Lamenting silk thread...

I am quite anxious. I got an order where I need silk thread, and my order from Japan hasn't arrived yet.  Usually, I bought mine from USA or Singapore, and stock up more than I need, but I am out of the white one and unfortunately, that one is the one that I need =(

I do try locally, if any sell the brand that I usually used, but so far I can't find any.

In general, I do have a love-hate relationship with silk thread. While silk thread makes the finished jewelry looks nice and has a pretty lustre, they have to be stretched overnight first before being used. My first try on this, I didn't stretch the thread long enough and in a week, my bracelet has been stretched out of shape.

Also, usually silk thread is used when you want to make knots between beads. The knots has to be tight and just exactly beside the beads. Now, imagine making a necklace. Half the way to finish, you made one knot that is not exactly beside the bead. You have to cut the entire necklace, stretch a new thread and begin again. Not to mention cutting open the necklace is not easy, because there're many knots that are just beside the beads ><.

Cleaning jewelery

I often hear that  to clean out your jewelery is to send it to the jewelerer and let he or she clean it for you. But how if the jewelery is not made of silver and gold? And how if it's not an expensive jewelery, you just particularly in love with it?

The thing is, there is no metal, except perhaps stainless steel and pure 24k gold, that will not change color sooner or later. In fact, the reason I owned a jewelery polisher is because of my platinum necklace. It's a good necklace made of high degree of platinum, but it is also older than me. And after 20 something years, I noticed that some of the link has blacken. 

I considered cleaning it in the jewelerer, but at the same time, I also have a nice metal necklace, Japan made, hypo-allergenic somehow, that had became blackish instead of it's original rose gold color. And unlike the platinum one, I am not sure gold store will want to clean this necklace or that the cost of cleaning it even worth it. So I bought jewelery cleaner, and never regret it since. 

A lot of gemstones are actually fragiles, so cleaning them with ultrasonic machine is out of the questions. But most of them can be clean at home with warm water and mild dish soap, and dried off with soft cloth or tissues. If you do this, take extra care when you are cleaning pearls, because they are easily scratched. 

If the jewelery is knotted with silk thread, the thread has to be totally dry first before the jewelery was worn again. 

For cleaning off metal part, polishing clothes can be easily gain and the prices are quite reasonable as well. There are polishing clothes for silvers, golds, etc. 

Simple, but totally work =)

My herringbone pearls bracelet

Sometimes ago, I bought herringbone drilled pearl. In case you don't know, this is pearls, usually freshwater, which are drilled with one hole on the top like usual, but one hole in the side. If they are stringed, they will looks like herringbone or in my opinion, leaves in a branch.

Maybe because of the difficulty in drilling them, because I imagined it will be harder to make sure the holes meet inside and so on, so far those herringbone pearls that I found are more expensive than the usual pearls with the same level of grade and shape.

Also, those that I saw usually more on the rice shaped, or flat sided rice shaped - this is sometimes a generous approximation, because often they looks just irregular for me.

Mine, besides being rice shaped, also have natural groves on it and either C or D grade. Actually, I am leaning to D.

When I look at them individually, to be honest, they are not special pearls or anything. I got many better pearls. But since what interest me on them from the start is the shape of the drilled holes, I started to make them into a bracelet anyway.

I estimated I will need around 32 of them for a bracelets. This is actually more pearls than if I made the usual pearls bracelet. I didn't realized that the angle of the pearls mean I need even more pearls. Luckily, I have bought more than what I first thought I would need.

Halfway on making them, I found out that although individually they are nothing special, strung together, they are beautiful =)

They didn't miraculously changed into A grade, round pearl with no surface groves. But put together, they gave a nice lustre and the groves are less than visible. Or maybe that's because the first thing that caught my eyes is the fact that this bracelet has a totally different, dare I say unique, shaped than my other pearls bracelets.

It also look thicker, therefore, expensive =)

All in all, I am more than satisfied. I even started to hunt for more herringbone drilled pearls. I want a  matching necklace =p

Whimsical Baubles and Diana Craft Corner

Should have written this in Multiply, but since there is no more blog there..

I have decided to take off some of my items from Whimsical Baubles. They are not sold out, but I think I will move them out into my new shop in Multiply, Diana's Craft Corner.

When first I opened Whimsical Baubles (yes I know I just opened it in September 2012, but actually the planning of the shop has started on July 2012. I just needed to wait for my material to come first since I bought the bulk of them in USA...), I just thought of custom made jewelry.

I love accessories, and tend to make sure that my jewelry, my bag (and even my second, smaller bag for carrying water bottle and umbrella), my hair accessories, my clothes and my shoes are all compliment each other, or at least not clashing with each other. In other hand, I had awful allergic to practically everything (metal, lots of cosmetics and perfume, dust, pollution, seafood, and many more).  The only metalsI can safely wear are gold, platinum and to some degree, silver. No need to say, they are awfully expensive, and when I can afford one, it is often not on the type or style that I like.

So, I started buying pearl and semi precious gemstone to make jewelry for myself. Now, I am not saying my jewelry is totally allergy free, since I am still not using silver, gold or platinum for the clasp and crimp beads. But the idea is that first, I don't wear them all day long, every single day. I match them with my clothes and my mood, so it's like now and then. Second, I can made that the only metal part of the jewelry is the crimp beads and the clasp. The less metal, the less allergy reaction. After all, I can safely wear my watch. Also, silver plating maybe can help some. The rest of the jewelry will be made of silk or nylon plated wire, gemstones and pearl and glass. Last but not least, it will be on the style that I like.

Then I started to think about making some of them for selling and that's Whimsical Baubles.

But like the rest of the blog can tell you, I do love craft. I made doll from felt clothes and wool roving. I put my photos into digital and paper scrapbook. I used to make hair accessories for myself and I found my fingers itch when I saw ribbons. You get the draft.

At first I put some of them in Whimsical Baubles. After all, it's Baubles and not Jewelry. But lately, I found that I had made quite a number of item that's not at all jewelry. I found myself thinking that Whimsical Baubles was supposed to sell handmade jewelry, not all handmade craft that I made.

So, I made Diana's Craft Corner. I took the velvet bookmarks and hair ribbon from Whimsical and will move them to Craft Corner tomorrow. Additionally, I will ad new hair ribbons and clay charms and pendants there =)

If you have time, I hope you will came and visit either store, even if just to browse around =)

Wishing for more time...

Kind of neglecting my store lately...So busy...=( hopefully, soon I will have more time to make new items. I am already having some new designs in mind.

One of them is this crazy lace agate bracelet. I got some nice agate stones and they will looks nice with Swarovski pearls (yes, I know, pearls again, but I am in love with them). The other one is probably a mix of serpentine and Swarovski pearls. And the last one is herringbone pearls.

Herringbone pearls are unique on how they were drilled. The holes, unlike in usual pearls, are not straight, but making an L shape. So, when made into jewelry, the pearl will looks like leaves out of a branch.

I also plan to make pendant and earrings for my Blue Sky bracelet. I have to admit, it is one of my favorite. There is this crazy story about why I decided to put lapis lazuli and pearl together.

One of my favorite game when I was younger was Legend of Mana. If you play it, you will remember that there was this jewel people. One of this jewel people was Elazul, a lapis lazuli, who was searching for his girlfriend, pearl. So when I got both lapis lazuli and pearl, I though, I want to see whether they look good together =p

At first my nick name for that one was "My bracelet for going to museum", lol. I love going to museum, and the colours somehow reminded me of ancient artefacts...Like some lost civilization or some old jewel...nice, understated, but old...

Okay, probably it's just my brain...=p

Back to digital scrapbooking

Still on the scrapbooking, although now I am back to digital for a bit...

Some days, I love those kits with plenty of hand-drawn elements and some days, I love those with plenty of photographed elements. But currently, I am in love with those which has plenty of paper and less elements.

Sound strange, maybe, but I am in the mood of trying my hand on the templates and overlays and masks and edgers that I have bought and left in my hard disk for quite some times...

It's a bit tricky, admittedly, because I have to be able to adjust some settings in photoshop, but I do love the end result...

Now, a bit of quick dictionary, if digital scrapbooking is not your thing. With template and overlay, you can add texture or pattern to your paper. Mask is used to blend or add decoration to your photo or to frame it. Edger can be thought of as a digital version of border puncher.

I also have some awesome glitters that I bought some times ago. And better yet, unlike real glitter, digital glitter won't cause a mess =p

Back to digital, my current favorites are lace (and doilies) and embossed patterns. I would have post some of my results here, but I am too busy currently. I used papers, layouts and elements from different designers, and they all have their own TOU. So maybe later, when I have time to make sure that posting them here won't make me accidentally break a TOU and all designers are credited properly.

In paper scrapbooking, I have came to realize a thing: a bottle of glitter will last you forever!

Found scrapbook supplies store in Jakarta =)

I found scrapbooking supply in Jakarta!

Okay, maybe I was way too late, maybe the store has been there for a year or two, but I haven't been to Jakarta for a long, long time, except for Mangga Dua. Anyway, I found a scrapbook store in Grand Indonesia and Central Park's Gramedia also has quite a collection.

I saw Lost and Found, Teresa Collins, 7 Gypsies, Best Creation, Prima and many more. The collections in both place is quite a lot. They also have ink, gillter spray, template, puncher and so on. Price is from around the same, to about 100% above Singapore's. Singapore's price is from around 25% to 200% above US' price.

A store told me that paper's price is around 10,000 IDR to 26,000 IDR a piece. There is not yet price for every and any items - especially papers - written down, though. So, buyer has to ask the staff for price. That, or be quite sure that no matter what the price is, said buyer doesn't mind =p

Now, depend on how many things I want and what kind of thing I want, maybe I will still prefer importing from US, since the price's difference is quite significant it actually more than cover the shipping fee. Also, while the collections here and in Singapore is quite a lot, it's not as much as those in US' stores. But if what I need is just a paper or five, well, buying locally is a better choice.

Now, back to the collections I saw in Jakarta, there is a number of nice papers. In fact, I felt in love with Best Creation's. I am quite sad though, that they don't have one of my favorite brand, Coredinations. Well, maybe later.

Anyway, the biggest problem with buying in Jakarta that I saw is the transportation. If you went with private car, ignore this. There is no problem. But I went there using public transportation, which often awfully crowded. If I bought paper, I risked my paper got folded on the way. This will be more unlikely to happen if I bought 20 or more papers, because they are thicker together and therefore harder to be folded. But usually, I just bought 10 or below in one go...