Even though runway fashion might be a little too out there for our daily wear, we can always take their creative ideas and make them our own. Here are our top 5 jewellery trends for 2018. Hope they inspire to inspire.

1: FLORALS

       Sterling Flower Toggle                                         Howlite Flower Beads                               Black Rose Ring

2: SEASHELLS

       TierraCast Brass Shell Charm                             ImpressArt Seashell Stamp                              Seashell Pendant

3: MISS MATCHED

Gold-Plated Charm with CZs                            Large Oco Pendants                            Amazonite Pendants

4: TRANSLUSCENT

 4mm Matte Quartz Beads                Wrapped Quartz Pendant                                White Onyx Char

5: LONG & BOLD

         Sterling Silver Disc Chain                             Tooth-Shaped Pendant with CZs                             Labradorite Chain

8 WAYS TO PACK YOUR JEWELLERY FOR TRAVEL

Have you ever scratched your jewellery in your suitcase before? Maybe you've experienced a tangled necklace when you got home from vacation? Travelling with your jewellery can sometimes be problematic if your pieces are not organized and protected properly. These 8 packing tips will help keep your jewellery safe and tidy while travelling!

1) Combination Jewellery Case: If you have a tendency to bring a lot of jewelry with you when travelling, then investing in a combination jewellery case is your best option. There are so many styles available, from rollups to locked cases, that provide you with well-thought-out compartments for all your accessory needs.

Brocade Roll-Up                   Accessory Roll-Up

2) Earring Cards: A great way to keep your earrings organized. Buying a package of rubber backs will help to keep your earrings in place, too!  

    Earring Cards

3) Buttons: Have some old buttons on hand? Buttons are another great way, like earring cards, to keep your earrings together.

4) Self-Sealing Plastic Jewellery Bags: If you’re lacking room in your suitcase, putting your jewellery in individual plastic bags will help save you space which keeping your pieces organized and protected from scratches. For extra protection, place the little bags of jewelry in a cloth and keep them all organized in a larger Ziploc-style bag!

    Plastic Bags 2"x2"

5) Plastic Containers: Use small plastic storage containers like a pill box to organize and protect your small jewelry pieces.

6)Straws: A great way to keep those finer chains from tangling is by using a straw! Just feed the necklace through the tube and clasp!

7) Toilet Paper Roll: For larger necklaces, instead of using a straw, organize them by feeding them through a toilet paper roll.

8) Plastic Wrap: Glad press and seal wrap is anther great way to keep your jewelry pieces tangle-free and protected! Bring an extra sheet to reseal for your trip home!

                      HAPPY TRAVELS!

Elana’s Tips, Tricks & Troubleshooting
METAL STAMPING FOR JEWELLERY
COPYRIGHT Elana Promislow 2018

Use masking or painters tape to line up your letter stamps.

Practice your alignment by swatching your stamp on paper using an ink pad. This can
also help you determine which is the right direction, as it can sometimes be confusing
when looking at the stamp directly.

Use a permanent marker, or a dot of nail polish on the side of your stamp to make it
quicker to place correctly.

Highlight your stamped areas by colouring them in with a permanent marker, then wipe
away the excess with a Eurotool polishing pad.

Cover your steel block with an Impressart sticker to prevent marring the bottom of your
piece.

Stamp on soft metals like pewter, aluminium, sterling silver, and copper. Brass and
nickel silver are much harder, and are more difficult to stamp on.

Small stamps and simple letters can be stamped with a single blow. Larger, more
detailed stamps will require more careful hammering using the pivot technique.

Annealing is recommended when stamping long phrases or doing overall texturing with
stamps. Your metal will become brittle and difficult to work with otherwise. If you do
not do torch-work, then confine these types of pieces to very soft metals like pewter
and aluminium.

You can use letter stamps to make borders and patterns. “Y”, “V”, and “I”combine to
make excellent dandelions. Experiment with different size letters.

You can use a single pattern stamp to make a border or overall texture on your piece.

Use markers to map out where you want your stamps to go on your metal. Conversely,
use the grid stickers from Impressart to make this easier.

You can achieve a nice satin finish on your metal by using emery boards.

Curve disks and even squares using a doming punch and dapping block.

You can stamp on finished rings if you use a ring mandrel.

When stamping a very tiny charm, tape it securely to your steel block.

“To dye or not to dye that is the question” (Rocks in my Head 4)

Many stones sold commercially are dyed or the result of other types of treatment. The Bible records several metal ores ground to powder, mixed with animal fats and oils, and used for cosmetics. The first documented treatment of stones was by the Roman Pliny the Elder (1^st century AD) and oiling of stones especially emeralds were common in Roman times and ever since.

Most treated stones started as a much poorer grade of the same stone. Gem treatment is much more about colour enhancement than creating new stones. Nearly all gemstone treatments are permanent and do not degrade over time. The traditional distinction between precious and semi-precious does not necessarily reflect modern values, for example, while garnets are relatively inexpensive a green garnet called tsavorite can be far more valuable than a mid-quality emerald.

Stones were first dyed with clothing type dyes and, with the development of steam power pressure cookers, were used to induce much more permanent colourization of tones. Just about every colourization has been done. Coral is a good example -Blood red coral is highly endangered and nearly extinct and is mainly native to the Mediterranean.White coral is exceptionally common particularly in the western Pacific and being both porous and white is easily dyed almost any colour. Any coral buyer can assume any of the better colours of coral are dyed unless sold with papers from a well respected gemologist or assayer. There are some white stones like howlite (which is commonly dyed to resemble either lapis lazuli or turquoise) though these are easily distinguished as dye seldom goes beyond 1mm deep in the stone while lapis and turquoise are of uniform colour throughout.

Heating is the second major treatment – most citrine today is heat treated amethyst. Similarly rare coloration are produced by application of heat. Some highly sought after gems would not exist or be much rarer – for instance tanzanite and pink topaz.

In the post World War 2 era exotic coloured stones have been created using radiation. By law these are carefully tested to assure safety as improperly treated gemstones can be hazardous. Some of the more exotic diamond colours, Alexandrite and London Blue Topaz are enhanced this way.

Other gemstones are created by artificial means with the best known being Cubic Zirconia, Moissanite (both of which appear diamond-like but have distinctive gemological features that a trained gemologist can readily distinguish from diamond) and the recent “Artisan Diamonds” which are chemically and optically identical to the naturally mined gemstone in nearly every way.

To further confuse the issue there are many local names and trade names for stones though reputable dealers usually know what stone it is though not necessarily which treatment was used to produce that colour. Agate and jasper are two families of minerals rather than a specific type of mineral with much variation within their stone family groups

Most stone treatments do not involve changing the nature of a stone but rather to change a “D-grade” to an “A-grade” coloured stone of the same type. Howlite is naturally white with grey inclusions which is often dyed turquoise blue or lapis blue. Most reputable dealers will call these stones ‘turquoise coloured howlite” or “lapis coloured howlite” – these are dyed stones where the dye normally does not go more than 1 mm deep. Agates are another quite permeable mineral and many agates are dyed though it is unusual for these to be identified as anything other than agate.

In 2018 the market for stones is much more complex than ever before and while you will seldom get a different stone than you think you are buying numerous forms of stone treatment can enhance the colour and depth of colour to make an average stone something really special. If you purchase an enhanced stone by all means enjoy your purchase even though if you purchase a treated stone the colour quality is different from the rough ore it was created from. Stone dealers take great care correctly identifying stones today and while hype exists as in every industry the industry is built on trust making outright fraud extremely rare.

ROCKS IN MY HEAD # 3 - THINGS I CAN DO WITH MY TUMBLER

“Rock Tumblers” are a great method of quickly polishing stones and also for polishing metal jewellery. They can be used for polishing either but the polishing process is quite different for each. There are different sizes available depending on how much you want to polish per batch.

For stones tumbling occurs when fine grinding compound (known as ‘grit’) rubs with the force of a stone against other stones lightly abrading each stone. Successively finer grits shape then polish the stone. Most tumbling is done wet where the grinding grit sticks to the outside of each stone and by falling action forces the grit against surrounding stones.

There are two main types of tumblers: vibratory and rotary – vibratory tumblers polish stones much faster than rotary tumblers but are far less mechanically reliable than the rotary tumbler. For this reason Capilano Rock & Gem only sells the more reliable rotary type.

Advice for polishing stones in a rotary tumbler

• Your biggest stone in the barrel should not be more than twice the size of the smallest – you want to polish your stones not pummel them!
• Don’t fill your barrel with water – about ¼” – ½” above the top of your stones is about right
• Feel free to check your stones by opening your barrel any time!
• Do clean your barrel between runs! A good rinsing followed by a light scrubbing (a worn out toothbrush is an excellent tool for this) to remove all traces of grit greatly improves your results. Don’t ignore the inside rim – a small amount of grit build-up there can cause catastrophic water leakage.
• A week at each stage from coarse to final polish is normal
• Don’t flush your used grit down the toilet bowl! (It makes a wonderful quick setting concrete…..)

A tumbler can also be used for polishing jewellery. This can be done wet or dry with the most common method being with water, soap and stainless steel shot. (Non-stainless steel shot is available at a much lower cost but requires much more cleaning than stainless. Non-stainless shot will rust over time – we have dropped this type as we feel stainless is much better value for the money – well-kept stainless steel shot can be used for years!)

When tumbling jewellery in a tumbler use from a teaspoon to a tablespoon of tumbling soap depending on the size of each load. Shot does a good job of removing tarnish and small pieces of ‘burs’ while acting as tiny hammers to polish your jewellery

Basic advice for polishing jewellery in a tumbler:

• Some stones resist damage when tumbling with shot than others, safest is to polish your metal before setting your stones
• Don’t use water with dry polish, don’t try to do wet polishes dry!
• If you are also tumbling stones don’t try to polish your jewellery in the same barrel as the stones – it only takes a small amount of stone polish to savage your metal! (Yes we sell replacement barrels)
• Don’t be embarrassed to experiment!
• For either type of polishing keep your tumbler well cleaned and well oiled.Well maintained tumblers routinely give 20+ years of service.
• Detailed how to books for polishing stones and polishing jewellery can be found on the lortone.com website under “Manuals/Instructions” Our staff are knowledgeable about tumblers and can provide detailed help. We keep a full line of parts on hand for the tumblers we sell though mostly they sit in the drawergathering dust and help us sell tumblers!

Tips on choosing elastic cord

Once you have chosen the beads that you would like to use, for most people this would be a round bead 6-8mm in size, one could go smaller or larger, the issues that you may encounter would be, on a smaller bead such as a 3-4mm the size of the hole could become an issue and you may not be able to get the elastic through. On a larger bead 10-12mm in size the elastic may not support the weight of a bead that size and become loose and saggy.

Choosing the elastic, my personal preference is the nylon beading elastic by Beadalon called Elonga, it is a flat elastic that looks like dental floss. We carry it in 3 different thicknesses 0.3mm, 0.7mm and the most recent one is a 1mm thickness. This product is not colored, it only comes in what would be best described as clear/white. I always suggest that you use a needle when using this product as it will make your stringing much simpler.

Beadalon also makes another line of elastic called Elasticity, this product is clear and round in shape, like a strand of spaghetti, and about as limp too, I might add. It also comes in 3 different thicknesses, 0.5mm, 0.8mm and a 1mm. I am not a fan of the Elasticity simply because the surface is very smooth which can make tying your knot a challenge, one usually will need to secure the knot with a drop of glue or clear nail polish. Then there is the issue of the knot being to large to fit into the hole of the bead in order to hide it.

Regardless of which elastic or the size of the bead that you choose to string, I always try to suggest to customers that they should go with what makes them feel comfortable as it should be a fun and enjoyable project.

Knot Too Hard (How to choose the right size knotting cord for your project)

Knotting between beads is a traditional method of bead stringing that serves several purposes:

It protects fragile materials from rubbing against each other, it ensures that you will not lose more than one or two beads should your piece of jewellery break, and it can add length, allowing a pricy strand of beads to go farther.Knotted beads also offer a lovely drape and sense of movement to your creation. The trickiest part of any knotting project is determining the right size cord for the task.

It is advisable to use the thickest thread that your chosen bead can accommodate, remembering that there is some added bulk where the needle is attached.Some stones are only drilled from one side with a tapered drill bit. This results in a bead where one side of the hole is much smaller than the other. Even the largest thread that will allow the needle to pass through the small side, will make a knot that will slip inside the larger-holed side of the bead. You have two options to deal with this challenge. One is to make a double or triple knot, and the other is to use two threads at once, allowing the needles to pass through each bead consecutively. (The smaller the cord size, the smaller the attached needle.) I prefer to string all my beads before knotting to make this process less tedious, and also to make sure all the beads fit on the cord (or cords). There is nothing worse than getting to the end of a necklace, and discovering that your last few beads can't fit over the needle!

If you are local to our store, please ask to view our silk cord sampler, where we have conveniently attached one of every size silk cord that we carry (1,2,3,4,5,6,8,10,12,14,&16) so that you may compare them side by side.

Happy Knotting!

Creating a collage of beautiful photos is one of my favourite things to do! About 10 years ago, I was working in the photography industry as a makeup artist and fashion stylist. I fell in love with the idea of creating stories using images, and I absolutely loved working on editorials for fashion magazines. I loved the industry so much that I longed to become an artistic director. However, that dream came to and end when I decided to go to university and no longer had the time to continue working in the industry. BUT... things changed after I discovered Instagram. I could finally be the artistic director I've always wanted to be by creating an account!!! This is how Instagram for business should be thought of... tell your story by using images in cohesive way. I have come up with my top 5 tips on how to turn your business Instagram account into your own beautiful editorial.

1) PLAN CONTENT THAT IS WORTH POSTING. In other words, curate your content. Instagram is an incredibly visual social media platform, so it is essential that you use it to tell a cohesive story to market your brand.Ask yourself “Will my target market care about this photo?” Save the details for the writing portion of your post, and don’t just take random shots of your jewelry. Save the more random shots for the new InstaStory feature (like Snapchat for Instagram)!

2) MAKE SURE YOUR JEWELRY PIECE IS CLEARLY THE FOCAL POINT. The best way to make your jewelry stand out is by using a white background. It’s truly the best for contrast, gives your images a modern feel, and keeps your photos looking consistent too. If your shot includes background space, keep the background simple or be sure that the background is part of your story. If your piece is not easy to see in the photo then use the “tilt shift” feature in your edits to blur the background a bit.

3) ALWAYS USE THE SAME FILTER. Choose one or two (if similar) filters for all your photos for a consistent look so when you view them all together it’s more appealing to the eye.

4) KEEP YOUR EDITS SIMPLE. Be conservative with your edits by making subtle tweaks so you don’t over-edit your image. I like to use the brightness, contrast, lux (the little sun icon at the top), warmth and highlight features sparingly.Think about your image like applying makeup. The more you add the more unnatural it looks.

5) CONSISTENCY IS KEY TO BRANDING WITH PHOTOS. You may have noticed that I keep using the word “consistent” and that’s because it’s the most important thing about marketing your jewelry business on Instagram.Keep a consistent look. If your jewelry is colorful – Use a filter that slightly enhances the color -keep it at a naturally saturated level. If your jewelry is mostly made with metals– try a softer filter, and choose either a warm or cool tone for all your photos by playing with the warmth.

Stone-cutting is a multistage process where a block of stone is cut to a manageable size, shaped to the approximate size and ground and polished to its final shape. There are as many different sizes and shapes of stones as there are imaginations.

In general the steps are:

• Selecting rough material – to get a rough idea what a stone will look like polished it is usually helpful to look at the stone wet. Some minerals will look much better than others when polished.“You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” applies equally well to lapidary cutting. Many stones will look great polished but not all stones are worth your time. For instance a stone with a major fracture line through the center will probably fracture when you try to cut it. Some minerals do look best in their natural uncut state!
• When you are out collecting stones some stones will be “leaverites” which is a stone which rockhounds know means “leave her (i.e. the stone) right where you found it!”
• You will usually have an idea what sort of finished stone you want to create – common shapes are the cabochon (flat bottom, rounded top usually in a round or oval shape), facetted (a stone with angled flat sides – a good example being the standard round diamond), freeforms (can be any shape) or carvings (usually done with stone carving tools especially with soft materials like soapstone, pipestone or alabaster). Cabochons and facetted stones are often set in jewellery.
• Usually it is a 3 or 4 stage process: rough cutting to the approximate shape, grinding with a grind stone, more detailed shaping with a sanding belt (usually silicon carbide or diamond abrasives) followed by the final polish (which is done with various powdered polishes).

-The picture above shows this four step process of going from a rough piece of jade to the final fully polished seal.

• Stones come in a wide variety of hardness’s and consistency – harder stones require more effort on grinding, sanding and polishing than softer stones. Not all stones are of the same hardness all the way through – this can create special challenges for the cutter! Jade is among the hardest stones to cut as it is the densest stone regularly available in pebble size or larger.
• Cabochon cutters try to get the smoothest most polished curved stone possible with no trace of flatness on the top side of the stone.
• Facetted stones are more difficult yet as cutting these requires a good knowledge of optics to get the brightestdiffraction of light for the stone’s properties as well as excellent polishing skills. Each mineral or gem bends light differently and getting just the right cutting angle is an art form in itself.
• Stone carvers usually have an idea in mind before they make the first cut and the best carvers make best use of natural imperfections in the stone to enhance the finished carving.
• There are many types of stone craft and many of our staff have worked in a variety of styles so when you come in you will be impressed with our staff’s knowledge of stones and how they are worked.
• The art of lapidary is many-sided and many lapidarists specialize in a particular style of cutting. Many results of lapidary art are set in metals of different sorts and metalworking is a separate type of artwork in itself.