Events I Will Be At

Here's a list of where"ll I'll be vending at this month:

Red Rabbit Arts & Crafts Market

9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Saturday December 4, 2010.

Glendale Civic Auditorium
1401 North Verdugo Road
Glendale, CA 91208-3225

San Diego North Park Craft Mafia's Holiday Hit List

12:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Sunday December 5, 2010

North Park Masonic Hall
3795 Utah St.
San Diego, CA 92104

Maurice Car’rie Vineyard and Winery's Arts & Crafts Fair

10:00 am - 5:00 am
Saturday December 11, 2010

Maurice Car'rie Winery
34225 Rancho California Rd.
Temecula, CA 92591

Jewelry Party

Want to earn free jewelry from Tora Jewelry? How about a jewelry party? Details here, for all Southern California residents.

Don't live in Southern California but still want to earn free jewelry? You can do an online party, simply choose a day and I will give you a special code to give your friends. Not only will all your friends get 10% off, but you earn free jewelry just like a home party.

Swag

Working on swag for some shows I'm doing this holiday season. Here's a little sneak peak. Of course I still need to add chainmaille.

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Craft Show Coming

I will be vending at the North Park San Diego Craft Mafia Sunday Crafty Sunday. Come check it out. Mention my blog and get 10% off.

Sunday, Crafty Sunday - Celebrates El Día de los Muertos

Sunday, October 17th, 2010

3925 Ohio St. - 92104

1 pm - 6 pm

Wow, Busy Summer

Wow my summer got busy, I was doing various markets and let my internet stuff fall by the wayside, but I'm back and trying to get back in the swing of things. It helps that the kids are back in school. I've got tons of new items to list, lots of new cell phone charms, an insane number of earrings, lots of pendants, necklaces and bracelets, so stay tuned. Meanwhile here's everything I listed last week, enjoy!

Daily Geekery

Daily Geekery

Daily Geekery

Daily Geekery

Daily Geekery

Daily Geekery

Daily Geekery

I've been doing polymer clay sculpture recently, so when I came across this awesome dragon fairy I just had to share.

Daily Geekery

Doggy butt floss, how funny and cute. Sold by Fanimals on etsy.

New Project.

I'm working on a new project. Very different from my jewelry. New medium, different creations and a fictional character to run it all. Check out Lee's story and find my new creations coming soon.

Daily Geekery

Here's some awesome lego Alice in Wonderland by Legohaulic.
Also here's some rainbow Lego cakes I made for my aunts graduation.

Daily Geekery

I love Zelda, and I used to cross stitch a lot, haven't done one in around 7 years, I think I may need to start again. I found this awesome Zelda map on flickr.

Sneak Peek

Yes, I'm still creating maille, just busy with the craft show season, so having some trouble posting my new work on the ol' interwebs. Here's some maille I recently finished, not even close to the large number of things I have to take pictures of, but here ya go.
This lovely set is made with a new color of rings called hematite. The color is a gunmetal color with purple and green undertones, just awesome. The weave is mobiused rosettes, and the 16G rings make this set large and eye catching.





This pretty pendant below is polymer clay and by clayhappy. Awesome right?! I saw it and loved it and had to put some maille on it. The epoxy I used to secure it is curing, so I can't wear it until tomorrow. Then I will be rocking it.

And last but not least here's two new bracelets, the one on the left is a stretchy european 6-1, and the one on the right is mobius. The purple is actually dark purple, my lighting was just funky when I took these.


I've also got a non maille project I've been working on so keep an eye out for that.

Daily Geekery

It's Bob! From Dresden files. Don't know who Bob is? Read Dresden Files, it's awesome. Buy this Bob soap here.

Daily Geekery

Check out this awesome alien abduction lamp. Details on where to buy here. Or, if you're crafty details to make one here.

Daily Geekery

Found this cool Mega Man Project on flickr by RedHerring1up.

Daily Geekery

I bought one of these cool little Voodoo Doll Pin Cushions, I love it. It glows in the dark and looks awesome with all my pins in him. I think I'll name him Larry. Get one from batgirl93's etsy shop.

Daily Geekery; Two For the Price of One

I didn't get to post my daily geekery yesterday, the family went to Knotts Berry Farm. So here's double your pleasure of geekery awesomeness.


Less Than Three Ring by metalsmitten.


Nerd Dork Epresso Cups by trixiedelicious.

Daily Geekery

Robots! Lots of neat robots in tofu nutloaf's etsy shop.

Daily Geekery

Check out this awesome Tetris window I found on flickr

Daily Geekery

Not many of you may know this but I'm kind of a geek (my husband's laughing "kind of?"). I like sci fi and Star Trek. I read comic books and my cats name is Harry Dresden. My friends LARP, talk about D&D and play Magic the Gathering.

I love being a geek and I love finding geeky things, so I will share my geeky finds with you. Every day! Hope I'm not getting in over my head here.

Today I bring you Specimen No. 110 (Gerber), who I found in Specimen 7's Etsy shop. Is he awesome or what?

Chainmaille by Tora Jewelry

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Fixed my Photo Problem

For the past month or so I've been really struggling with my photos. Why? Because I couldn't find a decent tabletop tripod. Most of the ones I've tried are so cheap they break right away or doesn't stabilize my camera any better than I can on my own.

So after going through a few I asked my husband if he could make me one. He had the ingenious idea to use a broken gps mount. What makes this so great? It has a suction cup, so I can suction cup it to where I want. This has been really cool for getting aerial type shots, since I can stick it to the wall. It's also much easier to adjust the angle.

Here's some non blurry pictures I took with my nifty new tripod.

How Much Should I Pay for Chainmaille?

When I first wanted to learn chainmaille I went to the craft store and bought a $2 bag of jump rings and some $3 pliers and made a European 4 in 1 bracelet. I made a 7" long, 2" wide bracelet in half an hour. I thought it looked great, I planned on making more and selling them for $15. Then I started wearing it, first the bad closures scratched and kept opening. Then the cheap silver plate started wearing off and turning an ugly yellow color. So I started doing some research and talking to other maillers.

I learned about saw cut rings and good closures, my next European 4 in 1 bracelet took me about 3 hours to make, and the saw cut bright aluminum rings cost more than $2.  If I still charged $15 for this bracelet I'd be paying myself about $2 per hour. And after factoring in time for tumbling the bracelet to get any burrs off, re inspecting for good closures, time to take pictures, post the item online, packaging and shipping time and cost, plus transaction fees, well now I'm not really making anything.

So when you see a handmade chainmaille bracelet and want to know why it costs $60 ask the mailler how long it took to make and inspect the closures. If you read my last post you know how to tell a good closure from a bad. Chainmaille takes time to make, especially with good closures, and with anything handmade the time and skill of the artist is a large part of what you're paying for.

And the winner is...

Dovile!! Yay! Dovile won my lovely Tao 3 pendant and earring set. Thanks everybody who entered!

What's in a Ring?

Chainmaille jewelry is made out of jump rings and there are many aspects to these rings that determine the quality of these rings.

These rings can be made out of many types of metals. You coil wire and cut the coils into rings. Many maillers who make armor make themselves armor very cheaply this way by using fencing wire. Jewelry on the other hand is a bit more complicated.

Before you buy chainmaille jewelry, you should know what it's made of. Don't be afraid to ask if that information isn't readily available. If your mailler doesn't know or wont tell you, move on.

The most common metals used in chainmaille jewelry are bright aluminum and anodized aluminum, stainless steel, copper and enameled copper, bronze, jeweler's brass, niobium and anodized niobium, titanium and anodized titanium, sterling silver, argentium silver, gold-fill, gold and rubber. I'll get more in depth on these metals in my next article.

These rings are wound into coils and cut into rings. The rings can either be saw cut with a jeweler's saw:




or pinch cut with pliers.




I prefer saw cut rings as they have less snags and povide a more smoothe and even closure. This is especially important with softer metal as they can snag and then come open. A chain really is only as strong as it's weakest link. it is important to examine the rings on your jewelry and make sure they have a proper closure. this means both sides of the ring meet smooth and flush.

Here are some examples of poorly closed rings:




Most chainmaille jewelry is not soldered closed, this makes good closures especially important, you don't want jewelry that's going to fall apart right away. Here is some jewelry I've made with good closures, you can zoom in to get a good look at the closures:

I Was Featured on The Front Page of Etsy

We're All Mad Here

I just finished reading Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The kids loved it and I enjoyed reading it. I love reading and reading to my children is a new and wonderful experience. Now I have to decide what to read to them next.

‘In that direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, ‘lives a Hatter: and in that direction,’ waving the other paw, ‘lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both mad.’
‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ Alice remarked.
‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.’
‘How do you know I’m mad?’ said Alice
‘You must be’ said the Cat ‘or you wouldn’t have come here’

- “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll

How to Choose Chainmaille Jewelry

I buy handmade items to get better quality than the mass produced stuff you can find in any old store. I also love to be surprised by all the unique and wonderful items I find.
When I want to buy something I want to get the most bang for my buck. I'm not prone to impulse shopping. I want to get the most for my money and will research the heck out of anything I'm going to buy. So I got to thinking that I should let all my readers out there know how to choose good quality chainmaille jewelry.



Now most of the time when you think of chainmaille you think of knights in armor and swords or Renaissance Faires and people in costumes, but Chainmaille can make very beautiful and unique jewelry.

Before you buy chainmaille jewelry you need to know a little about how it's made to know how to choose your jewelry.

Chainmaille is composed of interlocking metal rings. There are two basic steps in making chainmaille: 1. Make rings, 2. Weave rings. Sounds simple right? That's what I thought too, but chainmaille can get pretty complicated. There are many weaves and variations on chainmaille. Some can be very simple and some can be very difficult.

The bracelet at the top of the page is a weave called jens pind linkage, a beautiful spiraling weave that took me three days, lots of cursing and tossing of rings before I mastered this weave.

I don't make my own rings, although I wold love to, I just don't have the space. So instead I purchase my rings already made. Choosing my supplier (that sounds so shady), was a time consuming process as I quickly learned all rings are not made equal.

As I go through this series of articles I will cover the many aspects involved in making chainmaille jewelry. I will cover the materials used, the quality of those materials. The time involved, and basic construction. Stay tuned, there's more good info to come.