Aside from making jewellery and accessories, my other current job is doing minor watch repairs (ie. changing batteries, sizing watch bands). I also take in jewellery repairs, and send out all watch repairs to the watchmakers at our head office that I'm unable to do on my own. Unlike most teenagers, when I was younger I didn't work in retail much, so I have been learning a lot at this position. Customer service is a huge part of the jewellery industry and I can see the importance of being able to communicate with the consumer and be able to understand what it is that they are looking for. I may also look into more retail positions in the future, but I have decided that I'm happiest while working with my hands, be it on repairs or creating something new.

Lately, I've been working on making things out of resin besides belt buckles. I've made a bunch of Tiny Pins, cuff links, and also the earrings pictured to the left. I hope to have more new and interesting things coming soon. Any other suggestions? I'd love to hear what you'd like to see from my shop. Please leave a comment here.

On December 6th, Alene Couture Jewellery & Accessories will be participating in the Holiday Makers' Market on James Street North in Hamilton. (See the poster to the left for more info! You can click the image for a larger view.)

Getting Ready for the Holiday Season

I've made lots of updates to my Etsy shop over the last month, and it may be more full now than it has ever been. Please checkout my latest listings here.

The picture to the left is an older belt buckle design that I have revisited. Hey, people like it, so why not? As all of my resin pieces, this one's a little bit different than the others.

"Sorry About That"

If you find yourself on James Street North in Hamilton this Friday (October 10th), keep an eye open for some of my work in the window of Hamilton Jewellers. "Sorry About that" was design by local artist, Andrew McPhail. I constructed it out of sterling wire and chain this past winter.

Metal Forming

Here's another project from my fourth semester at George Brown. I made this pendant in Metal Forming B. I utilized two different metal forming techniques to make it, the first being the Plunkett fold. The bottom part was die formed with the use of hammers and a die that I made specifically for this purpose.

This project stood out from the others for me, because I found the class to be much more relaxed than the others I had, and I think that helped me to work much more confidently and ultimately make fewer mistakes. I also haven't had much experience with metal forming, so this really opened my eyes to the plasticity and memory of certain metals.

New Item Promotion

Starting with my next listing on Etsy, I'm going to offer free shipping for the first week after I have any new item listed (this won't apply to most re-listed items). Hopefully, this will succeed at keep people interested and coming back to my shop on a regular basis. Stay tuned for a new barn swallow resin brooch coming soon. The barn swallow brooch design has been quite popular in the past, so I'm going to be bringing it back in both brooch and belt buckle form.