11/04/2008 WigJig Newsletter 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. If you select Boomer's picture at right, you will be able to view Boomer at work.

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 November: The birthstone for November is the Topaz. The natural color for Topaz is clear, but many varieties of Topaz can be found in nature with a yellow or light brown color. The blue topaz stones shown at right were mined from the earth, but the blue color is not a natural color. The blue color for topaz results from irradiation of a natural yellow topaz. (Please note that there is no residual radiation left in the gemstones after they have been irradiated.) Topaz has a hardness of 8 on the Mohs scale making it harder than most naturally occurring dust. This means that topaz is suitable for use in all types of jewelry including rings. Please select the picture above-right if you would like to view our selection of natural, mined blue topaz or blue topaz colored man-made cubic zirconia gemstones.

Price Increase on Silver-Plated Artistic Wire: Artistic Wire has announced a price increase effective the 1st of November. Their silver-plated wire will increase in price from $4.55 (US) per spool to $4.90 (US) per spool. Unfortunately, we will have to reprice our Artistic Wire to these new prices effective on November 7th. This will allow three days of shopping at the old price. Their non-tarnish brass, copper and vinyl coated copper will remain at the current price.

Caution to International Travelers: Imagine that you are in a foreign country with a broken bone and they take your money, they take your clothes, they take your identification and they leave you completely immobile and out of touch with anyone who speaks your language for days. No books to read, no television to watch, no radio and no one to talk to. Food was available, but it wasn't palatable. This starts to sound like what happened to John McCain as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. Unfortunately, this time, it is what happened to a cruise ship passenger on a Holland American cruise ship. Mary Alice Mackey, Boomer's Mother in Law, broke her leg near the hip in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during a cruise. The cruise ship placed her in the ship's infirmary for two days until they got into port in Hakodate, Japan. Once in port, the cruise ship made arrangements to transfer Ms Mackey to a hospital in that town. In the process of moving Ms Mackey off the cruise ship, the Port Agent for the cruise ship was given Ms Mackey's possessions including all of her money, her passport, her purse and her clothes and luggage. The well intentioned agent made arrangements to have Ms Mackey admitted to the hospital and placed Ms Mackey's possessions in secure storage. Unfortunately the Port Agent neglected to provide Ms Mackey with any of her funds, or her passport, nor did he inform Ms Mackey that he was retaining her possessions in secure storage. Unfortunately, Ms Mackey was left with no possessions in a hospital where no one spoke her language, not a doctor, not a nurse, no one. One day later the cruise ship sailed from Hakodate leaving Ms Mackey with a broken leg, no passport, no clothes or money, and no one to talk to. Legally, the cruise ship had completed their requirement to get the injured passenger to a medical facility. Unfortunately, because of language difficulties it was not a hospital that could adequately treat Ms Mackey. A little over one week after landing in Hakodate, Japan, Ms Mackey died of a blood clot resulting either from the broken bone, or from a surgery to repair the broken bone performed seven days after she arrived in the hospital.

Please note that we are not asking for your sympathy. This is a very sad situation, but sympathy is not our purpose in describing this situation. Our goal is to share a lesson learned the hard way in the hopes that it may spare someone from a similar fate. Ms Mackey left on this trip with travel insurance, but the policy did not cover an air ambulance to return her to her home in the US. During this ordeal, we priced an air ambulance and learned that Ms Mackey would have to pay between $60,000 and $100,000 to get home to a US hospital. It seems in retrospect that had Ms Mackey been immediately flown to a medical facility where she could speak the same language as the doctors and nurses, she might be alive today. This isn't certain, but what is absolutely certain is that Ms Mackey would have suffered much less and would have received better medical care in a facility where she could communicate with the medical staff. That much is absolutely certain. We don't believe that the doctors and nurses in Hakodate were second rate, but we do believe that Ms Mackey received second rate medical care because of the language and cultural barriers. Here is the point in this long story -- don't let this happen to you. Here is our recommendation to everyone who is considering international travel -- get trip insurance for that specific trip and ensure that the travel insurance specifically covers an air ambulance if necessary. It could save your life. If you search on Google using the term "travel insurance" you will find many firms selling this type of insurance. Anyone can break a bone. It may happen in one of many types of accidents. Please remember, having the right kind of travel insurance could be the difference between life and death.

Free Jewelry Design:
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 our Modified WigJig Classic Jewelry Wire & Beads Earrings shown at right. This design is a modification to a wire component that we used in our Deluxe Triplex Bracelet in our book "Wonderful, Wearable Wire" this component is called a "WigJig Classic", hence we call the earrings Modified WigJig Classic.

This is an advanced beginner's jewelry making project. It is not suitable for your first jewelry project, but is relatively easy to make if you understand how to use our WigJig tools and the basic skills of making a loop, straightening wire, making a bead dangle and making a jump ring finding. Because we flip this wire component over after making each loop, they are a little more complicated to make than would be suitable for a true beginner.

There are many alternatives for connecting the top of the earring body to the ear wire. In the earrings shown here, we used two spacer bars that we made on our jig. You could also use wire, or a two-to-one wire component also made on our WigJig tool.

We hope you like this design. We do. To view our free instructions for how to make our Modified WigJig Classic Jewelry Wire & Beads Earrings select here, or select the 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.

How to Make a Wire Component with Overlapping Loops Jewelry Technique:
This week's jewelry making technique is our new instructions for how to make a wire component with two loops at the top that overlap. Please see the two pictures at right. In the picture near-right you can view the wire component from our Suzanne's Earrings in our last newsletter. In this picture you can see that the two loops at the top are overlapping one another with no pressure applied, just as we want them to be. In the picture at far right, you can view the two loops at the top, but they have sprung apart and are not overlapping. This is not the situation that we want, but it is frequently the situation we experience when first we remove a wire component from one of our jigs. The question now is how do you get from the picture above-right, to the perfect alignment in the picture above-left. The answer is relatively easy and is a process called "hand finishing". Hand finishing is merely using your fingers to shape a wire component before you use that component in a piece of jewelry. Even the best jewelry crafters will do some hand finishing of their wire components.

The way to hand finish the wire component shown above-left is to bend the wire at the loop at the center of the bottom of the component. Grasp the left side of the wire component with the thumb and forefinger on your left hand and the right side of the wire component with the thumb and forefinger on your right hand and push the right side to the left and the left side to the right. The area of wire you are bending is the loop in the center at the bottom. Push the two sides together just past the point where the two loops at the top are superimposed and then relax your grip. If you pushed the wire far enough, the two sides will be superimposed as shown above-left. You may need to push the two sides together several times until they get perfectly aligned. Remember to use your nylon jaw pliers to flatten the wire component and make the shape permanent.

Now that we have discussed how to correct this problem, let's discuss how to avoid it or to minimize it. The fact that the two loops in the wire component sprung apart happened because of a small error when making the wire component. Our technique for making a wire component on one of our jigs is to push the wire so that the wire will remain immediately adjacent to the next peg in the pattern with no pressure applied. In most patterns, we make the wire component starting with just two pegs and adding a peg as we go. When you do this you will see that it is very easy to ensure that the wire will remain adjacent to the empty hole for the next peg in the pattern with no pressure applied. You may need to push the wire and then remove your grip a couple of times until the wire remains in the correct position, but with a little practice you will find that this is easy to do. When you don't push the wire far enough, and the pegs actually hold the wire in position, you will find that your wire component will spring out of shape when you remove it from your jig. Consider it nature's way of telling you that you did it wrong. The end result is that the loops at the top of your wire component won't overlap if you aren't performing this technique correctly and will be pretty close to overlapping when you do perform this technique well.

Nostalgia Corner:
This week's featured design in our Nostalgia Corner is the design for making our Deluxe Triplex Bracelet shown left and right. This design is related to the Modified WigJig Classic Earrings that are our new jewelry project for this newsletter. The body of the earrings is a modification of the wire component used in these bracelets. For that reason, this bracelet may be an excellent complement to the earrings or conversely, the earrings may be a nice compliment to the bracelet. Please note that the bracelet is an intermediate jewelry making project. Finally, many people, including Boomer's Mom, Suzanne, consider that this bracelet is the nicest bracelet that we have made. For that reason alone, it is a good choice for our Nostalgia Corner.

We have created a .pdf file of the pattern for the triplex wire component that you can print and use to determine where the pegs go. Please select here to view this .pdf file.

Please select here, or select any picture above to view our free instructions for making our Deluxe Triplex Bracelet.

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:

A cabbie picks up a nun on the streets of New York. After learning of the nun's destination, the cabbie begins driving and ultimately strikes up a conversation. After about 5 minutes of conversation, the cabbie says "Sister, I have always had a fantasy of being kissed by a nun. Does that make me strange?" The nun responds that she hears of that fantasy rather often on the streets of New York. A little later, the cabbie says "Sister, would you mind if I were to kiss you?" The nun responds "If you are single and a good Catholic, you may kiss me." With that the cabbie pulls to the curb and turns around to kiss the nun. To his surprise the nun grabs his face with both of her hands and gives the cabbie a very passionate kiss. The cabbie is shocked to silence and resumes driving the nun to her destination. A little while later, the nun looks in the rear view mirror and notices that the cabbie is crying. The nun comments "Why are you crying my son?" The cabbie responds "I am very sorry Sister, but I lied to you. I am not Catholic, and I am not single. I am Jewish and married." The nun responds "Please don't worry about it. I am not a nun. My name is Kevin and I am on my way to a Halloween Party."

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.

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

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: 11/04/2008

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01/15/2008 02/03/2008 03/04/2008 03/25/2008 04/02/2008 04/29/2008 05/15/2008 06/10/2008 07/20/2008

08/12/2008 09/10/2008 09/30/2008 10/14/2008 11/04/2008

Beads, Jewelry Tools & Jewelry Making Supplies by WigJig Jewelry Making Newsletter

8mm 1/2 Drilled Freshwater Pearl Beads Sale Priced $11.19 per Pearl 8mm Ear Post Finding for Setting 1/2 Drilled Pearl Beads Sale Price $1.67 per Pair	Set of 3 Metal Dowels Sale Priced $5.83 per Set
6mm Swarovski Round and Bicone Beads Many colors now on sale!	14/20 GF Post with Ball Ear Wire Finding Sale Priced $3.83 per 2 pair
6mm 14/20 GF Snap-Fit Setting Sale Priced $4.95 per setting	20G Natural Silver Artistic Wire $3.64 for a 18' Spool (This wire has an anti-tarnish, enamel coating.)

Beads, Jewelry Wire, Tools & Jewelry Making Supplies by WigJig Newsletter 11/04/2008