Who is sewing your sequins?

At Seba Dizajn we know who sewed on our sequins and knitted our hats, we are proud to be supporting Fair Trade producers in Nepal.  We have had quite a lot of customers commenting on our scarves and bags not being made in Croatia. It is hard to keep everyone happy! We are yet to find Croatian made textiles to stock in our shop, but we only opened our store in June and our search for fabulous Croatian made products continues.

My previous job was based in the highlands of Scotland where I managed a small Fair Trade company that sourced, and continues to source, all of its products in Nepal.  Doka and I had talked about stocking only Croatian made goods alongside of the stunning filigree jewellery that he is producing in the store, it was a joint decision to support Nepal and Fair Trade and stock products from Nepal.

Nanu, Pemela & Mango Shobu, Kathmandu November 2009

We stand by our decision and hope that in time there will be growth in awareness of Fair Trade here in Croatia.  I have seen Fair Trade candles in the Kozmo store here but no other ‘Fair Trade’ recognised products – yet…

 

What is your favourite Fair Trade product?

Oh what the tweet have I done now?

Without much idea of how, what or why I have launched myself into the unknown tweeting world… have found some jewellery designers to follow which should be interesting – maybe I can learn some Twitter tricks from them?  Have posted my first ‘tweet’ and I still don’t know what I’m doing. 

It’s a funny thing,  a very strange feeling that I can’t quite describe. I feel like such a fuddy duddy – especially using that expression! I feel like I am at the bottom of the class of Twitter 101 and I guess the only way is up from here.  Tomorrow’s mission is to dedicate some time to learning about how Twitter can help people find Seba Dizajn on-line and how I can share more of the fabulous filigree work that we are creating here in Korcula.   I can’t wait for the 30 Day Twitter Challenge, a la Nikki Pilkington, am thinking this is where I will learn the most. 

In the mean time if you are ‘in the know’ and want to follow my progress into the tweeting world I have signed up as Ruth Seba @ SebaDizajn.  Would love to share the journey, it’s a lonely road when we travel alone…. come follow me.  I have chosen this beautiful filigree bead with coral details as our profile picture. 

Remember if you would like to see the full Seba Dizajn collection you can find us on www.facebook.com/SebaDizajn where new content is being added daily. 

Cheers, Ruth

 

 

The Turquoise & Coral necklace…the final chapter.

It’s polished, it shines, it looks amazing.

We have enjoyed some input from our fans on facebook about this piece and today some lovely feedback from customers in our shop (Seba Dizajn). 

There is something amazing about seeing pieces of jewellery created from scratch.  When we collected the pieces of turquoise in Nepal I had no idea what Doka would create with them and could not have pictured anything as beautiful as this. 

It feels great to be sharing our filigree with visitors to Croatia and some of our story here.   If you would like to see more of our work please join our small community of facebook fans, our page is regularly updated and there are a lot of photos of Doka’s filigree.

www.facebook.com/SebaDizajn

Thanks, Ruth

Learning some basic Jewellery techniques

Today at Seba Dizajn I learnt some basic jewellery making techniques and it was so much fun.  No longer just the jewellers wife….

There a piece of jewellery that is currently being created in our store with a story that keeps growing; from selecting the pieces of turquoise that are being used when we were in Nepal in November to todays chain making. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I offered to make the chain for this piece as I could tell that Doka (Adolf) was really not very interested in the chain making.  Doka cut the rings and oval links for the chain and I learnt how to close them together and then use borax and the heat from the flames to solder them permanently together. 

It was a fantastic experience for me to have this very small insight into the precision that is required to create the very delicate filigree work .  I had so little control over the flame & accidentally soldered several pieces together and this was working on a relatively ‘chunky’ chain. 

 

The chain is finished and polished now and looks fantastic. The necklace it will be used in is almost complete and looks stunning, I am really looking forward to sharing the finished work with you tomorrow.

Remember if you would like to keep updated on our jewellery making here in Croatia and other events here at Seba Dizajn you can subscribe to the Seba Silver blog on the top right of this page.   Hvala! (Thank you)

Help us design our latest piece of Filigree jewellery.

We currently have at least three options of how the next piece of filigree from Seba Dizajn can be completed.

I wonder if Adolf has jewellers block?

I think he has jewellers overload, too many good ideas tumbling for space in his head, here are a couple design of options.

OPTIONS 1 & 2 (the left & right sides are different here)
OPTION 3

 

OPTION 1 – (left first photo)

Two additional pieces of turquoise to be used on each side of the necklace to complement turquoise centrepiece.

OPTION 2 – (right side first photo)

No additional pieces of turquoise used on either side of finished necklace.

OPTION 3

A piece of turquoise used on either side of the centrepiece –

(nb. All our filigree jewellery is made from Silver – the ‘gold’ effect in the photos is from the heat used to shape & weld the filigree pieces together, the completed necklace will be polished silver.)

 

 

We would love to hear your thoughts on these options – or feel free to suggest some alternative options.

If you would like to see how this necklace turns out please subscribe to our blog on the link at the upper right of this page.

Thanks for your input and support.

Ruth