1/2/07 WigJig Newsletter on Jewelry Making, Jewelry Supplies, Beads and Wire dated 1/02/2007

Boomer the Beads & Jewelry Making Supplies by WigJig Spokesdog WigJig News -- AKA Boomer Sez:

Our Spokesdog: If an insurance company can have a gecko, we have decided that we can have a spokesdog. Boomer, shown working at right, is our spokesdog. Boomer's job is to keep the deer from eating our bushes. Our camera is good at taking pictures of jewelry, but not as good at taking White Deer by WigJig Jewelry Making Tools pictures of dogs and deer as shown here. (Boomer has an electronic collar that limits how far he can chase the deer. Here Boomer is near his boundary and the deer know it. Some continue to graze and completely ignore Boomer.)

On the left is our best picture of the white deer that inhabits Boomer's neighborhood. As you can see the deer has a grey head and some grey markings on a body that is mostly white. Again, we are sorry, but we could not get a better picture.

Birthstone for January: The modern birthstone for January is the Garnet. The term garnet applies to many different chemical compounds gererically called neosilicates. While garnets normally come in the red color shown here, garnets can come in the greatest variety of colors of any gemstone. The use of garnets as a gem can be traced to pre-historic times. Beginning in the late 19th century garnets were used as an industrial abrasive in addition to as a gemstone. The varieties of garnet have hardnesses between 6.5 and 7.5 on the Mohs hardness scale (quartz has a hardness of 7). Additional information on garnets can be found by searching on the Internet.

Guest Contributor: This weeks guest contributor is Jana Harp. Jana is affiliated with OneMaker, a non-profit organization born out of a desire to provide Afghan women with economic opportunities. In the summer of 2003, OneMaker's founder visited Afghanistan and met a young Afghan woman who referred to Afghanistan as the "Land of Tears". An American jewelry designer, moved with compassion for the Afghans designed the "Land of Tears" necklace shown at right. In 2004, OneMaker's Project Manager in Afghanistan went in search of women who might be able to make the Land of Tears necklace. She found a group of artisans ready to close up their jewelry shop because the market for jewelry in Afghanistan was drying up. The goal of the OneMaker organization is to provide Afghan women with a sustainable business to give them more control over their lives. Anyone who would like to assist OneMaker with their charity efforts can contact Jana Harp at jana.harp@cox.net. OneMaker will be happy to accept donations of jewelry making materials and will accept assistance in making new jewelry designs. Please contact Jana if you would like to assist in this effort.

Shows: This year Gary Helwig from WigJig will be attending shows at Tucson, Milwaukee and probably late in the year at Reading, PA. The first show will be the Best Bead Show at Tucson, AZ from January 31 to February 4th. Gary will be demonstrating our WigJig tools and displaying the jewelry shown on our web site in the Soft Flex Booth. Don't look for a WigJig booth, we will be in the Soft Flex booth in the Kino Veterans Memorial Community Center, 2805 East Ajo Way; Tucson, AZ 85713. You can find information on the show times and a link to a map to the community center here.

Free Jewelry Design:

Beaded Circles Jewelry Making Project with Swarovski Beads

Beaded Circles Earrings Jewelry Making Project with Crystal Beads

With every newsletter we provide a new jewelry design from WigJig University to spur the creative juices. The new design for this newsletter is the design for the Beaded Circles Earrings jewelry making project shown here. This is a beginners jewelry making project and uses one of our WigJig tools and four Super Pegs, one each in the following sizes: 3/16", 5/16", 7/16" and 1/2".

For those of you who like long earrings that are unique, this is an excellent jewelry making project. It can be made with any round 6mm beads and will look striking. We chose Swarovski round Crystal AB beads because they reflect so much light that they really draw attention to the earrings.

Once you have the technique down, these earrings take about 15-20 minutes to make a pair. The key phrase here is "once you have the technique down". We do recommend making about 3 of these earrings with practice wire before you begin to cut your good wire.

To view our instructions for how to make these Beaded Circles Earrings select here, or select either picture.

Past Techniques:
We maintain a techniques web page that provides links to the discussion of techniques in our prior newsletters. You can visit this web page here. Follow the links on that page to the discussion of the technique in that newsletter.

Jewelry Technique:
This weeks jewelry making technique is a different technique for making a jewelry wire chain as a watchband. This chain uses the larger two loop link described in our prior newsletter (with two different sizes of loops) along with three of the larger links made the same size loop on either end. This combination of four larger links on either side of the watch face are connected one to another by a small link that we call a wrapped figure 8 link. You can see the small wrapped figure 8 connector above-left shown magnified. For the watch shown above-right, we used a combination of sterling silver wrapped figure 8 connectors connecting gold-filled larger links to mirror the combination of silver-tone and gold-tone metal in the watch face. This watch was also completed with a 3" guard chain to prevent loss.

You can view our instructions for making the jewelry wire watchband by selecting either picture above or by selecting here.

Nostalgia Corner:
This weeks featured design in our Nostalgia Corner is the design for our Triangle Beads Necklace shown at right. This necklace is made with a wire component as a yoke that is both decorative and strong. One of the things that we like to concentrate on when we are making jewelry components is that they pass the baby test. For us the baby test is -- if a 15 or 20 pound baby were to grab this piece of jewelry, would the baby be able to pull it apart. This isn't the Herculese test. We don't think that it is important that a piece of jewelry survive the worst imaginable torture, but we do believe that jewelry should stand up to the modest forces that a baby could apply. For the centerpiece of this necklace, the beginning loop and the ending loop overlap at the center of the "V". By placing a bead dangle connecting both beginning loop and ending loops, this wire component is rather strong and won't easily come apart. It should easily survive a 20 pound tug.

Please select here, or select the picture above-right to view our instructions for making the Triangle Beads Necklace Jewelry Making Project.

Warning! Joke Follows.
This is only a joke. We tell jokes because we are in favor of smiling, laughing and being happy. This does not mean that we are opposed to anyone or anything. This joke has a religious theme. If you are offended by religious humor, please skip this portion of our newsletter.

Boomer Humor: Boomer is in doggie sunday school and his teacher says "You know that Mary is the mother of the baby Jesus. Do you know who the father of baby Jesus was?" Boomer replies "Yes. The father of baby Jesus was Virgil, but everyone calls him Verge." The teacher says to Boomer somewhat incredulously "Boomer what makes you think that Verge was the father of Jesus?" Boomer responds confidently "Surely, teacher, you've heard of Verge and Mary."

We are continuing to improve our newsletter, so please feel free to provide feedback at custsrv@wigjig.com.

Announcements:
Online Books. If you are looking for new and interesting jewelry projects -- try one of our Online Books. Our most detailed instructions are for sale online. Please select here to view our selection of online books. These books are delivered over the Internet and there are no shipping costs on an order with just online books.

Shipping Policy. We waive the shipping charge on orders over $60 shipped within the US (as long as these orders remain over $60). For International orders we ship via UPS international service and charge $34.95 (our average cost) for this expedited shipping service. Please select here to view our entire shipping policy.

WigJig University. We provide Over 2,500 web pages of free information, tips, techniques and free jewelry making designs in WigJig University. We encourage everyone to view this information as a source for new ideas, projects, or a way to learn new techniques. We now have a page in WigJig University that shows our designs sorted by the WigJig tool used to make them. Please select here to view that information.

International Vendors. We do have vendors who sell our WigJig products outside the US. We encourage customers to contact these vendors in their home country. Please select here to view our list of overseas vendors. We are also happy to sell our WigJig tools to stores. Please send us an e-mail if you are interested in selling our WigJig tools.

Classes. We have a listing of various jewelry making classes using our WigJig tools that are offered by bead stores throughout the country. If you are interested in classes, please select here. If you know someone who has classes in using our WigJig tools, please ask them to send us an e-mail at custsrv@wigjig.com so that we can include them in these pages.

SHIPPING WAIVED ON ALL ORDERS OVER $60.00 SHIPPED TO USA - Customer Care - WigJig, PO Box 5124, Gaithersburg, MD 20882; (800) 579-WIRE (phone), (240) 597-2262 (fax), custsrv@wigjig.com (email). Privacy Policy. All content on this web site including jewelry and wire designs are copyrighted© by WigJig. WigJig® is a registered trademark. Last modified: 01/02/2007

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2003 2004 2005

1/16/2006 02/12/2006 02/26/2006 03/13/2006 03/26/2006 04/09/2006 04/30/2006

05/14/2006 06/29/2006 07/16/2006 08/06/2006 08/21/2006 09/04/2006 09/17/2006

10/02/2006 10/15/2006 10/30/2006 11/13/2006 11/27/2006 12/10/2006

01/02/2007

Beads, Tools & Jewelry Supplies by WigJig Jewelry Making Newsletter

6mm Swarovski Amethyst Bicone Beads Package of 12 beads	4mm Bicone Swarovski Rose Light Beads Package of 24 beads
Freshwater Pearl Beads Nugget White 16/package 6x5mm size	Set of 3 Metal Dowels Jewelry Tool
Round Nose Pliers - WigJig Our Recommended Round Nose Pliers	20G Natural Silver Anti-Tarnish Silver Plated wire 18' Spool

Beads, Tools & Jewelry Making Supplies by WigJig Newsletter 01/02/2007