06/10/2008 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.

Bead & Button Show: We apologize to everyone who went to the Bead & Button show looking for our WigJig demonstration. Unfortunately, Gary Helwig was unable to attend for health reasons. This was not something that we planned and certainly wasn't something that we wanted to happen. We believe that the Soft Flex folks provided some demonstrations on how to use our WigJig tools and we hope that these demonstrations met everyone's needs.

Birthstone for June: The birthstone for June is the pearl. As everyone knows real and cultured pearls are made by marine mollusks, commonly clams and oysters. Real pearls result when an irritant like a large grain of sand gets caught in the shell of an oyster or clam. The oyster rubs the irritating object against the inside of its shell creating over time the pearl. Cultured pearls are created by manually adding a round glass irritant to the oyster's shell, artificially starting the process to create a pearl. Pearls have been a recognized gemstone for a long, long time and for this reason, have quite a history. To view some of this history, please select here.

New Items: We added two new items to our Internet store. We have added a new sterling silver lever back earring setting for gemstones and we have added a new AAA grade 8mm freshwater pearl. You can view our instructions for setting gemstones in our new Round Bezel Lever Back Ear wires by selecting here. You can view either of these new products in our Internet store by selecting the picture or the text below the picture in the table below.


Round Bezel Lever Back Ear Wire	8mm AAA Freshwater Pearl Cream

Missouri Girl Scout Troops 4367 and 406 Charity Project: At WigJig we like to support charities and other organizations that make jewelry out of wire and beads. This week we came across a Girl Scout charity program that was developed by Carey Hudnut. Carey began by donating 40 pair of earrings and 10 bracelets to the Foster Care Coalition. She expanded the donation by getting the Girl Scouts to help make more jewelry. Here is Carey's description of the project:

The agency is called the Foster Care Coalition. They help children in the foster care system in Missouri and in Illinois. They operate a small "resale" shop. Only foster parents may shop there. They must bring proof they are foster parents on their first visit. At the store parents can purchase clothing for garage sale prices, $1 for a pair of jeans for example. The agency has to charge a little bit to cover the cost of the building they use. The clothing is all donated. The concept is that many children enter the foster care system with only the clothing on their backs. Their foster parents must supply them with more clothes. Foster parents only get $200 a year for clothes.

Imagine having to purchase EVERYTHING for 4 seasons for a child with that much money. Hard to do. But they can get a lot at the KidStore. Jewlery is a luxury item, but since I donated it to them they were able to sell it for 50 cents. The small amount I sent them did not last one weekend in the store.

So I told my Girl Scout troop about this. They had made some jewelry for another thing, nothing special, just some stretch cord bracelets, but they really enjoyed it. So 1/2 of my troop and one girl from another troop formed The Jewelry Club. The girls meet about every other week at my house. They sit at my table, giggle (oh man do they giggle), listen to music, sing, and they make jewelry. The girls range in age from 13 to 15.

Their donations have been so appreciated. A big batch of the jewelry recently was taken to a local orphanage and handed out. The girls there had never gotten something like that before and when they found it it had been made by girls their own age they were even more excited to think someone cared about them.

There has been a wonderful side effect for my girls........I have watched my girls blossom under this project. Their self esteem has benefited. They take great pride in what they make. In fact we photograph all their jewelry and each girl has her own "portfolio".

They graduated from the stretch cord to clasps and one girl in my troop is an earring making fool (girl after my own heart). I have really noticed a change in their attitudes since all of this began. Since January the girls have made and donated 360 items, and logged 107 hours of service. Not bad for 4 girls having fun on a Friday night.

If you would like to contact Carey with questions about this project, she can be reached via e-mail at ladydrgn1@aol.com. We really appreciate that Carey chose to share this project with us.

Pearl Beads Jewelry Wire & Beads Earrings Jewelry Making Project

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 the Pearl Beads with Chain Earrings shown at right. These earrings can be made with 6mm or 8mm 1/2 drilled pearl beads and with any medium chain. They can be made with two pearl beads as shown or with three pearl beads, by adding another segment of chain with the associated pearl bead on the end. The finding that we use to hold the 1/2 drilled pearl beads is our item 3325, the Gold FIlled Bead Cap for 1/2 Drilled Beads. (We have the same part on order in silver and hope to have it in stock in late June.)

To view our free instructions for how to make these Pearl Beads with Chain Earrings select here, or select either 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 a series of new pictures as part of our beginner's instructions. The first set of new pictures is about cutting wire with a flush cutter and can be viewed below.


Cutting Wire	After the Cut

Our next set of new pictures pertain to straightening wire with nylon jaw pliers and can be viewed below:


Step 1 (start with a loop in your wire)	Step 2 (grip the wire with your nylon jaw pliers)

Step 3 (pull the wire through your pliers several times)	Step 4 (check to see if the wire is straight.)

Our final set of new pictures pertain to bending wire with bent chain nose pliers. These pictures can be viewed here:


Bending Wire -- Grasp the Wire	Bending Wire -- Push the wire against the jaws of the pliers.

To view all or our Beginner's Instructions, please select here and follow the links on that page.

Nostalgia Corner:
This week's featured design in our Nostalgia Corner is the design for our tie chain shown here left and right. This tie chain makes a great father's day gift and is also a great way to keep your tie out of your soup. This is a beginner's jewelry making project and can be made with any of our WigJig tools and one 1/4" or 3/8" Super Peg.

Please select here, or select the picture at right to view our free instructions for making our tie chain.

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 little girl asked her father: 'How did the human race happen?'

The father answered, 'God made Adam and Eve; they had children; and so all mankind was made.'

Two days later the girl asked her mother the same question. The mother answered, 'Many years ago
there were monkeys from which the human race evolved.'

The confused girl returned to her father and said, 'Dad, how is it possible that you told me the human
race was created by God, and Mom said they developed from monkeys?'

The father answered, 'Well, Dear, it is very simple. I told you about my side of the family, and your mother
told you about hers.'

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: 06/10/2008

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

8mm 1/2 Drilled Freshwater Pearl Cream and Gold-Filled Post Style Ear Wires Sale Priced $1.67 per package of 2 ear wires and $11.19 per package of 1 Freshwater Pearl	6mm Swarovski Round Crystal Tanzanite Beads Sale Priced $2.55 per package of 6 beads
Leatherette Gift Box for Earrings Sale Priced $1.59 per box	Gold Filled Round Magnetic Clasp 6mm Sale Priced $2.71 per package of 2 clasps
Gold Filled Fine, Round Chain Sale Priced $5.03 per 24" of Chain (no clasp)	26G Natural Silver Artistic Wire $3.64 for a 45' Spool (This wire has an anti-tarnish, enamel coating.)

Beads, Jewelry Wire, Tools & Jewelry Making Supplies by WigJig Newsletter 06/10/2008