Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Doo Doot Doo Doo, Doo Doot Doo Doo....

If you couldn't tell by the headline, this post is about weddings (that's my version of the bridal march on a kazoo). Wedding season seems to be upon me, even before I recovered from the holidays properly. I've been desperately trying to get waxes carved for new designs, but I seem to be so caught up in making things that have already been ordered that I have no time for new things. I've made a resolution though, and that is that I will carve one wax (in order to cast it and then have a mold made of that design by people who know how to make molds....as I can't seem to cut a mold properly to save my life) each morning. This wax will be one of my current designs (i.e. the three stone, pebble rings, pebble ring squared) in several different sizes, until I have carved all of the current designs. Each week I will also carve one new design (from the many I have floating around in my head). I also got some cool new material that I think will figure greatly into my spring collection! I think I will have two "collections", just a regular spring 2010 collection, and also a weddings collection. I think I've mentioned it before, but I love wedding jewelry more than just about anything else (besides my pugs, that is).

Before I went on vacation I had a small tidal wave of wedding orders and I took some pictures of them some of them together.



I really liked this grouping since it represents the three types of stones I use most in my jewelry. Left to right: moissanite, diamond, white sapphire. The ring on the far right is the first one of that style that I've made in gold instead of silver, and I really liked how it turned out. I can't wait to see it in 18kt yellow (my personal favorite, and the ring on the far left is made of it).

I also experimented with ways to take photos of the ring on my hand, in order to show scale. This is how I normally do it:



But that morning I was feeling sassy, and decided to do a little photo shoot:




If you can ignore the crazy hair, I think it actually gives a better idea of size and what the ring will actually look like on, than the hand shot. What do you guys think? Since Etsy only lets you post 5 pictures, I'm not sure if want to use two of them to show the ring on the hand. I think people like photos of the item itself more, and I don't want to intrude onto their wedding ideation with a big picture of my face. You know what I mean?

Ok, enough of that. I'm hoping to be able to post about the new designs this week or next. But until then, here is a picture of me and the shop monkey on vacation!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Justine,

I'm very excited to see your new designs!! I think I may have to wait to see these before we order our wedding bands from you. Although I currently covet most everything you have on etsy so that could be dangerous!!!

Danielle

Bean said...

Please don't stop taking pictures of rings on your hands! Those are very helpful. I also like the pictures from your sassy photo shoot. They DO help illustrate scale.

You are so talented. I'm so excited to see your new collection(s)!

Ms. Sunday said...

i totally think that the scale photo helps. while i like the close up shots of jewelery on etsy, i still really like to know how big something is really going to look on me. nothing annoys me more than people who don't post photos of earrings on someone. it makes it so hard to know how big the earring is really going to be! :o)

Justine said...

Hi Danielle!

Thanks for stopping by! I hope to have the new stuff out soon, but the technical difficulties I'm having with my casting equipment might delay me a little bit. I hope not though. I got a call this morning that my pump is repaired, so I hope to be back in business next week. :-)

Cheers!
Justine

Justine said...

Hi Bean!

I don't think I will stop taking close up of hands, i feel it is too informative. But my hands are so large that I sometimes feel like it might be misleading to those who have small hands. Many of the rings I make for customers only fit onto my pinky fingers. :-)

bean