ab: Coral Design: February 2015

Design Process
While many participants of this challenge is on the way to build their lines, I am kinda stuck at how to build a cohesive line which is very crucial.

As mentioned in the last post, my concept of this line is to use engraving Chinese to express my thoughts through the arrangement of stampings. Before I started, I didn't have any idea about how to make a real cohesive line. I looked for all the stampings in pairs from the box where I keep all B'Sue products.

From what I have, I picked the connectors as the first trial so for the second design, in order to be cohesive, I used the silverware one and engraved "珍惜" which means "to treasure".

We all know many natural resources are reducing, animals are extincted, forest is getting less, ice is melting and etc. Yet, many people are still not aware or ignore the situation. As parents, we want to give the best to our kids or next generation but not many think about what our ancestors left to us are environmental problems. All of us need to change our habit by reducing energy use and waste and treasure what we have.

Back to the difficulties I encountered. In the past few weeks, I saw many participants are creating their lines with components of the same theme/materials in one or different color. The video about disassembling a statement piece into smaller pieces, shared by Brenda is very inspiring. However, the more I see how others create their lines, the more lost I feel.

Should I stick with these connectors to create bracelets and necklaces as well?
Should I use one color only but with different stampings?

I hope I will figure this out soon.

New insight about one-of-a-kind design
I always like to make unique design as I don't like duplicate my design unless customer requests. I thought this could add more value on my jewelry. From my experience, it does but it also has shortages. One of the problem is time. Every design needs to be described and photographed for my online shop, which took a lot of time for my design. If I create a cohesive line that can be duplicated, it could gives my customers an impression of my style and also saves my time in post-design. Will this affect those customers who like one-of-a-kind? I hope not as I can still alter each design within the line to create a unique design for these customers. As the line can be duplicated, the other advantage is that it can reach more potential customers who may help promoting my jewelry. Instead of one customer wearing one design, it could be several customers wearing one design.

Stay tune for the final hop on March 20th.

Before you leave, check out other participants of this challenge.

Brenda Sue Lansdowne, B'sue Boutiques

Jewelry Making Outside the Box

1. Marcia Tuzzolino

Aurora Designs

2. Jann Tague

Clever Designs by Jann

3. Judy King

Apt to Wander Studio

4. Linzi Alford

Magpie in the Sky, Spoil Heap Tales

5. Cynthia Wainscott