Pet Hair and Fur Keepsake Ring

You may remember my last blog post where I mentioned that I had an order from Taiwan; well it has been completed now so I thought I would show it off. The customer initially wanted a pendant with some of her pet Golden Retriever’s fur encapsulated within it and then decided to also have a ring to match.

She also asked if I could also include the number ‘22’ within the keepsake ring and pendant as it was a special number for her and her dog. Sourcing the numbers was initially quite tricky but I do like a challenge. After hunting around various craft shops etc I finally discovered them at a supplier of dolls house miniatures; they are in fact miniature brass house numbers!

Pet Hair Keepsake Ring

This is the first hair or fur keepsake ring that I have made; I have made many pendants and bracelets in the past encapsulating hair but never a ring. The ring is sterling silver, fully adjustable to fit any finger size and the dog’s fur and number ‘22’ have been sealed with resin. I also made a pendant to match and included a couple of extra goodies since it was my first order from Taiwan!

The pendant and ring both arrived safely in Taiwan and she was very happy with them, in fact I quote ‘OH MY GOD..I got my package today and am honestly at a loss for words!’ It is lovely to receive great feedback like that an equally amazing to know that my keepsake jewellery is being worn and loved on the over side of the world!

Handmade Custom Jewellery Presentation

I am still very busy at Shpangle Jewellery and as well as my usual UK orders I have been having quite a few from around the world. I have just completed a large custom jewellery order from Canada of 12 keepsake pendants and today have completed an order for Taiwan! Yes Taiwan is a first for me at Shpangle Jewellery, well in fact it was for a Canadian lady living in Taiwan but still counts to me as a Taiwanese custom jewellery order! There seems to be a common trend with my custom jewellery orders and Canada, in fact outside of the UK most of my sales come from Canada.

I have also been doing quite a bit to my website; have reorganised my customer Testimonials page and have added quite a bit of information to my hair keepsake page. In doing so I have realised that I do not actually display any where the presentation of my custom jewellery when I send it to the customer.

So I thought I would show you a couple of examples of my custom jewellery. This photo shows a typical hair keepsake pendant mounted within its jewellery box. The customer didn’t want to wear this pendant but they were to be given out as gifts to family and friends. The pendant was mounted within the jewellery box on a short piece of ribbon, to be kept as a keepsake rather than worn as an item of jewellery.

Hair keepsake jewellery

This photo shows an example of the engraving that I do for the back of my sterling silver keepsake pendants. I can accommodate most engraving requirements including small messages, names, dates, and in this case a heart symbol. I think the most words that have been engraved onto one of my keepsake pendants was seven or eight words which isn’t bad for the size of the pendant. The engraving on the keepsake is a nice touch as it makes the jewellery even more personal to its owner.

Engraved hair keepsake pendant

You may remember a recent blog post of mine where I mentioned my name on rice jewellery that starred in a movie. Well another exciting thing happened to me this week, I was contacted by a producer at BBC Radio 4 who is putting together a documentary about hair jewellery and wanted me to help! I will update you with the details if/when it goes ahead at a later date!

Confetti Wedding Keepsakes

I hope everyone in blog land is having a good start to 2011; I am really busy in the land of Shpangle with lots of custom orders keeping me busy and some exciting new ranges of jewellery being prepared. It has been quite an exciting start to the year for me so far, my custom jewellery has been accepted this week in a chain of outlets in and around Tamworth, but more about that in another blog post!

One of the last few custom jewellery items that I made in 2010 were these resin charms for a lady who’s sister is a fellow jewellery maker. She sent me some table confetti from her sister’s wedding, and she wanted me to make some charms containing the confetti for her sister to use. The wedding table confetti consisted of multi-coloured animals and I placed a single animal within a resin charm and finished with a twinkle of magic sparkle dust.

Confetti wedding keepsakes

I thought these would make lovely keepsakes for the bride and groom but could also be handed out as wedding favours to guests. Giving the wedding guests a long lasting reminder of the wedding day and functional too! I love them because they look so happy and colourful and might have to make some for myself!

The same customer also wanted some horsehair jewellery made for her sister so I made this bracelet containing horse hair...

Resin horse hair bracelet

...and also made this pendant again with horse hair encapsulated within resin.

Resin horse hair necklace

If you would like to see other examples of my recent custom jewellery orders please have a browse around my website jewellery gallery.