1. Preview: Orientation To Beads & Jewelry Findings

Over the years, I have found that beaders and jewelry makers have not necessarily learned how to make the best choices about selecting and using beads, clasps, and other materials. Typically, most people learn by following patterns in magazines or online, or purchasing kits. Here, all the choices have been made for them. So they never really learned the implications what bead works best when, or what clasp, or stringing material, or tool or technique.

This ORIENTATION TO BEADS & JEWELRY FINDINGS Series is presented from what is called the Art & Design Perspective. The focus is on teaching you how to make smart choices when creating jewelry.

These tutorials are not only a presentation of facts and information. They are also an introduction to ideas about design. For the novice, they are a tale of how one begins to learn and to work with beads and make jewelry. And for the experienced jewelry maker, they are a great refresher, presenting a lot of often-randomly-learned concepts in a developmental, cohesive order.

This Series of 18 modules, most around 20 minutes, and totaling a full 5 1/2 hours of introductory materials about all kinds of beads, metals, clasps and stringing materials for the beader and jewelry maker.

These tutorials are meant to be viewed in the order presented, because the information and ideas build upon one another. And while you may not be fully interested in each and every topic, it is worth your while not to skip any section. Everything interrelates.

And one more thing. I also have a 75-page article for you to download about getting started in jewelry making. You have a purpose as a jewelry designer: To merge your voice with form. This covers things you will need to know to find that voice.

• how to channel your excitement
• what types of jobs are available for those with jewelry making skills
• how to develop your passion
• what you need to learn
• what tools you will need
• how to cultivate your practice
• how to define a level of success right for you
• what it takes to achieve that level of success

THE LESSONS

1. Preview
2. Why You Need This Orientation
3. Brief History About How Beads Are Used
4. Glass Beads
5. Lampwork Beads
6. Crystal Beads
7. Seed and Cylinder Beads
8. Metals and Metal Beads
9. An Introduction To Clasps
10. Stringing Materials
11. Tools
12. Adhesives
13. Types of Beading and Jewelry Making
14. Three Different Teaching Approaches
15. Managing "Support Systems" and Potential Areas of Weakness
16. Choosing and Using Clasps
17. (a) Choosing and Using Other Jewelry Findings: Preparers

17. (b) Choosing and Using Other Jewelry Findings; Controllers and Adapters

Enroll in my jewelry design and business of craft Video Tutorials online.

Begin with my ORIENTATION TO BEADS & JEWELRY FINDINGS COURSE.

Check out these books by Warren Feld...

CONQUERING THE CREATIVE MARKETPLACE:

Between the Fickleness of Business

and the Pursuit of Design

How dreams are made

between the fickleness of business

and the pursuit of jewelry design

This guidebook is a must-have for anyone serious about making money selling jewelry. I focus on straightforward, workable strategies for integrating business practices with the creative design process. These strategies make balancing your creative self with your productive self easier and more fluid.

Based both on the creation and development of my own jewelry design business, as well as teaching countless students over the past 35+ years about business and craft, I address what should be some of your key concerns and uncertainties. I help you plan your road map.

Whether you are a hobbyist or a self-supporting business, success as a jewelry designer involves many things to think about, know and do. I share with you the kinds of things it takes to start your own jewelry business, run it, anticipate risks and rewards, and lead it to a level of success you feel is right for you, including

• Getting Started: Naming business, identifying resources, protecting intellectual property
• Financial Management: basic accounting, break even analysis, understanding risk-reward-return on investment, inventory management
• Product Development: identifying target market, specifying product attributes, developing jewelry line, production, distribution, pricing, launching
• Marketing, Promoting, Branding: competitor analysis, developing message, establishing emotional connections to your products, social media marketing
• Selling: linking product to buyer among many venues, such as store, department store, online, trunk show, home show, trade show, sales reps and showrooms, catalogs, TV shopping, galleries, advertising, cold calling, making the pitch
• Resiliency: building business, professional and psychological resiliency
• Professional Responsibilities: preparing artist statement, portfolio, look book, resume, biographical sketch, profile, FAQ, self-care

548pp.

Kindle, Print, Epub

SO YOU WANT TO BE A JEWELRY DESIGNER

Merging Your Voice With Form

So You Want To Be A Jewelry Designer reinterprets how to apply techniques and modify art theories from the Jewelry Designer’s perspective. To go beyond craft, the jewelry designer needs to become literate in this discipline called Jewelry Design. Literacy means understanding how to answer the question: Why do some pieces of jewelry draw your attention, and others do not? How to develop the authentic, creative self, someone who is fluent, flexible and original. How to gain the necessary design skills and be able to apply them, whether the situation is familiar or not.

588pp, many images and diagrams Ebook , Kindle or Print formats

The Jewelry Journey Podcast

“Building Jewelry That Works: Why Jewelry Design Is Like Architecture”

Podcast, Part 1

Podcast, Part 2

PEARL KNOTTING…Warren’s Way

Easy. Simple. No tools. Anyone Can Do!

I developed a nontraditional technique which does not use tools because I found tools get in the way of tying good and well-positioned knots. I decided to bring two cords through the bead to minimize any negative effects resulting from the pearl rotating around the cord. I only have you glue one knot in the piece. I use a simple overhand knot which is easily centered. I developed a rule for choosing the thickness of your bead cord. I lay out different steps for starting and ending a piece, based on how you want to attach the piece to your clasp assembly.

184pp, many images and diagrams Ebook, Kindle or Print

SO YOU WANT TO DO CRAFT SHOWS:

16 Lessons I Learned Doing Craft Shows

In this book, I discuss 16 lessons I learned, Including How To (1) Find, Evaluate and Select Craft Shows Right for You, (2) Determine a Set of Realistic Goals, (3) Compute a Simple Break-Even Analysis, (4) Develop Your Applications and Apply in the Smartest Ways, (5) Understand How Much Inventory to Bring, (6) Set Up and Present Both Yourself and Your Wares, (7) Best Promote and Operate Your Craft Show Business before, during and after the show.

198pp, many images and diagrams, Ebook, , Kindle or Print

___________________________________________

Thank you for visiting So You Want To Be A Jewelry Designer online video tutorials.

Learn to think and speak and work like a jewelry designer.  

My website (www.warrenfeldjewelry.com).

Subscribe to my Learn To Bead blog (https://blog.landofodds.com).

Visit Land of Odds online (https://www.landofodds.com) for all your jewelry making supplies.

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