Photo Charms - Personal Christmas Gifts With Style From Zazzle

I have been looking at ideas for personal Christmas gifts this year, and have found what I think is a brilliant way of making a really unique piece of jewelry for a loved one. Photo charms! These pretty trinkets are from Zazzle, and can be personalized with any pictures, text, or artwork, that you like, or even a combination of all three.

I was lucky enough to receive a gift voucher from Zazzle, (thank you Zazzle!) and ordered three charms to test them out.

I have a lovely charm bracelet which I am slowly filling with crystals, shells, and 3D silver charms. I make all of the crystal charms myself, using gemstone beads and wire. How cool would it be to be able to add photos to my bracelet too!

Easy Earring DIY - Daily DIY Challenge

Make A Pair Of Beaded Loop Earrings

This is a nice easy earring DIY which takes about 15 minutes to complete.

I make a lot of jewelry and lately have been making these cute beaded loop earrings. They can be as simple or as extravagant as you like, it all depends on the size and style of beads that you use.

Beaded Wrap Bracelet

One of the most beautiful and interesting jewelry trends is the beaded wrap bracelet. There are some wonderful examples below, with all kinds of pretty beads and color combinations.

Generally a beaded wrap bracelet is a coil of leather thong, with beads strung across the coils to build up the bracelet. They are real statement pieces and a very versatile piece of jewelry, as many of them are suitable to be worn with casual or formal clothing.

Wire Jig Review - Wig Jig Cyclops And Centaur

If you enjoy working with wire, beading, or jewelry making, then a good wire jig is a must. A wire jig allows you to work to a set pattern which results in consistent pieces of jewelry every time. This is especially useful for making earrings where each must be identical.

I recently bought 2 different 'Wig-Jigs' after researching all of the available wire jigs on the market, and I'm really happy with them!

I was previously using a Fiskars Wire Winder, which is also a great jig, but differs to the Wig Jig as it has fixed pegs and you have to buy different design templates. Because of this the designs you can make are quite limited. Also Fiskars have discontinued this item and it has become hard, and expensive to get hold of... Boo Hoo! I had to find an alternative wire jig.

How To Make A Pendant From Found Objects - DIY Fashion Challenge

*I am running my daily DIY fashion challenge weekly now as I am really busy at the moment.

Wire wrapped pendants are simple to make (if a little fiddly). The great thing about them is that you can harness almost any found object and turn it into something wearable. I have made wire wrap pendants out of a multitude of items in the past, sea glass, shells, pretty stones, crystals, and even out of pieces of ancient pottery that can be found scattered in the fields near where I live.

Today I will be making a new pendant, I make jewelry to sell, but also like to make it for myself too, I will be making a cute pebble pendant to add to my collection, and showing you how to make one too.

Ancient Pottery Pendant

I found this piece of ancient pottery years ago in a stream in the woods, it was just lying there amongst the stones and I was really excited when I found it. I have been keeping it safe and when I used to travel I would take it with me in my pocket, like a good luck charm.

I have always wanted to wear this pottery on a pendant, because it seems such a shame to just have it sitting in a cabinet, and I am always scared of losing it from my pocket...

I decided to finally make it into a pendant, I make quite a lot of pendants and charms from cute things that I have found, but I had been putting this one off because I thought that it would be quite hard to wire, it turned out that it was a bit fiddly because it's flat and delicate, so I couldn't grip the wire against it with the pliers like I would normally. I also had to use some wires across the front, but it wasn't as hard as I thought and I like the end result, it's much better than it sitting unseen in a cabinet. I also added some amethyst chips to one of the wires to bring a bit of color.

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Fake Gemstones And Gemstone Beads Labeled As Real On Ebay

Just lately I have been learning an awful lot about the influx of fake gemstones and gemstone beads on ebay, which are labelled as genuine. I have also been a victim of this myself which is why I have been finding out as much as I can on the subject.

Advice on the internet is not to buy from China, India, or Thailand, but this is a little unfair as I have received some really nice genuine gemstones and real gemstone beads from both China and India, and also fake ones too.