9/19/07 WigJig Newsletter 070919 on Jewelry Making, Jewelry Supplies, Beads and Wire

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 at right, is our spokesdog.

How to Unsubscribe: If you signed up for our newsletter and then decided you don't want to receive it any more, the proper way to unsubscribe is to select the "Unsubscribe" link at the bottom of every newsletter e-mail or to follow our sign up link above. On that sign up page we also provide a way for people to unsubscribe.

Birthstone for September: The birthstone for September is the sapphire. Sapphire is one of the cardinal or most valuable gemstones along with the diamond, ruby, emerald and amethyst. Sapphire is tied with the ruby as the second hardest gemstone with a hardness of 9, only the diamond is harder. This makes sapphires a good choice for almost all jewelry applications since this gemstone is significantly harder than all dust and won't lose its shine due to normal abrasion. Sapphires and rubies are very similar chemically. We have a lot more good information on sapphire that is too detailed to include in our newsletter. Please select here to view more information on sapphire. We now have three jewelry making kits that contain man-made sapphire and are excellent gift ideas for someone born in September. You can view these new kits below. All three kits are suitable for beginners. Please select any picture below to view that kit in our Internet store including links to our free instructions for assembling that kit.


Ring Kit	Earring Kit	Necklace Kit

WigJig Brand Hand Tools: Shipment of our WigJig branded hand tools was delayed. Our understanding is that the tools will be shipped on September 19th and should be available for us to sell sometime in the week of September 24 to 30. If we said we were anxious, we would be guilty of understatement.

Guest Contributor: Our Guest Contributor for this newsletter is Eve Mendes of Scottsdale, Arizona. Eve is using our WigJig tools to support her scrap booking hobby. She has developed a couple of patterns using our jigs that she incorporates into pages in her scrap books. At right, you can view a wire coat hanger that Eve designed and made using our WigJig jewelry making tools. Please select that picture to visit a web page showing how Eve has incorporated the coat hanger wire component into her scrap booking hobby. We have to apologize to Eve, but we had to crop her picture out of this particular image so that we could have room so show the coat hanger. If you visit the web page dedicated to her projects by selecting the picture at right, you will also be able to view Eve. Eve was kind enough to allow us to use her e-mail address. Again, please visit our dedicated web page to view Eve's e-mail address. Boomer wants to thank Eve for sharing her design with us. Do you think the dog in the picture is Boomer?

New Products: Since our last newsletter, we have added several new kits to our Internet store. We now have jewelry making kits for all 12 of the birthstones. Birthstone jewelry makes a great birthday or Christmas present and we now have the calendar covered. You can view all our jewelry making kits here. You can view our jewelry making gift ideas for women here. We have also added two different sizes of gold filled chain, 18" long with a lobster clasp. You can view our new chain here. In addition, we have just added some 6mm round gemstone tourmaline. These are actual mined gemstones and not made in a laboratory. You can view this tourmaline in our Internet store here. Finally, just like our jewelry making kits for September, we have added similar kits for all the months. Please select here for links to these jewelry making kits. You can view our jewelry kits for October below:


October Ring Kit	October Earring Kit	October Necklace Kit

Price Increase: Our research indicates that we are selling our bling gemstones at prices from 1/10 to 1/2 of the other vendors on the Internet. In October, we will increase the price for our gemstones, to be more in line with our competition.

Alternate to Chain, Jewelry Wire & Beads Earrings Jewelry Making Project

Alt to Chain, Jewelry Wire & Beads Earrings Jewelry Making Project

Free Jewelry Design:

Alt 3 to Chain, Jewelry Wire & Beads Earrings Jewelry Making Project

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 Chain, Jewelry Wire and Beads earrings shown here. This design is an adaptation of an earlier design that we called Chain, Jewelry Wire & Gemstone Earrings. These three alternative designs are made on one of our jigs with a round peg patter, either our WigJig Centaur, Cyclops, or Electra. You can use either 18 or 20 gauge wire to make these earrings, but half-hard wire is preferable if you have it. Any medium size chain can be used and by varying the length of chain, you can easily vary the length of the earrings. The earrings shown at left, use two segments of chain, each 2" long and are therefore longer. The earrings shown near-right use two segments of 1.5" long chain and are therefore shorter. This project is suitable for advanced beginners. We hope you like our Chain, Jewelry Wire and Beads earrings.

To view our instructions for how to make these Chain, Jewelry Wire & Beads Earrings jewelry making project select here, or select any picture above.

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 week's jewelry making technique is some discussion on how we recommend people use our jewelry making jigs. Roughly once a year, we like to review our recommendations so that newcomers will understand what we believe to be the best way to make jewelry.

Our first tip is to start with straight wire. It is very important that you straighten the wire before you use it on one of our jigs. We recommend using nylon jaw pliers to straighten the wire as shown here.

Our second tip is to start with just two pegs in your jig, no matter how many are required in the pattern. Using this technique, you begin with two pegs and add pegs as you go. For a pattern with six pegs as an example, if you start with 6 pegs in your jig, four of them will be in your way making it difficult to use the jig. By starting with only two pegs and adding a peg as you go, you won't get into the difficult position of trying to push the wire down among pegs that are spaced so closely that you can't get your fingers in between them.

Our third tip is to push the wire and do not pull the wire. Intuitively, everyone wants to grasp the wire by the end and pull the wire around the pegs. Grasping and pulling the wire tends to introduce bends in the wire. By pushing the wire with just one finger touching the wire as shown above-right, you can keep the wire straight as you use it and your jewelry wire components will be more professional looking. Push with your finger as close to the peg you are bending the wire around or against as possible.

Our fourth tip is when pushing the wire, turn the jig with your non-dominant hand and use the index finger of your dominant hand to guide the wire up and over the pegs as necessary. Turning the jig gives you more control over the wire and actually provides leverage to make it easier to control the wire. The index finger on your dominant hand essentially pushes the wire so that the wire remains stationary as you maneuver the jig.

Our fifth and final tip is to continue pushing the wire until the wire rests adjacent to the hole for the next peg in the pattern with no pressure applied to the wire. This means you will need to push the wire and then remove your finger from the wire to allow the wire to relax back to its final position. It may require several instances of push the wire and remove your finger to test and see if you pushed the wire sufficiently. By doing this you ensure that the wire will retain the shape after you remove it from the jig. Failing to do this may result in your wire component springing out of shape when you remove it from the jig. Please visit this web page to view the way that you start with two pegs and push the wire until it rests adjacent to the hole for the next peg.

By learning and following these five tips, you will find that you can make the most consistent, repeatable and professional wire components and jewelry items as possible.

Nostalgia Corner:
This week's featured design in our Nostalgia Corner is the design for our beadstringing jewelry making project. We have added several cloisonne necklace designs to our bead stringing instructions. You can view the different patterns below. We also added instructions including what part number to purchase in our Internet store. Please note that our 6mm AA black onyx beads, Item 3281, used in the second necklace down, are on sale now for 20% off.

Please select here, or select either picture above to view our instructions for making our Beads Stringing Project shown here.

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.

If you have ever in your entire life been offended by any joke -- please skip the below paragraphs. It is not our intention to offend anyone! We don't write these jokes, we only re-tell jokes that we have heard on the public radio, television or over the Internet.

Boomer Humor:

Here is a simple piece of Boomer Philosophy. When life sends you lemons -- make lemonade and begin searching for the guy whose life sent him vodka. When you find that person, you can combine your resources and have a party.

Boomer was talking to a friend in a bar and learned that his friend had been fired from his job at the nearby vegetable plant. It was a sad story. The friend was terminated because he was caught putting his finger in a pickle slicer. Unfortunately, the pickle slicer, she was fired also.

Boomer recently overheard Barack Obama talking to John Edwards. It seems that both of them believed that if you can't say anything nice about someone, you must be talking about Hillary Clinton.

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 Global Priority Mail and charge $5 over the US Mail charge for this shipping service. Please select here to view our entire shipping policy.

WigJig University. We provide over 2,700 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 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: 09/19/2007

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View Prior Newsletters

2003 2004 2005 2006

01/02/2007 01/23/2007 02/12/2007 02/26/2007 03/20/2007 04/10/2007 05/10/2007 05/29/2007 06/21/2007

07/12/2007 08/09/2007 09/19/2007

Beads, Tools & Jewelry Supplies by WigJig Jewelry Making Newsletter

6mm Round Lt. Grey 1/2 Drilled Swarovski Crystal Pearl Beads and Gold-Filled Earring Findings for Setting 1/2 Drilled Beads. Sale Priced $1.44 per package of two findings or $1.36 per package of two beads. (Must be purchased separately.)	6mm Round Citrine CZ and 6mm Gold-Filled Snap-Fit Pendant Setting Sale Priced $3.19 per package of two gemstones or $4.967 for package of one setting purchased separately.
6mm Bicone Swarovski Amethyst Beads or Crystal AB Beads Sale Priced $2.40 per package of 12 amethyst beads or $2.48 per package of 12 crystal AB beads.	Gold-Filled Post with Ball Ear Wire Findings or Gold-Filled Ear Clutch Sale Priced $3.36 for 2 pair of ear posts or $1.12 for 2 ear clutches purchased separately.
Breast Cancer Awareness Charm $2.23 per charm October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month!	22g Natural Silver Anti-Tarnish Coated, Silver-plated Wire 24' Spool $3.19

Beads, Tools & Jewelry Making Supplies by WigJig Newsletter 09/19/2007