JewelryLessons.com's Expressions

JewelryLessons.com's Expressions is a monthly themed event, run by recently assigned masters Jodi Bombardier and Franchezka Westwood. Each month, members are encouraged to participate in this inspirational and fun challenge, by creating a piece of jewelry based on a theme. The first event happens during the month of March 2009 and the theme is "hippie!".
Check out the full details of this event: JL.com's Expressions: a Monthly Themed Challenge.

Ads on JewelryLessons.com

Although I have always been against the littering of websites by advertisement, the reality of today's economy inevitably knocks on all doors: ads support websites and the financial cost it takes to maintain them. So, I am opening the site for advertisement situations. Hopefully these ads will be placed in locations where they will not be too obtrusive for users, but still very valuable for advertisers.

The first series of ads is from Project Wonderful, where advertisers can bid (yes, like an auction!) for the ad spots. This initial block of ads is placed at the footer of the site and present in almost every single page of JewelryLessons.com (we are talking thousands of actual pages and currently 50 thousand visitors per month).

Although the footer does not seem like prime real-estate, remember this: when members COMMENT on gallery, questions, tips and tutorials of this site, they are required to scroll down to post comments, so they WILL see the ads. When non-registered visitors READ those comments, they tend to read the entire thread and WILL see the ads as well.

If you are interested in becoming an advertiser, there is a small link below the ads which will take you to Project Wonderful site. (This is also an excellent tip if you are interested in offering advertisement on your own blog or site). Here is a direct link to bid on these spots: JewelryLessons.com ads.

Thanks!
Eni Oken

"Make me a Jewel" on Facebook

Enjoy the latest fun JewelryLessons.com gadget on Facebook: now you can send virtual work-in-progress jewels to your Facebook friends. This is a virtual gift application where you can show how much you love a friend by sending them a picture of a jewel being constructed. All gifts will show images of jewelry being made by the loving hands of JewelryLessons.com artisans.

(For those not familiar with the Facebook applications, these are fun VIRTUAL gifts you can send to your friends).
To send your friend a virtual jewel, go to: JewelryLessons.com's Facebook "Make me a Jewel".

Eni Oken: Live Interview

The interview yesterday at Jewelry Connection was SO MUCH fun! If you missed it, then check out this link here: Eni Oken Live Interview. It lasted about 113 minutes. We covered a little bit of artistic background, a little bit about JewelryLessons.com and also a lot on techniques and how individual pieces were constructed. If the sound is a little low, just raise the volume of your speakers.
Also, check out this video compiled by Mona Hair, used during the Interview yesterday:
Featured Artist at Jewelry Connection: Eni Oken.

Radio Show -- check it out now!

I will be giving a live interview TODAY: a review of work and discussion about the new JewelryLessons.com site on The Jewelry Connection, which is an online radio talk show for jewelry artisans run by Mona Hair.

Date: February 15th, 2009
Show Time: 12pm PST - 2pm CST - 3pm EST 9pm in most of Europe, 8pm in the UK
Location: http://www.nowlive.com/showid/63074

When you go to the site, slide the Open Audio bar to the far left upon entering the broadcast room. Hit F5 on your keyboard to reset the broadcast room if videos won't load from the media files. F5 usually fixes anything that isn't functioning properly for you! Click on the media tab at top left in the broadcast room to open a double panel of videos and pictures that are already viewable there!

Interview with Valentine's Winners: Bobbi and Spike

It seems as if love is in the air everywhere, during this Valentine's season. The first place of the 2009 JewelryLessons.com Valentine's Jewelry Design Contest goes SO appropriately to the piece created by a brand new pair of love-birds, Bobbi and Spike, who met online.

Spike cut the stones and Bobbi set them wire and, as if predicting the future, it was the first piece they worked together, even before they became a pair.

This is an interview of how these two met and how they worked on the winning piece: Interview with Valentine's Contest Winners, Bobbi and Spike.

VALENTINE'S CONTEST WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

The winners of the 2009 JewelryLessons.com Valentine's Contest were final announced! Bobbi and Spike were the winners with their beautiful joint piece, "You made me whole". Spike worked on the stones while Bobbi set them in a beautiful frame.
Sandy won the second place with her touching piece "A Mother's Tears", which is a woven heart with a deep red garnet in the center. And finally, JudyR won the third place with her gorgeous triple heart bracelet entitled "Trio of Hearts".
Check out all the Winners and all the Finalists too.

Online Radio Show: You are invited!

I will be giving a live interview this coming Sunday: a review of work and discussion about the new JewelryLessons.com site on The Jewelry Connection, which is an online radio talk show for jewelry artisans run by Mona Hair.

Date: February 15th, 2009
Show Time: 12pm PST - 2pm CST - 3pm EST 9pm in most of Europe, 8pm in the UK
Location: http://www.nowlive.com/showid/63074

When you go to the site, slide the Open Audio bar to the far left upon entering the broadcast room. Hit F5 on your keyboard to reset the broadcast room if videos won't load from the media files. F5 usually fixes anything that isn't functioning properly for you! Click on the media tab at top left in the broadcast room to open a double panel of videos and pictures that are already viewable there!

Star Rating system

It has come to our attention through various isolated events that the star rating system may not be working properly. Even when a post is given highest stars several times, it the system does not always update the star display properly and tends to show the lowest average rating.

The issue has been submitted to tech support for investigation and hopefully it will be addressed soon. Since it is a complex programming module, please have patience while we address the situation.

This seems to happen only when there is more than one person rating, and has not happened on the first time the post is rated.

We apologize profoundly if this has caused unhappiness or frustration...!

Judges still working -- 5 more entries are finalists

Ok, the judges are still deliberating on the grades given to the Finalists of the 2009 Jewelrylessons.com's Valentine's Design Contest. In fact, 5 more entries were added to the list of finalists!
There are so many interesting entries... I can't wait to see the verdict.

2009 JewelryLessons.com Valentine's Contest Finalist

Yeepeee!!! The finalists of the 2009 Jewelrylessons.com Valentine's contest have been selected! There were so many entries to this competition that we had to do two phases, one of semi-finalists and then select the finalists. But the judges did a superb job in my opinion.
The Semi-Finalists can be seen here: 2009 Valentine's Semi-Finalists. This is still a rather large group. And here is the select group of Finalists.... drumroll, please....

2009 VALENTINE'S CONTEST FINALISTS.

Now the judges will work on giving scores to this short list so that we can announce the grand winners shortly.

Congratulations to all participants and thank you for making this a huge success!

JewelryLessons.com grows another 35% in January 2009

Wow, we are growing non-stop. I have yet to get the final statistics for this month, however, just the first numbers show an increase of 35% more visitors in January than in December -- from 33 thousand to 45 thousand. That's almost 12 thousand visitors more just this month -- and a third of these are brand new visitors! Weesh!

JewelryLessons.com Valentine's contest reached deadline

The 2009 Valentine's Design Contest at JewelryLessons.com has reached its deadline for posting entries! There are more than 200 fabulous entries. The judges are now in the process of selecting the finalists. The three judges will select finalists from the list of entries, by answering YES or NO to two questions:

a) Has the contestant kept with the theme of the contest?
b) Is the entry original and creative and not based on any well known tutorial that you know of (remember this is an inspirational design contest!).


The entries which receive a solid and unanimous YES from all three judges will be considered finalists. The list of finalists will be posted here at Jewelrylessons.com as soon as possible, hopefully in the next few days.

Congratulations to all the contestants and thank you for making our contest such a success!
See all the entries here: JewelryLessons.com Valentine's Entries.