Salmon Everywhere

The Salmon festival started yesterday and our display rack at the artisan market is all filled and ready for the more than 200,000 expected tourists to come through over the next 3 weeks.  We will be out several times to view the spawning salmon in the river as well as replenish the supply of our handcrafted ones.

As part of the artisan market gift shop, we are to take our turn to help out and demo our work.  We will be taking our first shift this coming Friday (Oct 10th) and are looking forward to it.

To get into the spirit of things, we are seeing salmon themed shop windows like in the Intwined Fibre Arts store in Salmon Arm who have some of our salmon zipper charms for sale.

Chum 'N Luba's Unique Boutique here in Chase is selling our salmon jewelry which go really well with some of the new fall designer dresses they have in stock.

This dress happens to have a front zipper and the salmon zipper charm looks like it was made just for it!

These are a couple more of their dresses with a salmon necklace that go really well!  I absolutely love this dress and could see myself wearing this!  I love the hat too and is handmade from Nelson BC.

The red dress here was in the shop window so was difficult to capture a good picture.

Single Flower Style Flip Flop Jewelry

We've been working on some more flip flop jewelry pieces.  With so many lakes and beaches in our area they are a popular summer item.  The pendants are all hung on the gorgeous Softglass cords that we get from Shades of Clay.  Both the Softglass and the buna cords are beautiful and drape so softly making them perfect for these lighter weight beads.  I found a simple way to finish off these cords which I will share with you in my next post.

Flip Flop Sandal Necklaces

Flip Flop Sandal Earring Beads

I had fun creating these in a variety of colors some of which were in the latest Pantone shades.  All the ones shown here are now availabe at Chum N' Luba's Unique Boutique in our town of Chase.  Here is the one in a Pantone color combination of Celosia Orange and Cayenne (top photo far left) with one of the gorgeous maxi dresses at Chum N' Luba's.

 

Flip Flop with Summer Maxi Dress at Chum N' Luba's Unique Boutique

When Life Gives You Ribbons...

Make a hat!  I just finished making a bunch more clay dress and hat charms for our Sweater brooch pins.  Most of them were made to fill a special order for Chum N' Luba's Unique Boutique in our town of Chase.  There is a story about how the clay hats came to be.  A while ago I ordered a variety of metal base charms in a hat, shoe and purse theme.  When our order arrived I was a little disappointed to find these ribbon charms instead of the hats.  I tucked them away in a drawer not really knowing what to do with them but thinking they might come in handy some day.

Months later, I pulled out all of our metal charm findings to look for something in particular when I came across the ribbons again.  I could suddenly visualize them made into a hat by filling in the parts with clay.  So my "ADD" kicked in at that moment and completely forgetting what I was looking for, I had to try and make a clay hat charm.   I used a piece of vinyl placemat to create the woven texture.

And here are some more clay dress charms in a few new colors.

CaBezel Necklaces and Mini Tutorial

I hadn't played with Wendy Orlowski's CaBezel molds in a while but had some fun last week making some new cable necklaces.  These pieces and a few more in other colors are now available at Chum 'N Luba's Unique Boutique as an addition to her new spring collection of clothing and accessories.

I love these nylon coated steel cables that come in a variety of colors.  We prefer to cover the metal screw type clasp which gives a more finishing touch to the necklace as well as making it more comfortable to wear around the neck, especially for those with metal allergies.

You can cover the clasp right on the cable as they are generally safe to bake in the oven at the typical clay temperature.  The other option is to cut the screw end off the cable (see below) so you can remove the clasp.  After covering the clasp with clay (C & D) and replacing it on the cable along with your pendant or beads, a new screw end (A) can be reattached.

(B)  Make sure you use heavy duty or memory wire shears to cut the steel cable or you will ruin your good jewelry wire cutters.

(C)  Roll a medium thin sheet of clay out and trim to the same width as the screw clasp.

(D)  Add and rub in a little liquid clay on the clasp before wrapping in the clay.  Make sure the clay fits nice and snug around the clasp so it does not slip after baking.  Bake your clasp.

(E) Replace the clay covered clasp onto the cable and then finish the cable end off with a new screw end piece by crimping tightly with pliers.

Just an update as to where to buy these cables.  They are available in Black at Shades of Clay (scroll down a bit on the page).

Floral Batik Necklace

Here are more of our new batik style flowers in a necklace and now available at Chum 'N Luba's Unique Boutique here in Chase, B.C.

Interchangeable Earring System

Our interchangeable earring system was a real hit at our Christmas shows this year.  Many of our previous customers were pleased to be able to add more of our art beads to the interchangeable ear wires they already had as well as add new ear wire styles to their collection for a different look.

In between getting ready for the Chameleon Show in February, I have been busily posting our available ear wire styles with lots of art beads for our interchangeable earring system onto our online store for purchasing online.

Many of the earring beads coordinate with our other jewelry pieces.  Whenever we make a scarf necklace or brooch pendant, for instance, I like to make at least several pairs of art beads for earrings that will go along with these items.  They might not sell together as a set but the option is there for a customer who is looking for various pieces to create their own arrangement.

A selection of our art beads and interchangeable ear wires are also now available at Chum N' Luba's Unique Boutique here in our town of Chase.

Selling Out

We finally finished our last show for the season here in our little village of Chase.  Each year our town has a Chase Country Christmas weekend celebration with plenty of fun activities starting with a parade Friday evening.  We had our usual large set-up at the craft fair featuring our scarf jewelry and interchangeable earring system.

Since Chum N' Luba's Unique Boutique is new and sells a selection of our handcrafted jewelry, we helped to promote this fabulous shop.  The photo above shows one of their vintage dresses with our scarf jewelry and below with one of our vintage floral necklaces.

Dave and I both found the Christmas shows this year to be quite exhausting and stressful since our work load with selling wholesale has more than doubled.  A new experience for us was selling out on several items  on several occasions.  It is a good thing really but a little overwhelming when you think you need to make more inventory in such a short time.  Oh well, if this is as bad as it can get, I think we will survive!

Expanding

We delivered some new jewelry pieces last week to Chum N' Luba's Unique Boutique here in town.  The pieces were to replace items that have sold along with some new designs including our fall line of scarf jewelry.  The Little Shuswap News Office next door moved out and so Chum N' Luba's expanded into that space resulting in a charming room packed with more gorgeous vintage plus new items.  This is a partial view of that room where Darlene, the owner, has it tastefully decorated.

That is one of our necklace and earring sets sitting on the antique cabinet among the vintage accessories and collectibles.

I've always had an attraction for vintage jewelry with all the rhinestones and jewel-tone colors.  Here are a few of my vintage inspired pieces that are now for sale at Chum N' Luba's.

(above photo by One Love Photography)

Fashion Show

I had fun today helping with a fashion show that Darlene, the owner of Chum ' Luba's Unique Boutique, put on in our town of Chase.  All the clothes that were modeled are real vintage and Darlene and I coordinated some of our jewelry pieces that are for sale in her shop with the appropriate outfits.

And more photos of this fun event ....