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Open Hearted Lariat Necklace

September 28, 2015

Since October is Breast Cancer awareness month, I wanted to make a pink ribbon necklace that would do many things at once. I wanted it to look stylish, spread awareness, and encourage hope and solidarity. I came up with this simple but elegant Open Heart Lariat Necklace that literally takes seconds to put together and requires no tools! Read on to make your own. Continue Reading…

DIY Team Spirit Earrings

August 31, 2015

With football season fast approaching, it’s time to break out your team spirit! Colorful jewelry that shows off team colors will make it easy for everyone to know who you’re cheering for! Simply swap out the Swarovski crystal colors to make earrings that support your favorite team!
Continue Reading…

Lariat Round Up

January 21, 2014

I have been more and more drawn to Lariat style necklaces lately, and seeing lots of them pinned on pinterest. This inspired me to create several lariat necklace tutorials for the Rings & Things jewelry design gallery and to look to our other designer’s past contributions to this jewelry style.

What is a lariat necklace? It is an open-ended necklace with no clasp. It is fastened by threading one end of the necklace through the other. Lariat necklaces frequently have beads or tassels at the end, and are typically worn with the ends in front.

Foliage Lariat Chain Necklace

Foliage Lariat Necklace

The assymetrical Foliage necklace design is similar. Clusters of SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS xilion crystal bicones are spaced along the curb chain, and again the chain goes through one of the charms to lock the second charm in place, however, the spacing of the bead clusters limits the adjustment to the final length that can be done by the wearer.

Tour de Belgium lariat

Tour de Belgium lariat

The Tour de Belgium long lariat design is designed to be worn doubled. A large fluted bead locks the charm dangles in place. Some adjustment to the final length can be made by varying the length of the doubled section of drawn flattened cable chain.

Giddy Up lariat necklace

Giddy Up Suede Lariat

The Giddyup lariat is made on suede lace with SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS. The ring is tied just off center of the length of leather, and the crystal briolette dangles slip through the ring. The metal components of this true lariat style necklace are plated, to economize.

The Ladylike lariat design is also made with suede lace. This luxe necklace pairs sterling findings with freshwater pearls and sparkly glass. While the components are minimal, the design has impact.

The Corralled Pearls necklace has no findings, and no metal. Thin leather cord, usually not strong enough for stringing, can transform into a bold design when many strands are gathered together. The use of a battery operated bead reamer allows the hole on these freshwater pearls to be made larger for stringing. Simple overhand knots create the loop (clasp) and also hold the pearls in place.

I hope you like this roundup of lariat designs. All of the components to make each of these designs are available right here at Rings & Things. Remember to check our design gallery for a variety of jewelry styles and jewelry design inspiration!

~ Rita

Spring 2013 Pantone Color Trends Giveaway

April 29, 2013

Pantone Spring 2013 Giveaway

Enter to win our Resin Flower Gluing Kit. Just comment at the end of this post  — by May 6, 2013 — with your favorite Pantone Spring 2013 Color Trend to be entered into our drawing.

win a resin flower gluing kit

In celebration of Spring, here are the Spring 2013 Pantone Color Trends. Just click on any of the color swatches below and find the treasures available in our online store. Also visit our Design Gallery  for all the designs you see here and many more. All designs are FREE – no login required!

banner-spring13_emerald banner-spring13_grayedjade

banner-spring13_tendershoots  banner-spring13_lemonzest

banner-spring13_nectarine banner-spring13_poppyred

banner-spring13_linen banner-spring13_africanviolet

banner-spring13_duskblue banner-spring13_monacoblue

Comment now with your favorite Pantone Spring 2013 Color Trend to win. Contest ends May 6, 2013.

~Jan

An Easy Way to Translate Websites

January 24, 2013

Translating websites that aren’t in your native language, or just translating them for fun, is easier then ever. Google’s translation software for websites is automatically installed in the Chrome browser and in its sister browser, Iron.  It is also available as an Add-On in many of the other browsers. Here at Rings & Things we recommend Chrome, or for the more privacy-conscious, the Iron Browser as your default web browser.

To begin you will need do download and install the browser if you don’t already have Chrome or Iron. You can find free downloads here:

Google Chrome: https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/

Iron: http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_download.php

Cosmetically and functionally the browsers are almost identical, with most of the differences being internal. What are the internal differences?  Iron removes the unique ID that Google gives to every install of Chrome, removes all optional settings that would allow Google to track your browsing habits, and removes the automatic update feature.

Installation of either browser is simple and should only take a few minutes.

Once it is installed there is nothing else to do to get Google’s translation software. When browsing a site in a foreign language each browser should automatically offer to translate the page to your native language. If it doesn’t, or if you want to translate from your language to another, just right-click on the page for a list of options and chose (in my case) “Translate to English”.  This will bring a bar below your tabs that will tell you what language it is translating from and to. If you choose, you can change the language it is translating to any language you wish.

chrome-1

chrome-2

Cheers!
Todd, Rings & Things Web Guru

Jewelry Design Gallery Tricks

June 12, 2012

Hi bloglandia! It has been awhile! I’ve been busy preparing our summer catalog (set to hit mailboxes early July). Once again it features lots of fun new beads, jewelry findings and mixed-media supplies. Our design team puts in a lot of work to create jewelry that fits with current trends and also helps illustrate how different products might be used. Sometimes it just isn’t so obvious how that little hook with crimp, or whatever it might be, could tie into a design!

Spring Skies

Spring Skies necklace featuring blue lace agate, Vintaj natural brass, feathery chain and the Bohemian Rhapsody mix of SWAROVSKI ELEMENTS crystal bicones.

We integrated our design gallery with our online store to make it easier for you to purchase the supplies for designs you like. However, we soon discovered a drawback: while it is easy to browse the jewelry designs, it is somewhat difficult to find one in particular. If you search for the name of a jewelry piece, our website brings back zero results (so sad!).

But – there is an upside. If you search for a certain stock number, you can now find jewelry designs that use that product! This is really exciting, to me at least.

For example, say you are looking at different types of clasps. You find hook and eye clasps on p. 273 of our main catalog and wonder if they’d really look right on your jewelry. Here’s how to find a design that uses those clasps:

1. Go to www.rings-things.com.

2. Enter the base stock number (39-293) in the search box and you’ll see all the colors of that clasp, AND:

RT Design Gallery 1
Several of the category results up top are the names of jewelry designs. Sweet!

3. Let’s click on Spring Skies.
Rings & Things Design Gallery 2

Wait, where is the necklace? Hold on a sec. We are looking at the exact clasp used on that necklace – but the necklace itself is nowhere to be seen.

4. Click into the product details.

Rings & Things Design Gallery 3 Same clasp, but now look above the product to see the category we’re in…Spring Skies!

5. Click the Spring Skies text link.
Rings & Things Design Gallery 4
And voila! At long last we’ve arrived in at the design gallery listing for the Spring Skies necklace. Here you’ll find tips on how to make this piece, links to popular (and free!) jewelry-making technique sheets as well as all the products you need to create this design.

Obviously, we’ve got thousands of products and not all of them are going to have designs (I said our design team works hard – but we do have to sleep sometime!). Searching for just the base stock number (with many exceptions, the rule is that the final -# designates the color or plating of a family of items) will increase your odds of finding example jewelry that shows exactly what you are looking to find! Also, just take a look at those top category search results from time to time to see if anything intriguing pops up – it might lead you to a whole new look!

Happy designing! Please feel free to leave a comment if you have any questions about our design gallery or website in general. ~ Cindy

Change

December 9, 2010

Change: next Tuesday, Rings & Things expects to cut over to our new, faster internet service and reroute our phone lines.

When? The scheduled time is 12:01 AM Tuesday morning.

Change

What??? We’ll have new “IP addresses”. It may take a little while to migrate from the old to the new IP addresses. Our web site names (rings-things.com) won’t change–just the underlying IP addresses will.

How might this affect you? It may take a while (minutes, hours, usually not days) for the DNS translation to migrate through the DNS system.

The upshot is, you may notice small difficulties or delays next week. Thanks in advance for your patience with us!

Notify Me!

July 27, 2010

Notify me?

Have you ever found exactly the component you wanted for making your jewelry…and it was out of stock?

Ever backordered an out-of-stock item…then forgot about it?

Rings & Things has found a better way. Next to any item in our store that’s out of stock, just click ‘Notify Me’:

We’ll email you as soon as it’s back in stock. You’ll be able to order it instantly!

Want to suggest improvements to our online store? Put them in a comment, I’ll pass them to the right person here!