Fine silver ring

This is the first ring I made from the fine silver bar which is pictured in the last post.

Forging fine silver

I have had some fine silver lying around for ages and today finally got round to picking it up and starting the process of making something with it!
Once I had bashed it into a more reasonable size, I chopped a bit off and made a ring, which I'll get round to taking an image of soon.

Jewellery /jewelry designers call to arms

It has been a while since my last post because I have been rather busy developing a new site.
It's not completely finished, there are still plenty of features to be added etc, but I am now at the stage where I could do with some responses from a second party, as it's very easy to get stuck in a design rut.
The new site hopes to be a number of things:

• A place to find contemporary handmade jewellery.
• An information resource.
• A community, where contemporary jewellery designers can show off their latest work, exhibitions etc.
  

Things I still have to do with it...

• Add more items.
• Add a commenting system.
• Proof read.
• Translate most of the core content.
• Optimize the URLs.
• Set up site feeds.
• Loads of other bits & bobs.

I would be grateful if people would take a look, see if they "get it" and can find their way around.

Gold filled / filled gold wire

This post is a rant about a question which periodically returns to bug me.
If you have a view on the subject please leave a comment.

I spend a fair amount of time looking at web sites relating to jewellery (jewelry), primarily because I am currently fixated upon trying to regain a decent placement in Google's search results, and I often see entries for items made using "gold filled wire".

The term is used (as far as I understand) to referrer to wire, which has a gold skin and a base metal (usually brass) or silver core. There is some legislation (depending on where you are) which details the minimum percentage of gold weight that the wire has to have in order to be able to use the term. Which is what makes it different from gold plated wire etc. If I sound a little unsure that's because I don't use the stuff myself.

But: shouldn't it be termed "filled gold wire" instead of "gold filled wire"?!

To me "filled gold wire" implies gold wire, with a "filling". Where as to me "gold filled wire" implies that the filling is gold, which is quite wrong!

I can only assume that this is a marketing term designed to "add value". By shift the emphasis in the phrase towards the word gold.
Moving the word "gold" to the front of the phrase gives it more "weight" psychologically, and "gold filled" also increases this effect. e.g. If I have a bucket filled with water; do I have more "bucket", or more "water"?

If this counts as deception, then it's deception on a grand scale. When I googled "gold filled wire" I got 71,300 results. Where as there were only 796 results for "filled gold wire".

Maybe I am wrong, or my weak grammar has me painted into a corner.
Is there a difference at all?!

Gold filled wire, or filled gold wire?

Christmas delivery

Well we are almost at the beginning of December, so I should / must really call a halt for orders which can be guaranteed for delivery before this Christmas. I will also, as soon as I have finished the orders I am working on, get round to answering all the other emails which have gone unread. Sorry to keep people waiting on email, but it is the lesser of the two evils.

I just noticed that I have (sort of by mistake) already written this post as last year. I wrote the wrong date! Doh

You are of course as always very welcome to order something from the site for delivery early in the new year: it could even reach you before Christmas, but I have reached the point now where I can't continue to guarantee it. There is only me here!!

p.s. If you have already placed an order and not yet heard from me do not panic. All orders already placed will go out before the 14th of December.

titanium and silver bookmark

There are other images of this handmade bookmark and price etc here.

oval(ish) link silver necklace

This handmade silver necklace has large off round to oval links.

Here is a link to the items page where there are more pictures etc.

Can you help?

My site has recently suffered a big drop in where it is placed in search engine results.

Specifically in Google, after they tweaked their search algorithms a couple of weeks ago.

I think that this is because I don't use very much text, so they can't really get a grip of what the site is about. I designed the site with more an emphasis on the visual, which appears now to have been a big mistake.

So I am asking you, if you would please be so kind and to link to my site.

thank you!!!

Sad day for the BBC

I was rather dissapointed this evening when taking a short break to check out the BBC web site, (which is a regular haunt for me), I was very distracted by four advertisements on the front page!

I guess that they probably don't appear to a UK audience, and are there to supliment the costs of providing access to the BBCs' site for the rest of the foreign world.
The size, number and placement of the adverts was certainly rather intrusive. They don't seem to have paid any consideration as to what the adverts are for either; i.e. they don't seem to be tied into content, which would make them less irritating (and possibly more attractive) to the viewers. Maybe they only have a very limited number of advertisers with pockets deep enough for the fees? That can be the only possible explanation as to why they would have four gaudy animated ads for Airbuses's new A380 on the home page.

My one positive thought, was that maybe, possibly they were planning on using the advertising revenue to pay for the cost of delivering some video content outside of the UK: but that hope was quickly dashed with the, as usual, failed attempt to pull any video (news etc) off the site when browsing the "UK version".

I listen to the radio almost daily via the internet. Hopefully they aren't planning on pulling the plug on that too!

flower necklace

Materials: aluminium, titanium, silver, gold.
Hung on a rubber thong with a handmade silver catch.

This is the latest one of this necklace, I have added a larger image and another close up image as part of my keeping up with the take-up of broad band etc.