How to Clean Jewelry

You might think that the life of a jewelry artist is very glamorous with everyone clamoring to own your artistic creations.  But let me tell you, the grim reality is that it's not all shops, shows and parties.  Every time I remove jewelry from a store or have a pair of earrings that just won't sell, I have to clean them.  When I first realized this, it was a frustrating revelation and I sometimes just skipped it.  But when you're at a show and the sun is shining brightly on your earrings and there's a brown/gold cast to that sterling silver, people notice it and back away slowly, not making eye contact.

Let me school you in the nitty-gritty behind the limelight, Jewelry Artists have to regularly clean the jewelry that they sell or it doesn't sell.  Sometimes, the only reason I have clearance sales is because I don't want to clean my jewelry~

I've found some game-changing products that have made that chore not so chore-ish.

The first product that I use to clean my jewelry is a Sunshine Polishing Cloth.  These are great for a quick clean-up and I use them when I'm refreshing my stock at shops.  According to the website, these are "non-staining and easy-to-use cloths to remove tarnish from sterling silver, gold, brass, copper, glass, mirrors and most other surfaces, leaving a deep, long-lasting luster."

The only downside is that, though the tarnish is removed, the silver is not so sparkly after polishing.  If you don't mind that, you can get one for yourself RIGHT HERE:

I have jewelry in a coffee shop and it's amazing how quickly it gets tarnished.  (It even kind of smells like coffee when I remove it, but that's probably more than you needed to know.)   Instead of a quick swipe with my sunshine cloth, I soak the jewelry in Sunshine Jewelry Cleaner.  It's a pink, soapy liquid that comes with a little brush to get to the stubborn stains.

Here's how their site touts it:

	Made in the U.S.A.
	All Natural
	No ammonia, acids or alcohol
	Biodegradable; environmentally friendly

I use the container with a little basket so you can dump a bunch of jewelry in and leave it for an hour or so, then pull it out to rinse it off and not even get your hands sticky!  It's a little pricey, but if you're just cleaning your own jewelry it will last a long time.   Get your own HERE!



Most of the time, the jewelry is sparkly and the tarnish is gone.  When the tarnish is really stubborn, like on the aforementioned coffee shop jewelry, I use a polishing cream.

I like JewelBrite Polishing Cream best.  The site looks to be in transition right now so I'll provide a link later to the specific product that I use.  This polishing cream was my savior as far as jewelry cleaning goes.  You can use it on most stones and metals and it's biodegradable. Before I found this, I was trying the aluminum foil and baking soda method which mostly didn't work and was time-consuming and messy.

The best way to use the polishing cream is to dampen a wash cloth, swipe some cream on, polish then rinse.  It's great for chains because you can simply pull the chain through the cloth several times.

The Jewel-Brite polishing cream is also kind of expensive, but again, if you're only cleaning your own jewelry, the 2 oz. container should last a long time.  If it dries out, just add water.  Really good stuff!

So, now you know one of the ugly truths of being a jewelry artist.  But, thanks to these products, I can quickly get through it with very little headache and move along to the Beautiful Life~

Revelations 21

Last week I set up shop in the cafeteria of one of the Vanguard Buildings.  It was my second experience with Corporate Kiosks and the best of the two corporate events I've done.   Since I only sell women's jewelry (I think I have one guy bracelet~), 95% of the folks that stop by my display are female.

At this particular show, I was approached by a guy in about his late 20s-early 30s.  He said, "This is a weird question but you wouldn't happen to know what Chrysoprase is, would you?"

"I do!" said I, "It's a light green gemstone, but I don't have any jewelry with that, sorry."

He continued, "The reason I ask is that every month for the first year of our marriage, I've bought my wife a piece of jewelry based on the gemstones listed in Revelations 21.  Are you familiar with that?"

At this point, I realize that I only heard "every month...bought my wife jewelry" and had drifted into a dream state.  I recovered quickly to say, "No, I'm not familiar with that."

He went on to explain that there are twelve gemstones and he had searched for them, in the order that they're listed in the verses, for his wife.   Of course, as soon as I got home I looked it up and, sure enough, it's in Revelations 21: 19-20.  The foundations of the walls of the New Jerusalem are adorned with these twelve jewels.

What a sweet way to celebrate the first year of marriage, 

using the adornments of God's New Kingdom!

¹⁹ The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the first was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, ²⁰ the fifth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst.
Revelations 21:19-20 NRSV 
biblegateway.com

Jasper

Sapphire

Agate

Emerald

Onyx

Carnelian

Chrysolite

Beryl (Aquamarine)

Topaz

Chrysoprase

Jacinth

Amethyst

Images courtesy of Wikipedia, Rio Grande & Gem Select

New Blog

I'm doing what I said I would never do and that's start a blog specifically for my jewelry business.  Why?  Because I started blogging personally last fall as Purple Mountain Girl and found that I like blogging.  It's another little place that I get to feel like I CONTROL THE WORLD!  Even though, probably, no one is listening...

I'm also converting my website over to this blog because, basically, it's Free~  I've learned so much from blogging that I became sure there was a way to have an e-commerce site using a blog; and if you have access to Google, you have all the knowledge in the world right in your hand!


Here are some things I learned to create this site:

1-Create a static home page.
This was important to me because I don't want visitors to have to slog through my ramblings to get to the good stuff (ie, my jewelry.)  I found this tutorial:  http://www.bloggertipspro.com/2012/06/creating-blogger-static-home-page.html# and my blog now has a static landing page as well as maintaining a place for me share my trivial scribblings!

2-Getting rid of the blogger bar at the top.  Another VIP - very important project!  Your blog cum website looks much more professional and doesn't announce to the world that, "I'm too cheap to buy yearly website hosting!"  I found help here:  http://blogger-hints-and-tips.blogspot.com/2012/03/removing-navbar-from-your-blog.html  Very easy to do!

3-Centering the Blog Description.  I don't know WHY this is not a standard format in blogger or whatever but it bugs the buhjeepers out of me and has since I started blogging!  OCD much?  Anyway, another very easy fix that I found here:  http://www.southernspeakers.net/2010/12/repositioning-blogger-title-and.html

I will leave it at that for now, don't even get me started on all the cool gadgets out there!  A Heartfelt Thanks to all the bloggers that have posted and shared their knowledge with us html-challenged folks!