At the weekend, I made my first donation to Argos Animal Shelter Cyprus. It wasn't a lot of money, just 20% of my profits so far on my jewellery sales. I think it will still make a difference as it was enough to buy a couple of bulk bags of animal food.
Argos Animal Shelter looks after more than 200 abandoned cats and dogs. They really need all the money that they can get! Hopefully people will keep on buying jewellery and I can keep on giving donations.
I've just launched a sale section in my etsy shop where you can buy some pieces from my collection at greatly reduced prices. Don't forget that 20% of all profits go to helping animals in Cyprus. Happy shopping!
Having recently started selling on Etsy and Dawanda, I made myself some business cards to send out with my orders. However, www.newworldmonkey.etsy.com is not exactly catchy, neither is www.dawanda.com/shop/newworldmonkey. What I really needed was a succinct domain name. It’s also very useful for advertising as it looks more professional to have a proper domain name. I’m not very experienced at these things and I assumed that if I bought a domain name, I’d have to buy hosting and build a website. Luckily, it turns out that you can create a domain name and then forward it to a url of your choice. Here’s how to do it:
1) Find out what domain names are available. I am from the UK so I opted to use www.daily.co.uk which has a special offer on at the moment where domains are half-price. A lot of Americans recommended www.godaddy.com
2) Most of the good domain names are gone. I’m no expert but, based on my research, it seems that the best thing is to get a .com or failing that a .co.uk. You should write down all the possibilities available to you and compare them. A brief, catchy domain name is best but catchy is more important than brief. You also want to include your keyword in your domain name to optimize it.
3) I managed to get www.bohemian-jewellery.com for 10 GBP for 2 years. It doesn’t include my brand name but it is easy to remember and includes my two main keywords.
4) Daily offered me quite a few things to pay extra for. I think it’s best to opt out of everything and buy it later if you find that you need it.
5) Make sure that your domain name is registered in your name.
6) Once my domain name was set up, I went into my control panel on daily and clicked on domain forwarding. I then entered my etsy site and filled in the meta tags and meta description. Daily has a very good guide on this which they provide a link to when you set up domain forwarding.
Now if you go on www.bohemian-jewellery.com it automatically will take you to www.newworldmonkey.etsy.com. I hope this helps, please comment if you have any questions.
One of the things that one notices in Cyprus, is how much the women love jewelry. Obviously, women everywhere love jewellery but Cypriot women really love it. With their warm colouring, they are also able to wear pretty much any kind of metal.
Valentines day has hit us. For women I think the importance of the day and our relationship with it is formed at school. Ask any woman and she will have some story of a school V-day experience. The disappointment of not receiving a card, the humiliation of roses being handed out to the popular girls, the injustice of some very undeserving girl getting flooded with gifts. During those hormonal days, Valentines day seemed like a day designed to emphasise your success (or lack of success) with the opposite sex.
By the time you actually have a partner with you on Valentines day, it has been built up in your mind as this day of wonder that other people have been enjoying each year whilst you have been sitting at home watching bad TV. I genuinely think it is this build up that means women have such high expectations of the day. I am very lucky in that my partner is a very considerate man who always plans something even though he doesn't believe in the day. However, if your partner disappoints you then try to focus on all the many things that they do do for you on all the other days of the year. Generally, men who are good at the big gestures are not good at the real things that count. You only have to look at the fact that footballer John Terry is planning a big surprise for Toni Terry and has given her 100 red roses. I know that I would rather have a partner who is there to support me than a partner who sleeps around but buys me lots of gifts.
On that note, I've found the perfect gift for a tetris fanatic to give to his special lady next gift-giving time. Tetris has designed a range of jewellery based around the little tetris shapes. They do have a pleasant simplicity to them and would no doubt be happily worn by women who like nostalgic, ironic items. However, I am very disappointed to see that the colours are not quite as bright as those of the tetris game.
An icelandic jewelry designer, Hafsteinn Juliusson, has come up with a novel way to bring nature into the lives of city dwellers. Juliusson has designed a range of rings which are inset with icelandic moss. The rings have to be watered regularly and can last up to six months if they are looked after.
Juliusson states that the collection is an "experiment in drawing nature toward man, as nature being the presupposition of life." The rings cost £480 each.
Juliusson has definitely come up with something unique and wearing one of his rings would most likely get you attention. However, one does wonder how the ring would survive through day to day life - washing your hands, getting dressed, putting on your coat. Most likely you would end up paying £480 for a ring that after two days has a large hole in it with a few bits of soil.
For more information about Iceland visit http://www.icelandic-traveller.com/
Perhaps this christmas, you may find yourself trying to find a gift for the person who has everything. You will have trawled the net and the streets to find something quirky and unique and just right for them. If this person that you are shopping for also has a taste for the macabre, then I might just have found the perfect gift for you to give them. Both environmentally friendly and one of a kind, jewelry made from human parts could be the answer to your yuletide quest.
Having recently taken in a stray kitten, my spare cash has rather shrunk. For the first time in a while, I have been thinking about why we all feel we have to spend so much money at Christmas.
1. Thread all the beads that you want to use onto your wire. To work out how many beads to use multiply the amount of stitches per row by the length of the bracelet in centimetres (eg if you are doing a six stitch wide, 12cm long bracelet, I'd thread at least 72 beads on).
2. Cast on as many stitches as you think want and knit one row. As you knit the first stitch of the second row, bring one of the beads up to your needles and knit it into the fabric. Repeat for every stitch of the second row.
3. Continue knitting every odd row without beads and every even row with beads - this will ensure all the beads stay on the same side of the bracelet.
4. Once the bracelet or choker is long enough, cast off then fix a jewellery clasp to either end of it.
The end result looks pretty good and would make a great gift for someone.
On a recent trip to Jordan, I decided to us the opportunity to buy a bit of new jewellery. Whenever you go abroad, it's worth having a quick look at the jewellery as in many countries it can be considerably cheaper and different to the jewellery on offer in your hometown.
If you are in Jordan visiting Petra then you will probably have quite a few opportunities to buy jewelry from the local Bedouins. This is worth doing as some of their jewelry is beautiful and unlike what you can perhaps get at home. The jewelry on offer in Petra tends to be made of rocks and glass. Agate is commonly used as well as moonstone and coloured glass. It is likely that the rocks are imported but even so, the jewellery is handmade. I took the opportunity to buy a blue beaded bracelet and a multi-coloured glass necklace from a lovely man just near Shobak castle (not in Petra but on the route to Petra from
Amman). It cost me only 5JD (approx 5 euros) for both items. The price was lower than what you would probably pay in Petra itself. No matter if the price they first offer you is something that you are happy with, it is still good to bargain at least 10% off the price. The reason for this is that I genuinely have found that Middle Eastern people respect you more if you don't take the first price and it tends to give you an opportunity to have a chat. Obviously, for some items you will need to really haggle over and I will be writing a post later about how to haggle.
First, I had a good look at all the jewelry on offer and tried to get an idea of the level of quality on offer and the price ranges available. Most of the jewellery in Amman tended to be yellow gold - very yellow gold is not popular in most western european countries because it is not overly flattering to pale skin. However, the very yellow colour shows that is high quality gold and if you can carry it off, it is definitely worth buying. It's vibrant and much cooler than the pale, insipid gold that is normally available. Personally, if I could wear it without looking jaundiced, I would have got lots of it as it was reasonably priced and exotic.
I then decided to invest in a bit of silver for everyday wear. Silver is not so popular here which makes perfect sense as silver is too bland for the gorgeous brown skin of the locals. Quite a few shops did try to trick me into buying very poor quality jewellery at rather inflated prices. When you are not sure about an item, just say that you want to browse a bit more and compare the product to similar ones in other shops. You won't regret taking your time as there is nothing worse than taking a piece home and finding out it's badly glued and damaged.
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I certainly think that Takeda has designed something truly original.
The A team is being remade. Why? If anyone wants to watch the A Team they can just watch the original. I know that good ideas are running out when it comes to movies but seriously, no one could possible remake the A Team well. It was sheer genius and it can never be recreated. When I think of the A Team what springs to mind is B.A. Baracus. The man who defined the A Team.
Jewelry for men is always a hard one. Some love to see a nice forearm accessorized with a bit of bling but many think it’s a bit effete. Well it turns out that in Hollywood someone else has been pondering this dilemma too and they’ve come up with a ‘solution’. I bet you’re expecting it to be some kind of renowned jewelry designer such as H. Stern. Nope. It’s that exceptionally talented designer who has been plying at her trade for decades – yes it’s Jamie-Lynn Sigler. Turns out playing Meadow Soprano gives you an insight into what men want. Whilst working on the set of Entourage, Jamie-Lynn somehow discovered that what men need is a charm bracelet. Now most people wouldn’t associate charm bracelets with alpha males but apparently that’s who’s buying them. http://themoment.blogs.
