Posted by Alicia E. Staz on September 20th, 2006 — Posted in Crystals
I am starting a series on birthstones. Many of the items at Beaded Royalty are designed with birthstones and I use Swarovski crystal beads exclusively because they are the best. Also called Austrian crystal, Swarovski crystal is the finest quality, full-lead crystal made today. Swarovski crystal contains a minimum of 32% PbO (lead), to maximize refraction and make the crystal optically pure. Swarovski crystal is faceted with tremendous precision and brilliant colors and/or coatings are added to create beads of dazzling beauty in a tremendous variety of shapes and sizes.
Daniel Swarovski was born in 1862 in Bohemia. Bohemia was one of the most important manufacturing centers for glass and crystal. As a young boy, Daniel watched his father work in his glass and crystal cutting business. When he got older, he completed apprenticeships with his father and at several other crystal-cutters. At the age of 21, he had an idea of a lifetime - develop a machine for cutting crystal. For nine years, he worked day and night on his dream. In 1892, he registered a patent for his invention: a machine that cut crystal to perfection every time. In 1895, he founded Swarovski with his brother-in-law Franz Weis and Armand Kosmann. They opened a crystal cutting factory in Wattens (near Innsbruck, Austria) where they could take advantage of local hydroelectricity for the energy-intensive grinding processes of his machine.
It took the years between 1908 and 1913 to perfect the formula for a flawless crystal. This was done primarily by Daniel’s sons Wilhelm, Friedrich, and Alfred who followed in their father’s footsteps. Their goal was to create the very finest crystal in the world and to meet production demands that were growing every year.
Swarovski has invented and patented hundreds of unique products comprised of crystals. Here are just a few:
1931 - Crystal-set fabric ribbon, which could be applied directly to clothing, shoes, and any other accessory
1956 - Jewelry stone finish “Aurora Borealis”, which shimmers in every imaginable color
1967 - Machine cut simulated precious crystals
1975 - “Hot-Fix” technology adds a sparkling radiance to any item of clothing
1993 - “Crystal Mesh” revolutionized jewelry and fashion accessory design
1999 - “Crystal Tattoo” applies self-adhesive crystal jewelry stones to the skin
2003 - “Crystal Fabric” fuses fabric and crystal into a second skin
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Posted by Alicia E. Staz on September 13th, 2006 — Posted in Crystals
I love charms. I think they really add personality and individuality to a piece of jewelry. I have looked into the recent history of charms and thought I would share. Quite interesting…
Charms have been around since the very beginning of recorded history. Ancient man wore teeth and shells as adornments. The Egyptians used them to ward off bad spirits. However, the recent history of charms as we know them today began in the early 20th century. It was Queen Victoria who made charms a highly sort after fashion item. She wore small lockets containing family portraits, jewels and even locks of her beloved husband’s hair in charms on her bracelets.
Charm bracelets had their first peak of popularity in the United States after World War II. American soldiers returned home from Europe and the islands in the Pacific with souvenir charms for their sweethearts, wives and mothers. They had picked up trinkets made by native craftsmen representing items common to the particular area where they had been stationed. Jewelers quickly picked up on the trend and began to create charms for all occasions.
Today, charms are as popular as ever. Charms represent the wearer’s personality and special interests, such as pets, hobbies, career, or beliefs. They have a unique ability to commemorate special life events - births, weddings, graduations - and become a gift that can be added to over the course of a person’s life. Since they don’t tarnish, sterling silver charms like the ones I use at Beaded Royalty, many times become cherished family heirlooms when passed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter.
The fashion industry has even discovered the lure of the charm bracelet, flooding the market with new charm styles. Fashion leaders like Louis Vuitton have declared them the must-have accessory for any occasion. If the most recent history is any indication, it looks like charms will be in style for quite sometime.
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Posted by Alicia E. Staz on September 6th, 2006 — Posted in Jewelry Materials
The jewelry you are wearing is only worth the wire it is strung on. If the designer scrimps and doesn’t use a high quality beading wire, it will eventually break, scattering your beads wherever you happened to be at the moment.
So what do you need to know about beading wire to make sure your jewelry piece lasts? Here are the basics:
Diameter of Beading Wire
Not surpisingly, the larger the diameter, the larger the wire. A small diameter is .014 inch. It’s great for lightweight items such as pearls, tiny gemstone beads and seed beads. The larger the diameters (.019 and .024 inch) work better for larger and heavier beads or those that might have abrasive edges.
Number of Strands in the Beading Wire
The number of strands is directly proportional to the diameter of the wire. The larger the diameter, the more strands. So it follows that the higher number of strands is going to be better for larger and heavier items. Also, if you know you will be wearing a piece daily, it is a good idea to just start with a higher strand count to be on the safe side. 21 strand wire is very lightweight and delicate. It is good for stringing seed beads and freshwater pearls if you don’t plan to wear the piece on a daily basis. 49 strand wire is the better choice for heavier beads or heavier wear. Just a note…49 strand wire is 7 individual wires that each have 7 strands of stainless steel woven together. As you can imagine, this is pretty tough stuff.
Coating on the Beading Wire
I use Soft-Flex 0.019 inch 49-strand wire at Beaded Royalty because it is marine quality. On top of the fact that the wire is 49 strands of stainless steel wire, it is coated with nylon and can be worn in and out of salt and fresh water. Several other brands exist that may or may not be up to par with Soft-Flex. Some wire is merely coated with colored plastic. Other wire is not even coated. I have restrung bracelets where the wire was rusted…a disaster waiting to happen.
Bottom line - make sure your beaded jewelry pieces are strung on high quality wire. Cheap wire leads to a bracelet that is not worth much…no matter how much you paid for it.
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Posted by Alicia E. Staz on September 4th, 2006 — Posted in Jewelry Materials
I am a scientist by education (I graduated from Messiah College with a Premed degree in Biology) and have always been facinated by the chemical elements. My business is making custom jewelry out of sterling silver beads, but there is so much more to silver. Here are a few interesting tidbits:
Physical Properties
- Chemical symbol: Ag
- Atomic weight: 107.870
- Atomic Number: 47
- Melting Point: 1761 degrees F or 960 degrees C
- Specific gravity: 10.5
Little Known Facts
- It can be hammered into sheets so thin that it would take 100,000 of them to make a stack an inch high.
- These sheets are so thin that light shines through them.
- It can be drawn into wire finer than a human hair.
- It is the best conductor of heat and electricity among the metals, but its greater cost and tarnishability prevented it from being used in place of copper for wiring.
- When melted, it can absorb as much as 20 times its own volume of oxygen.
- Pure silver is too soft to stand up under constant wear, it is usually mixed with copper to form an alloy (sterling silver) before it is made into commercial articles.
- It is stable in pure air and water, but ozone and sulphur cause it to turn black (tarnish).
- The words for “silver” and “money” are the same in at least 14 languages.
Uses
- Its principal use is as a precious metal.
- Its salts, especially silver nitrate, are widely used in photography (which is the largest single end use of silver).
- Despite its cost, it is used in electrical and electronic products which need its superior conductivity.
- It is used in mirrors which need superior reflectivity for visible light. Common mirrors are backed with aluminium.
- It is used in the manufacture of jewelry and silverware, which are traditionally made from the silver alloy Sterling Silver, 92.5% silver and 7.5% copper.
- It is awarded as medals in competition denoting second place.
- It is used in dental alloys for fittings and fillings.
- Silver fulminate is a powerful explosive.
- Silver iodide has been used in attempts to seed clouds to produce rain.
- Silver oxide is used as a positive electrode (cathode) in watch batteries.
- Colloidal silver is an antibacterial/antibiotic treatment used in alternative medicine.
- It is used as the basis for many monetary systems. Its value as a precious metal was long considered second only to gold. In Ancient Egypt and Medieval Europe, it was considered more valuable than gold.
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Posted by Alicia E. Staz on September 2nd, 2006 — Posted in General
So which is better…solid sterling silver or silver-plated? I think the answer is obvious enough, but aren’t silver-plated beads much cheaper? The answer is yes, they are cheaper. But as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. Silver-plated beads are - exactly as they sound - some other material coated with a very thin layer of silver. That layer of silver can (and does) wear off over time. How long it takes to wear off depends on several factors:
What is underneath the silver? This is known as the “base” of the silver. The best material to have underneath is brass. Silver with a steel or aluminum base is not as valuable and will feel noticeably lighter. This is easy to determine if we are talking about a silver serving tray, but not so easy if we are talking about a 4mm silver bead.
The next factor is the coating over the base between it and the silver. If the piece is coated with a combination of nickel, copper and zinc, it will accept (or bond) to the silver better. There is no way to determine this, so you just have to hope the person who did the plating knew what they were doing and didn’t cut too many corners.
The final factor is the thickness of the silver coating. Silver tarnishes over time…that is a fact of life. It will happen whether your piece is solid sterling silver or silver-plated. The difference is what is revealed underneath when it is polished. When you polish silver, you are removing the layer of tarnish and revealing the “fresh” silver underneath. In a way, it is like peeling an onion. If your piece is solid sterling silver, you will never find anything besides more silver. If it is silver-plated, eventually the silver will wear off and you will get down to the base material - usually not very pretty.
So how thick is thick enough? A cheap piece will be coated with 1-3 microns of silver plating. It will only take a few polishes for the silver to wear away completely. If the piece is coated with 8-10 microns, you should be in good shape. 25 microns is about as thick as silver plate gets.
With beads there is no way to tell what is underneath. It could be brass, aluminum or even plastic. AND, if the material wasn’t coated properly before being plated, the silver will come off in flakes and you will have a real mess on your hands. I decided when I started making jewelry that I would never use anything but the best. All of my jewelry is made from solid sterling silver. I intend for it to be worn and passed down to the next generation.
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