Emilie Shapiro @ Cliptomania.com

A Emilie Shapire bracelet featuring garnet, citrine,and ruby

Jewelry artisan Emilie Shapiro grew up close to the Atlantic Ocean where water has been a source of constant inspiration. It isn’t surprising since her family is full of creative entrepreneurs, inventors and free spirits who have encouraged her to explore different medium throughout her artistic life.

As an adult Emilie attended Syracuse University and received a BFA in Art and Design with a concentration in jewelry and metalsmithing. She also studied at Alchimia, a contemporary school of jewelry  with locations in Florence and Italy where she learned from artists like Peter Bauhuis, Yoko Shimizu, and Marzia Rossi. Emilie learned a lot including how to sculpt hard wax pieces so she could cast her work in metal and how to merge rough gemstones in her work to show their natural beauty.

Once her studies were complete Emilie worked as the Production Manager at Pamela Love and then in the same job at Allforthemountain before launching her own jewelry line.  As much as possible she resources all her jewelry production locally, hand making every piece of jewelry in her New York Studio.  Emilie also teaches jewelry workshops at Liloeve Jewelry School, The 92Y, as well as giving private lessons in her studio.  You can view her handcrafted jewelry by clicking on the photo above.

Metalsmith an Jewelry Artisan: Lauren Blais

Sterling Silver Earrings, Necklace & Ring

As future metalsmith and jewelry artisan Lauren Blais grew up in Rhode Island, she became hooked on fashion and design. With the goal of becoming a fashion designer in her sights, she took several courses at the Rhode Island School of Design to achieve it.  However, when Balis took a Beginning Jewelry course her plans slowly changed and by the time she worked with Providence artist Boris Bally; jewelry became her career goal. 

After RISD, she enrolled at the Massachusetts College of Art to study small metals and how to be a metalsmith. After graduating in 2008, Blais opened her own studio. The jewelry she makes is influenced by Victorian Mourning jewelry worn by Queen Victoria of England upon the death of her beloved husband Albert.  She wore black dresses and jewelry to match often made from jet or another dark material like tortoise shell.  This spurred others in the country and across Europe to want their own mourning jewelry to celebrate loved ones they lost too.  

 The mourning jewelry of the time was intricate in detail and held great beauty some pieces were made from the same elements as Queen Victoria’s and others were created from human hair, featured photos of a loved one, or a carved cameo likeness set in gold or silver. Blais wants her jewelry to have the same feel and to tell a story. Only she wants the story to continue beyond creation but keep going as the jewelry passes from one customer to another family member and then to another and so forth each generation.

The materials Blais uses are leather, fur, silver, raw gemstones, and gold – often pairing two or more of these elements together into a piece or pieces of jewelry.  She also makes each component of the jewelry as much as possible by hand whether it is the links that create a necklace chain or the clasp of a bracelet. Blais strives overall to ensure her jewelry blends the old and new together to create unique pieces of jewelry.  

Last year I found Lauren Blais jewelry in a happy accident surfing the Internet and I knew I had to add her pieces to the cliptomania.com website.  You can see them by clicking on Gemstones and choosing the sub category Jewelry Sets.

Costume Jewelry or No Costume Jewelry: That is the Question (Updated)

Costume jewelry.  What does that mean exactly?  I have wondered that over the years as cliptomania.com went from a very young company to a full-fledged teenager (17 years and counting).  I thought costume jewelry meant it is  inexpensive, well below $20 retail and massed produced.  This low-cost jewelry can have pitfalls including changing color, turning the skin colors, breaking easily, or causing any allergic reactions among other things.  However, as Cliptomania grew and began attending jewelry trade shows I got an education.  Yes, what I thought about costume jewelry was right.  However, I also learned it is possible to sell designer name creations, offer quality gemstones, 14K gold, vermeil, sterling silver and so on.  What really mattered was the first cost to the retailer – the wholesale cost. 

A new heirloom

Another thing I wanted to consider, was it possible to still get handmade handcrafted clip earrings? Would the cost prohibit them in light of the inexpensive, mass-produced machine-made products?   The answer was it depended on which country the products gets made in.   If the clip earrings are, from whether a developing or developed country?  The difference can affect the manufacturer’s price to the retailer.  Lastly, I learned another important factor in cost reduction for quality costume jewelry was the relationship between the retailer and manufacturer.  A good working relationship in which a manufacturer understands what the retailer is looking for can go a long way.

Handmade Mayan

 At Cliptomania.com we mix it up.  Some of the items we sell are machine-made, mass-produced clip earrings, passed from one manufacturer to another to completion.  Then there are our handmade items that come from designers who work with artisan’s in developing countries and improve their way of life in the process.   Some of our designers like doing all the work and fabrication of the clip earrings they make, and minimally use machine-made parts. An example would be the environmentally conscious artisans who take everyday products like bottle glass and turn into clip earrings, or sea glass straight out of the ocean to do the same thing.  Yet another designer makes clip earrings out of metal straight from the junk yard.  And lastly we have designers who continue traditions from the past like metalsmithing, creating works-of-art at affordable prices.

One of nine jewelry sets 

  

It is possible to please most customers without sacrificing quality to cost. Cliptomania.com will likely never go beyond costume and fine jewelry to the jewelry that can cost thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.  We know with the existing economy, and knowing our customer base, that this will never be the case. We like our middle ground providing a variety of quality costume and designer jewelry at an affordable price.  I hope the meaning of costume jewelry has changed for you as well.

BAMBOO Jewelry: A Green Company

 Written by Christy Santo & Melissa Stewart
Cliptomania.com

Bamboo Jewelry started by Christine Gonsalves and Steve King opened its doors for business in 2005.  A major driving force behind their company goals is their effort to have the lowest carbon footprint possible  Along with their ten to twenty employees, they are not just focused on creating quality necklaces, pins and earrings, but are also on being an environmentally friendly company as possible.  Endangered wildlife and global warming are two things very important to Christine and Steve.

Two years after forming Bamboo Jewelry, the company decided if they couldn't cut their carbon footprint to zero, they would offset it by buying carbon credits making Bamboo Jewelry the world's first carbon neutral jewelry company.  They have incorporated compact fluorescent bulbs and eliminated  air-conditioning, instead turning to fans to keep everyone cool and comfortable.  It doesn't stop there.  The self-sustaining and fast growing Bamboo wood is the basis for their jewelry boxes. They also incorporated paper tape and use non-toxic, bio-degradable plastic for shrink wrapping. Even the paper printed cards within the box uses recycled paper, from a duplex printer.  They can print 100,000 pages generating only five pounds of waste verses 157 pounds of typical waste from a regular laser printer.  Future eco-friendly goals include purchasing a new company car - a hybrid Aptera that will get 300 mpg - and remodeling their facility so it runs on solar-power.

Celebrating Nature

Each piece of jewelry's design celebrates a small part of nature, art and science.  Almost all the silver used as the base of their jewelry  repurposed or recycled, and they are striving for 100% recycled.  Using finely braided wire to create each cloisonne color cell, they can do multicolored blending which results in their three-dimensional contours and realistic shading, hallmarks of their splendid craftsmanship.   After the original artwork is complete, the sample pieces are carefully packed and mailed to China so artisans there can reproduce them.

Who's Who At Bamboo

Steve King is a fifth generation Californian with degrees from Yale in Art and Environmental Studies.  When he is not designing jewelry, he enjoys his work as a scuba instructor or organizing whale watching expeditions to Baja, Mexico.  Steve has also helped create a life-size whale sculpture, and notably, produced an hour long, prime time documentary aired on ABC on blue whales which won an Emmy for its cinematography.

Chrstine Gonsalves comes from a family of entrepreneurs.  She is a graduate of U.C. Berkeley with a MA in sculpture.  Before she began Bamboo Jewelry nine years ago with Steve, she began a company called Whales and Friends that is a popular Alameda, California gift ship that has been around for 20 years. Her interests include cats, orchids, art and nature. Christine splits her time between Bamboo and Whales and Friends, and is even known for bringing her beloved Tonkinese cats, Carson and Sagan, with her.

Cliptomania.com has sold earrings by Bamboo Jewelry since 2006.  Featured in our  Specialty and Animals  The overall quality and attention to detail of these earrings is amazing, and we are sure our nature loving customers will appreciate these fine, heirloom quality, clip on earrings.

Sources:
bamboojewelry.com
cliptomania.com