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As has happened a couple times before, through my various interactions on Instagram I became acquainted with someone interested in working with me to promote my jewelry. When I was looking at Celtic-related hashtags I liked a few pictures by Katie C’etta. She reached out to see if I was interested in collaborating. I initially sent her a couple pieces of jewelry and she got them featured in Local Pittsburgh Magazine. I wrote about that in this previous post.
After that, Katie was very adamant that she could help grow my brand and wanted to do more. I was hesitant just because I don’t have a big budget for advertising. She worked with me to get a price that I could afford. So I sent her another few pieces. She got together with photographer Julie Kahlbaugh, a photographer for Local Pittsburgh Magazine to create the pictures.
They sent me several photos and I am kind of blown away by the results. They saw the kind of nature-theme I was going for in a lot of my own pictures on my site and took it to the another level.
When I’m doing pictures on my own, I’m trying to create something where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. For example, close ups of jewelry can be neat, and close ups of flowers can also turn out cool. Put the jewelry together with a flower, and it creates something better than either one by themselves. There is something about the combination of the different elements that really makes the picture special. Well, Katie and Julie took that idea and ran with it. The results were better than anything I’ve been able to do on my own. My favorites are the ones they did with the Leaf Knot Ring and the Round Celtic Cross Necklace. Check out the photos below to see for yourself.
If you are looking for creative branding ideas and stunning photos, I would recommend Katie and Julie without hesitation. We are already talking about doing more in the future.
I got a request from a customer to create a pendant that they were unable to find anywhere else. They had a photo of a similar four-point Celtic knot pendant, but it was not in silver. They found me through Shapeways’ Designers For Hire project. They chose me because they had seen that I had created similar pendants already.
This was a challenging piece for a couple reasons. First, they wanted a gem in the center. I have not worked much with gems, although it is something I want to practice and learn. Second, they wanted the piece to be only slightly bigger in diameter than a quarter. Cramming the details into that small of a space would be a challenge. Third, it had a series of four infinity knots that had to be at a lower depth than the four main points that were out front.
After studying the picture I created an initial version of the design with Blender. I knew the first version was not perfect, but I uploaded it to Shapeways anyway. This allowed me to use their model checking tools to see what areas might have problems. I found that some of the details were were being treated as “walls” which were too thin to be made with 3D printing. To address those issues I put a “backing” on the thin wires that come out of the outside of the circle. This basically made it so they would be treated as details coming off of a wall. “Details” have a different set of design guidelines than “walls”. Making the piece larger also helped, so that I could make everything a bit thicker and easier to 3D print.
The customer had picked out a 5mm diameter cabochon to put in the center, and the initial version did not have quite enough space in the center for it. So that was another reason to make the pendant a bit larger. With those things in mind I created a second version of the pendant. This time it passed Shapeways’ model checks. I then shared pictures with the customer to make sure they liked the design. Once they gave their approval, I ordered the piece in silver. I already had the cabochon on hand, so when the pendant arrived I was able to put everything together.
Overall I’m happy with how it turned out. I had done a design or two before with a four-point Celtic knot, but what makes this piece really eye-catching are the four infinity knots that are in the background. Those really add another level of complexity to the design.
After doing this, I’m interested in doing more designs with gems and especially cabochons now. The cabohon was easy to work with since it has a flat back. They are much easier to mount than a princess cut gem would be, for example.
One minor problem is that the prongs for the cabochon got polished down so they were shorter than I had hoped. I had planned to use glue to mount the gem anyway, in addition to the prongs. So, the prongs are not doing much to hold the cabochon, but they did locate it nicely in the center of the pendant.
I’m not sure if this symbol has any special meaning to the customer, but a four-point Celtic knot can symbolize a few different things. It could symbolize:
I did a recent collaboration with actress and model Katie C’Etta. She had spotted some of my jewelry on Instagram and reached out to me about working together. After learning a little bit about Katie, I quickly realized it was a unique opportunity that I should not pass up.
Katie is involved in a lot of different things. She has three films in the works, has appeared in commercials and has modeled for many different brands. She also has her own blog where she features local fashion and other projects she is working on. You can see one of her short films on Vimeo. It is called Circles and was directed by Reese Hayes.
She featured the Dragonfly Necklace and Triquetra Bracelet in her Instagram account. It was also featured in a photo shoot she did with Local Pittsburgh magazine. The photo featured the Dragonfly necklace is on page 53. I’m told that Local Pittsburgh is the top local magazine in Pittsburgh. This is pretty exciting because it is the first time one of our pieces has appeared in a print magazine. The jewelry will also appear on actress Emily Goode in the upcoming film The Way That I Am, which is tentatively planned to be released in 2017. That will also be a first. I will share more about that as I learn more about the film and when it will be released. You can read more about Katie and track her budding career at her web site.
As I said, this was another collaboration that originated from Instagram. Instagram has been great for finding people like this that have a common interest, and that I can work with in a way that is beneficial to both of us. I wrote about what Instagram can do for budding artists and small businesses in this earlier post.
I recently designed three new pendants, each with a different inspiration.
The Celtic Sisters’ Knot is one that I’d been meaning to do for a long time. My most popular pendants seem to be ones that symbolize family in one way or another, such as the Motherhood Knot, Father’s Knot, and Mother and Child Knot. This is my version of this knot.
I was inspired to create this when I read a quote that said “Hope is the anchor of the soul.” I really liked the idea of the anchor as a symbol of hope. It’s not intuitive but it still seems to work. This phrase is inspired from a Bible passage, Hebrews 6, verses 16 to 20. Here is the full passage from the New International Version:
16People swear by someone greater than themselves, and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument. 17Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an oath. 18God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope set before us may be greatly encouraged. 19We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. It enters the inner sanctuary behind the curtain, 20where our forerunner, Jesus, has entered on our behalf. He has become a high priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.
This was inspired from various tattoos I have seen, and also from the Dropkick Murphys album cover Signed and Sealed In Blood. I really liked the image of a bleeding rose and wanted to understand what it meant.
Obviously, the rose is a symbol of love. Some would say that a bleeding rose is supposed to symbolize the idea that love can outlive death. This idea goes way back actually, all the way to Greek mythology. The rose was a symbol associated with Aphrodite, who was often depicted wearing them. Adonis was her lover. There is a legend that a rose bush grew where he died and his blood had spilled, and that before that roses were white and not red.
The Celtic Knot around the border of the shield is also another reference to this idea – two loops are intertwined and don’t have a beginning or an end. Celtic art and Celtic knots often border on goth style in a lot of cases. This one is probably the most goth design I’ve ever done. It took a long time to figure out how to make the rose intricate enough to be somewhat realistic, but also robust enough that it could actually be 3D printed.
