I just put up a whole bunch of new photos on Facebook. Soon they will be on the regular website, part of the revamp (but I was too impatient to wait for the photos to launch the site!).
Sentimental Silver 2010 Photos
I’m going to try to get better at taking more pictures of pieces before they ship out. With custom made jewelry there are so many different options, and I hope to share more of the unique creations our customers order.
We Love You Mommy Necklace
Breathe Birthstone Necklace
This following photo is show people one of the things that makes Sentimental Silver different from other personalized jewelry. Our pieces are substantial! There’s a lot of silver in there, especially with a double sided piece, and the silver used to make our pendants is more pure than sterling silver. We use what is referred to as “fine” silver, which is 99.9% pure silver, compared to sterling silver, which is 92.5% pure silver. We create our pieces entirely by hand – they start out as a lump of pure silver clay, and are molded, shaped and personalized into whatever style the customer orders.
Below you see (left to right) a Sentimental Silver Double Sided Square Necklace, a Sentimental Silver Single Sided Round Necklace and a pre-made sterling silver charm blank that is similar to what other personalized jewelry companies offer.
I won’t lie. I love Facebook. It’s so awesome to reconnect with friends I haven’t seen or spoken to since grade school, and it’s also fabulous to see and hear about the little every day moments of my nieces and nephews who I see regularly.
Sentimental Silver’s Facebook page is always the very first place I post sales, and sometimes we have sales that are only shared with our Facebook fans. You’ll also find a great gallery of photos of our pieces, images of some of our customers wearing their Sentimental Silver creations and sneak peeks of what’s coming up next. Visit us on Facebook today!
It’s not exactly a secret that I’m a huge fan of cupcakes (come on, who isn’t???). I came across these today and had to share – how ridiculously cute is this??? Perfect for a tea party.
Though with my house basically being one big rotating virus right now, this is more what i need…
Now this next one would be PERFECT for my husband. He loves pb&j sandwiches. He could (and practically does) eat them EVERY day.
Ha, and while looking at things for my husband, this is PERFECT for any guitar playing, pancake making Dad…
I think I need this one. Given my love for Hello Kitty. And my computer nerd husband (said with love and admiration).
Hmm…. I wonder if this would be enough to get my child to do the dishes…
I’ve come to the conclusion that anytime I need to buy a gift, and do not know what to get, this website will be my saving grace. Love it!
We are in the process of updating the look of the website (the blog here is already updated!). Hopefully it will be a smooth transition, but please let us know if you run into any problems while navigating the site. Thanks!
We’ve added a bit more color and spunk to our logo as well as the site, here’s a sneak peek… I love me some multi-colored polka dots!
A big thank you to the very talented photographer and graphic designer extraordinaire Meggan Jacks for updating our logo.
Many times people aren’t sure which length of chain that they should order. For the most part, chain length is a personal choice, it’s what you are most comfortable with. Personally, I most often wear an 18″ chain. I find it to be very comfortable, and it works very well with my ever so sophisticated collection of Gap and Old Navy t-shirts. However if I am wearing a button down or open collar shirt, I often will select a 16″ chain.
Here are some examples of a 16″ chain length…
And a few examples of 18″ chain length…
And here is an example of 16″, 18″ and 24″ chains, all shown together. As you can see there is not a great deal of difference between the 16″ and 18″, though the 24″ is a fair amount longer than both.
If you are buying a necklace for a little girl, I think a 14″ chain works very well up until about age eight, depending on the size of the child. My daughter started wearing a 14″ chain at age three, and still wears it comfortably at age seven.
Valentine’s Day always seems to sneak up quickly after Christmas. I’ve put together some of my favorite Valentine’s Day gift suggestions. Gifts for your sweetheart, gifts for your mom and gifts for yourself! Many of our products, including our Heart Line, are perfect for Valentine’s Day. Here are a few of my other top picks…
Valentine's Day Jewelry Gift Guide
I often find that people aren’t sure which birthstones match up with which months of the year, so I thought I’d share a little of that information.
The stones that I use in necklaces match up with the following birthstones…
Sentimental Silver Birthstone Color Chart
Sentimental Silver uses Austrian made cubic zirconias, lab created gemstones and simulated gemstones (they vary based on color) in our pieces. Our stones range in size from 2.5mm-3mm and are available in all birthstone colors. We do not use natural gemstones stones, as most natural stones cannot hold up to the heat of the kiln firing, many will either discolor, crack or even disintegrate from the heat.
I embed each stone by hand directly into the silver while it is in a soft clay like state (which is later hardened through firing at high heat in our kilns). When the pieces are kiln fired, the silver shrinks slightly, permanently holding the stones in place within the silver. I would never consider gluing a stone to a piece, as I have seen done by others.
I always tell customers that they are not limited to their specific birthstone color. Feel free to use what YOU like! I do many necklaces using light pink and light blue for girls and boys. There are no rules – your piece is a custom one of a kind creation, so make it exactly what you want it to be!
Please keep in mind that stone color may vary based on individual computer monitors.
I hope that everyone had a great holiday and that the new year is off to a fabulous start.
After wrapping up all of the holiday orders, I immediately moved on to holiday baking – something I do a crazy amount of each year. It’s pretty much a given that if I’m coming to your house for the holiday’s, that I’ll be bringing dessert. I don’t keep track, but I usually make at least six or more types of cookies, a few types of bars and brownies, fudge, peppermint bark, white and dark chocolate covered pretzels (a ridiculous amount of those) white and dark chocolate covered peanut butter balls, chocolate haystacks, muffins, breads and a partridge in a pear tree. Okay, maybe not the last one, but it certainly feels like it.
After that it was finally time to relax and enjoy Christmas. We were able to spend a lot of quality time with family and friends, as well as just the three of us at home. Rick usually has some unused vacation time, and he burns it up at the end of the year. We had a great Christmas, and Bella loved her American Girl Doll and her Zhu Zhu Pets (though honestly, I think I spent more time finding those Zhu Zhu pets than she will spend playing with them – I’m just thankful I only paid retail and didn’t pay the Ebay rates!).
Christmas Morning
The Zhu Zhu Pets. And their ball which I thought Santa would never find...
The stocking is always a favorite.
Chrissa. We've entered the world of American Girl Dolls.
We also attended a really special dinner for my Grandparent’s 50th wedding anniversary, which was great – and allowed us to visit with more family that we simply do not manage to see enough of.
50th Anniversary Dinner
We even managed to get a few projects done around the house. One of them was moving Bella into the slightly bigger bedroom in our house. We’ve talked about doing it for years, but were never quite motivated enough to actually get started on it. This Christmas, my Father gave Bella a beautiful antique four poster bed – gorgeous – and LARGE. This pretty much gave us no choice but to make the move. So over a few long days we took everything out of the extra bedroom (and that everything spent some quality time cluttering up my hallway, bedroom, living room, and any other spot we could find), primed it, painted it, moved all of Bella’s furniture, toys and in, decorated it, and moved everything from the extra bedroom into her old bedroom. It was a lot of work, but we are SO thrilled with the result. It’s amazing how much difference a few extra feet of floor space makes.
Painting her room
Yay! It's done. Bright, colorful and totally Bella.
The pink Christmas tree will stay put through Valentine's Day.
Look - room to play!
Super happy with her new room!
Because I’ve had a few friends ask – a number of the items in the room came from Target. While my Dad gave her the beautiful bed, my mom gave her the gorgeous rainbow bedding that totally pulls together all the colors in the room.
The funky colored bright rugs are from Target (and quite soft)…
The cube organizer for her toys (and the colorful bins in it) are Target finds as well…
So happy it turned out well, and that she’s happy with it. The bed, being an antique, is not a perfect full size. I guess that’s pretty typical with antique beds. And it’s HIGH off the ground. So high I was able to put her former train table drawers under it for storage. She has a stool to help her get up (though she prefers to leap of course) and she loves being up so high. Makes mom a bit nervous, but as mom, everything makes me a bit nervous!
Now it’s time to get back to school and work. I have lots of new things coming up at Sentimental Silver, some great ways to reward my wonderful customers as well as some cool new ideas and pieces. Stay tuned, I hope to have them up and rolling very soon!