Jewelry Designer Blog

June 30, 2011

Silver Charms Price Reduction!

Filed under: Business — Tags: , — nina @ 2:30 pm

Silver Charms price reduction at last! I am both excited and relieved to announce that we can finally revoke our last price increase. Effective immediately we are dropping our prices on all silver and gold vermeil items by 9%. I know how difficult these high prices have been for everyone. The silver market is a volatile and complicated creature with little regard for the needs of artists or small businesses. We will continue to watch closely and keep our fingers crossed that prices will fall again. To help buffer the price of silver, we are also introducing a new bronze line in our most popular styles. The bronze will be offered in a beautiful, warm, natural finish at less than 50% of the silver price. It will also be offered in silver and gold plate. We are using the same thickness of plating that we currently use for our vermeil style gold plated sterling silver. Bronze items will start to arrive at the end of August. I hope you all have a fabulous summer!

Jewelry Design Success Story: Alison Kelley Designs

Filed under: Success Stories — Tags: , , — juanita @ 10:00 am

This month we’d like you to meet Alison Kelley, a jewelry designer who grew up in a family of artists, woodworkers, and seamstresses. Her family roots are in Malta, a tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea that inspires her jewelry design. Alison started designing jewelry 17 years ago, but in the last few years, with the encouragement of her husband and three sons, she has turned her passion into a successful small business.

What is your favorite Nina Designs charm?
I love the sterling silver pineapple charm. It’s the first charm I ever bought from Nina Designs and still my favorite. It reminds me of my second honeymoon in Maui. I love pairing it with a white fresh water pearl and a champagne cubic zirconia.

Where do you find your inspiration?
Color is my biggest inspiration. I love to study how nature combines colors. This makes it easier for me to come up with inspiring color combinations for my upcoming jewelry designs. I used to watch a TV show on BBC America called “What Not to Wear,” hosted by Trinny and Suzanne, who offered advice on how to wear color and that’s always stayed with me whether I’m designing jewelry, decorating my home, or getting dressed.

(more…)

June 28, 2011

Sterling Silver Yoga Charms Inspires My Practice

Filed under: Inspiration — Tags: , , — Anna @ 11:15 am

Our unique sterling silver Yoga charms always leave me feeling inspired to be more compassionate and patient with myself and others, and to make time for my yoga practice. Today I started my day earlier than normal to join DeAnna at Flying Yoga for an early morning session. We both have worked with Sara Getz and wanted to continue our practice with her. Even though I was reluctant, once I was there and on my mat, I was extremely thankful for the opportunity to continue my yoga practice.

What my body and mind allows for each practice is different. Sometimes I’m able to flow right into the poses, other times I find myself resisting each movement; clenching my jaw with frustration. Today there was a mix of both. Often in Yoga classes, we will set an intention for the practice and the day. When my frustration boils to the surface I take a moment to breathe and repeat my intention.

Yoga, for a lot of people is calming and relaxing. For me it is a often a struggle and a practice in acceptance. Acceptance of where I am, where my body is, of just that moment. In this practice of moving, breathing and focus, occasionally there will be a moment of calm, of just being there. That one moment is worth the struggle every time. Today amidst the newness of the studio and the foreign faces surrounding me I was able to find more than a few of those moments. I’m looking forward to the next session and trying to remain open to whatever it may bring.

Word charms help set your intention at the start of your next Yoga class

June 23, 2011

How Core Values Support the Making of Silver Charms

Filed under: Business, Customer Service — Tags: , , — juanita @ 10:37 am

Here at Nina Designs it is a priority not only to offer you inspiring silver charms and excellent customer service, but also to support each other as a team and challenge ourselves personally. While we’ve been doing this for 25+ years, we’ve recently decided to draft a set of meaningful core values that will guide each of us through our everyday decisions. Nina’s been reading many books on this process, and we started a book club so we could all help. Here are some of our initial thoughts.

After reading our first book, “Delivering Happiness,” by Tony Hsieh, we were most impressed by Zappos’ deceptively simple yet very meaningful list of core values that express their unique work culture and traits they would hire and fire by. Anyone who knows Zappos would recognize them by reading this list. During our book club meeting we immediately recognized that Nina Designs is similar to Zappos in one very fundamental way – we are both mail order companies. But while Zappos delivers happiness through speedy shipping and incredible customer service, we deliver inspiration through unique designs and support for women artisans and entrepreneurs.

It’s been 8 weeks since that initial meeting, and after much deliberation, we’ve drafted our core values. Here they are:

Brainstorming Session

Creativity
Creativity drives our designs, our problem solving and our approach to life.

Excellence
We design and sell excellent products. We deliver outstanding customer service.

Respect
We respect each other, our customers, our suppliers, our community and our environment. We treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves.

Teamwork
We are an upbeat team with a family spirit. We build authentic, supportive relationships through honest communication.

Initiative
We are self-motivated and responsible. We take the initiative to improve our personal performance, our products, our company and our community.

Inspiration
We deliver inspiration through our unique designs, our support for women artisans and entrepreneurs, and our progressive business model.

What do you think? Would you recognize us by this list?

June 21, 2011

Your Silver Charms Help Fund Microloans!

Filed under: philanthropy — Tags: , — nina @ 11:00 am

Every Silver Charm counts! Even in this tough economy, it is important to stand by our commitments to help make the world a better place. With that in mind, we recently increased out microloan fund from $5,000 to $10,000. These loans are administered by Novica and have 0% interest. The interest rate is crucial because access to capital in developing countries is very difficult, especially for women, and rates can run up to 30% A MONTH! Since 100% of our 2010 loans were paid back, we were able to make loans to 10 new women artisans, many of them silversmiths in Bali.

Most of us can relate to this quote from Kenari, “The instability in the price of silver is really affecting me as an artisan. Silver is becoming so expensive that it is difficult for me to afford enough to keep a stock. I plan to use the loan to buy as much silver as possible to be able to continue doing my craft. I am constantly worrying about the rising cost of silver and whether or not I’ll be able to keep a strong stock that would enable us to replenish and meet orders.”

Kenari was born in 1979 in Celuk, a village famous for its gold and silversmiths. All of her family members work in silver. From the time she was very young, Kenari started learning the process of crafting silver jewelry such as rings, necklaces, bracelets and much more. Her days were filled by assisting her uncle in his silver workshop.

In 2003, Kenari married an artist from Gianyar. Balinese women who marry live with the husband’s family and so did she. Even after moving away from the silverwork environment, Kenari was still obsessed with crafting jewelry. Fortunately, her husband gives her great support. While working in an art shop, Kenari is active in designing silver jewelry. She is constantly busy developing new designs.

Kenari’s jewelry is for sale at Novica.

Earrings by Kenari

June 17, 2011

Silver Pendants Go to Press

Filed under: Behind the Scenes — Tags: , — nina @ 11:00 am

Our Silver Pendants, Charms and Jewelry Findings are winging their way across the country on the pages of our new catalog.  If you don’t receive yours in the next week or so, give us a call and we’ll send you one. This catalog is the first one that does not have printed prices. The Silver Market has been so volatile that any price we set would have been instantly obsolete. Instead, we added a printable price sheet to our website that we will update as needed. You can download the price sheet any time you want. Just remember to check the website to be sure the prices are still accurate if you are referencing a price sheet you printed at an earlier date. We do apologize for the inconvenience. We hope that it is offset by the user friendly modifications we made to both the catalog and the website. What do you think of the new edition?

Paper for Printing the Catalog

June 10, 2011

Fashion Friday: Hippie Headbands with rose gold plated silver charms

Filed under: Fashion Friday — Tags: , , — Tiffany @ 10:46 am

June is a fabulous month to show off your rose gold plated silver charms. This time of year everyone is enjoying the sunshine and warm weather. It’s natural for our inner flower child to come out and play. The days are longer and spending time lounging on a plush green field with yellow daisies is extremely desirable. Weekends spent outdoors are filled with rosy cheeks and rhythmic beats.

I was personally inspired by the sweet smell of honeysuckles draped over wooden fences, the cool moisture of the earth beneath my bare feet with slivers of grass between my toes, and seeing children bike past me racing to the park. There is something so peaceful about summer time and there is nothing more beautiful than seeing a woman basking in the sun with a slight breeze through her hair. The flower child look I have created braids feminine silhouettes, natural beauty, and blossoming colors into a new day hippie. Our rose gold peace charms intertwine with bold deer hide lace coupled with our warm colored gemstone beads to make a modern headband that is adjustable and can be worn as a necklace too. The perfect accessory to sweet heart strapless tops and chambre trouser pants.

Flower Child


June 8, 2011

How to Build a Jewelry Display for Earrings

Filed under: Jewelry Display & Packaging — Tags: , — Emily @ 11:00 am

I’m always searching for new ways to create jewelry displays. I had an “Aha!” moment recently when I came across an old unused picture frame in my closet. As you can see, this frame has deep sides that perfectly allow for dowels to be inset to make an easy, polished looking jewelry display for earrings, and even necklaces.

I bought some ¼” wooden dowels at my local craft store that I could fit hook earrings onto and cut them into sections as long as my picture frame was wide. Next, I played with the spacing of the dowels to make sure I could accommodate both long and short pairs of earrings, and marked off where I wanted the dowels positioned. Using a power drill, I was able to quickly drill holes into the frame, which I then threaded my dowel sections into. Threading the dowels into the holes will provide some strength to the dowels, so they can bear the weight of all your fabulous earrings. Now, you can paint or embellish your frame and dowels to make a jewelry display that reflects your style and personality.

What kind of crafty jewelry display ideas have you created?

Use old wooden frames for earring displays


Fit this technique to your style using different kinds of wood frames

June 6, 2011

Silver Prices for Charms and Pendants

Filed under: Business — Tags: — nina @ 12:00 pm

Silver Prices for Charms and Pendants have been volatile in recent months with a much publicized plunge from $48 oz to $32 oz in the span of a few days at the end of April and the beginning of May. We were hoping that the price of silver would stay in the low $30s so that we could lower prices, but it has floated back up.

Our last price increase on April 7th brought our prices up to match silver in the high $30s, which is where we are now. We were just about to raise prices again in late April to reflect silver in the high $40s when the silver price tumbled. With a sigh of relief, we canceled the increase. For the moment, our prices will remain where they are. If silver falls to the low $30s and remains there for a sustained amount of time we should be able to roll back prices.

Another factor that may impact prices this year is that Congress has not renewed the GSP (Generalized System of Preferences), a program designed to promote economic growth in developing countries. The GSP usually allows us to import from Thailand and Indonesia without paying import duties. Since January 1st, 2011 we have had to pay these additional taxes, which are not included in our price structure. We are hoping the GSP bill will be renewed soon, but at some point, if it isn’t, the taxes will have to be included in our pricing model.

I wish I had better pricing news but I wanted to give everyone a frank evaluation of the market. Silver seems to have reclaimed its place as a precious metal. As consumers adjust, they will start to see purchases of silver jewelry as an investment. For those who find silver out of reach, our bronze line will start arriving mid to late summer. It looks stunning and the price points are very affordable. We will have natural, silver plated and gold plated bronze. Our most popular charms and pendants will be the first styles available.

Thank you for your business and your continued patience!

Nina

June 4, 2011

Details are the magical key to unlocking the power of silver charms!

Filed under: Inspiration — Tags: , , — Elspeth @ 12:08 pm

The microscopic details of our silver charms and jewelry design have altered my creative focus in a big way. Previously, my creative energy was focused on projects like refinishing furniture or choosing the perfect color palette for an entire house . . . projects about the big picture. Small and detailed was not necessarily my area of expertise. But alas, all of the fantastic silver charms and findings at Nina Designs have been successful in opening (or shall I say narrowing) my eyes to a new set of parameters.

All of us share a common interest in jewelry and are well aware that in the world of silver charms and chain, details are key. What gauge silver wire is appropriate with my favorite silver charms? Should I use 4 mm or 5 mm jump rings? How many inches of that beautiful gold-plated chain is enough? How much is too much? Making jewelry requires a set of very critical eyes. And a strong magnifying glass too! You’ve got to be aware down to the millimeter. When it comes to jewelry, it really is the small things that matter most.

What details do you pay most attention to in your designs? Any handy tips you’d like to share?

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