We recently completed work on several new silver charms that celebrate the crafty side of life. A ball of yarn, a pair of scissors and a spool of thread join our collection of lifestyle charms. These charms have complete detail on both the front and back and are so cute in person! We imagined a necklace that combines the ball of yarn with our happy cat charm – how darling. We should have these charms in stock by mid-August. Click here if you’d like to watch a slide show illustrating the many steps involved in casting these charms.
Sing it loud and clear: I'm a crafty lady!
Prize: Lily of the Valley Necklace
Did you know that we catalogue hundreds of FREE design ideas for anyone to use? Feel free to make exact replicas or to use our designs as a jumping off point for your own inspirations. Sometimes it helps just to look at many different designs to get your creative juices flowing or to see how someone else used a part you really like. We encourage you to play, have fun and create awesome jewelry!
And now . . . when you participate, you can win fabulous jewelry. Just browse through our design ideas and share your favorite with everyone to enter our PRIZE drawing. In your comment tell us which design you like best and why, and this Lily of the Valley necklace could be yours. Over $100 Retail Value. We’ll randomly select a winner next Monday, July 26th.
To join in the fun, we thought we’d pick out some of our favorites too!
Stephanie’s Pick: Anna’s Desert Green Necklace. I love the heaviness of the chain and large stones in combination with the soft deer hide lace and subtle colors. I made a duplicate for myself!
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Congratulations Ellena! These are yours.!
Congratulations to Ellena Daniel. You’re the randomly selected winner of these adorable silver strawberry charm earrings! Thanks for taking the time to tell us a bit about your favorite Nina Designs component. Ellena had this to say: “I love the Sterling Silver Rectangle Printed Songbird Charms. They are perfect to wear as a pair of earrings or a pendant. I like to blacked a round silver disc and layer with the printed songbird pendant. They are just beautiful.”
Ellena, please email me at juanita(at)ninadesigns(dot)com with your address so I can send out your earrings.
Thanks to everyone who shared their favorite Nina Designs components. As I read through all the comments I was touched by your stories and reminded of all the beautiful ways women create jewelry that symbolize personal journeys and growth. What better therapy than making jewelry and tapping into your inner muse?
Staff Picks is a regular monthly blog feature, and winners are selected every month! Plus, we’re planning lots more prize drawings and contests on our blog. Please stay tuned.
Erin Strother won the drawing for telling us your favorite phrase for silver stamping blanks. Thanks to everyone who shared their favorite quotes to stamp onto silver charms. Erin likes to stamp pop culture sayings like “Beam me up Scotty,” because they make people laugh. Click here to see the original post and other favorite stamping quotes.
P.S. Erin, email me at juanita(at)ninadesigns(dot)com to claim your prize and tell me where I should ship it. Congratulations.
Prize: Boulder Beauty Necklace
Deb Houston – you’re the winner of this beautiful selection of stamping blanks, jewelry links, and silver charms. Thanks so much to everyone who voted. We had a lot of fun reading everyone’s comments. In fact, we had so much fun, we decided to do this more often! See Leah’s blog entry below for another chance to win.
Deb's Prize!
The Winning Necklace! Thanks for your votes.
Molly, these are yours!
Congratulations to Molly Hronek. You’re the randomly selected winner! Thanks for taking the time to tell us a bit about your favorite Nina Designs component. Molly had this to say: “I love all of the different
lotus designs. They are so versatile!”
Molly, please email me at juanita(at)ninadesigns(dot)com with your address so I can send out your earrings.
Thanks to everyone who participated in our first prize drawing. For another chance to win, go to the blog entry just below titled: Win a bunch of sterling silver charms, jewelry links, and stamping blanks!
Before I was a mother, I didn’t understand women who made silver charm bracelets featuring their children’s birthstones or names, or wore lockets containing their kids’ photos. Now that I’m a mom, I get it! There’s nothing in the world I love more than my son Phoenix, and thinking of him warms my heart. Wearing jewelry that reminds me of my child adds a little joy to daily routines. This necklace, with its hammered golden heart, is a celebration of my son and my angel baby. The gold-rimmed disk is one of several new stamping blanks we’ve recently added – perfect for expressing yourself! If you’re new to stamping, our classroom has tips and pointers for getting started. What is your most sentimental piece of jewelry?
A golden heart paired with kids' intials will make any mom happy.
Silver Charms never seem to go out of style. Perhaps that is why this category has expanded to dominate our product line.They are fun, collectible and timeless. By now, most of our clients know how our Bali products are made by hand by extremely skilled silversmiths schooled in an ancient tradition of metal work. Some of you might not realize that our Thai Silver Charms, though cast instead of hand fabricated, are also very labor intensive and require both technical and artistic skill to execute effectively.
The lost wax casting process begins with a hand drawn sketch, usually made by Leah in our office. The sketch is emailed to Bangkok where a wax master model is hand carved using the drawing as a guide. A rubber mold is made from the model, then filled with wax repeatedly to create “Patterns”. The wax patterns are attached to a wax base to form a “Tree” with dozens of patterns on it. This tree is placed in a flask and covered with a plaster-like material called investment. Next,the flask is baked in an oven and the wax melts away, leaving an exact impression of the tree. Molten silver is then poured into the mold and allowed to cool. After the investment is washed away with water, individual charms are clipped from the silver tree. They are trimmed, filed and polished by hand.
See a beautiful Slideshow of the entire silver casting process!
Wax Trees
Clipping Cast Silver Charms
This February at our biggest tradeshow in Tucson, we received customer requests for a variety of jewelry charms: a cheer leading megaphone, a howling wolf, baby shoes and a baby carriage, a water polo ball and a soccer ball, and a head of garlic, just to name a few. One of the most often requested items were more stamping blanks in different shapes. Stamping, where small steel letters are used to create an impression in metal, is a huge trend right now. It allows for customization and a way to tell a personal story. Many mothers wear pendants stamped with their children’s initials; an anniversary date can be stamped onto a heart; or a short uplifting poem can be stamped onto a jewelry charm and worn on a bracelet as motivation to “begin again” or “enjoy the journey”.
In response to the numerous requests we received, we have designed a line of stamping blanks that provide an elegant palette for expressing personal sentiments. They are 19 gauge thick – nice and substantial for receiving stamped letters. Two of the charms feature 24k gold plate accents. For instructions on stamping, visit our classroom. Click here to see these stamping blanks.
Great new stamping blank silver jewelry charms!
Upcoming dog bone charms in the making.
Every great office needs a great mascot decked out in silk bows and sterling silver charms! And we found ours in a lovable, absolutely adorable poodle/dachshund puppy named Dolce. As her name suggests, she is as soft and sweet as spun sugar, and a delight to have in the office. She follows Nina around everywhere, but we all take turns rubbing her pink belly and taking her for walks in the neighborhood.
Celebrate all the furry friends in your lives that provide unconditional love and endless enjoyment with our pet themed charms. Our collection is ever popular and just keeps growing. We started with our silver word charms: I love cats, I love dogs,, and wild thing. Before long we designed a series of whimsical paw print charms and a round charm featuring a cat silhouette. Be on the look out for our next cat charm, a textured version of a kitty sitting pretty, and a little dog bone charm that offers a small surface for stamping Fido’s name. And, for all you horse lovers out there, we are coming out with a series of horse charms and pendants soon!
Meet Dolce
Upcoming dog bone charms in the making