was this coiling thing-a-ma-jig.

I love this thing! It makes coiling wire so easy it almost feels like cheating. You can make your own "beads" out of coiled wire like I did with this Green Coils Bracelet:

Purchase HERE!

Awesome, right?!? You definitely need to get one! The husband got mine at Joann Fabrics.

Tools for Chainmaille

You've already got your chain nose and flat nose pliers. These will work just fine to open and close jump rings and create beautiful chainmaille pieces like this:

But you can also purchase a pair of bent nose pliers. If you're going to be working with lots of jump rings, bent nose pliers would probably be a wise purchase.

You can find a pair at my fave website - wire-sculpture.com.

These particular pair are definitely on my wish list!

Click on the picture to find them to purchase.

What on earth is chainmaille jewelry?? I give the rundown here.

Happy Chainmailling! :)

Resolutions

The husband and I haven't worked through our family goals (aka resolutions) for 2011 but I have been thinking a little about my goals for DandLs DangLs.

I love making jewelry and selling it to happy customers. But in this phase in my life...

Stay-at-home mom to these amazing babies!

...I am not going to pursue this as a major money-maker. I'm enjoying it being mostly a hobby that pays for itself!

Lord willing, I will be able to pursue this much further as my children get older and don't need me quite as much. (I'm looking forward to and dreading that time coming!)

In light of my stay-at-home-wife-and-mom job being TOP priority and my purpose in life, the DandLs DangLs goals for the coming year are fairly simple...

1. Set up and organize my work space at our new home

2. Post on this blog at least twice a week

3. Post at least one new piece of jewelry weekly

4. Have 2 parties and go to 2 craft shows (at least)

5. Make a daily and weekly work schedule

I'm sure I'll come up with plenty of sub-goals but this sounds like enough work to me!

What is most important to you? Make sure your new year's resolutions reflect that!

Happy New Year from DandLs DangLs and the Jacobs family!

 

Chainmaille... what??

In my previous post I bragged about my handsome man making chainmaille jewelry. The perfect intro to explaining what on earth chainmaille jewelry is!

In a nutshell, chainmaille (chain mail, chainmail, maille, etc.) jewelry is jump rings interlocked in some creative form of jewelry. It's actually derived from the type of flexible armor made with metal rings. You know, like in Gladiator...

photo credit

It's so fun to make and often a lot easier than it looks! (Often, but not always!)

I must warn you it can be very time consuming. It probably gets a lot quicker as you get the hang of it but I'm not quite there yet. In fact, I've only done a couple chainmaille projects...

Byzantine Bracelet

Chained Black Dangles

Oh, and I almost forgot this one!

Snowflake Necklace

 The husband actually has more experience.

Here's a couple of his creations...

So that's the basics of what chainmaille is. You can find easy kits at your local craft store.

photo credit

And for the jump rings I recommend ordering online. You can order the exact sizes required for whatever pattern you're doing.


Here are a couple places we've ordered from:
Blue Buddha Boutique
The Ring Lord

Look for future posts about chainmaille weaves, tools needed for chainmaille, and how to open and close jump rings! And, of course, a tutorial!

The "D" in DandL

Maybe it's because my little business is kinda lucrative sometimes so his monetary contribution hasn't been as necessary.

Or maybe it's because making jewelry is just that much fun.

Whatever the case, my husband has spent the past several nights working on chainmaille jewelry! He searched online for the best price for jumprings, ordered, asked on a regular basis if they had arrived yet, and has spent hours working since they finally did arrive.

It's been kinda nice to be teaching him something for once.

If only he could do more than close jump rings.

But I'm grateful for what he can do, and what he does is great!

Here's a peak at a set he completed all on his own...

I'm so proud :)