Custom Orders

Through Etsy, I had a customer from Canada contact me about making personalized necklaces for a girls' weekend. After working the details out, she ordered 15 with a possibility for more at a later date.

And then Kim came to town and as usual with a visit comes an idea and it's always a good one. I actually had someone already inquire about doing something similar with a lacrosse charm, but with Kim it's usually baseball.

Sterling Silver Personalized Washer with Sterling Silver Charm or Personalized Inner Disc

$40

(Baseball Charm included at this price, other charms may increase the price)

Teacher Gifts & Commemorate the Date

It's that time of the year. School is almost out for summer and I have been making a ton of teacher gifts. Thanks to a family friend who asked me to make one last year, I ran with the idea from there and it has been a best seller.

While I have the standard ones I list on my site, I had a mom contact me because she wanted to reward her son's three teachers and she wanted to tweak the standard idea.

The "1+1=awesome" is for the math teacher. Pretty clever. She also asked me to put her son's name and the year on the edges of the cuffs. So when the wearer flips her hand to palm side up, she will see the student's name and year. 

Sterling Silver Teacher Appreciation Cuff

$35

A repeat customer form Arizona contacted me yesterday with a picture of a bar necklace she saw somewhere and wanted to know if I could recreate in silver.

This is another great idea to commemorate a wedding date. I used a thicker 18 inch chain to hang the bar from because she has small children and the regular chain is too delicate to handle the stress of a child yanking on it.

Sterling Silver Bar Necklace With Thicker Chain

$35

Adding Aluminum

The majority of my jewelry and key rings have always been sterling silver.

I recently decided to experiment with aluminum as a second option. Aluminum is a great alternative because it's less expensive, lighter in weight, and will not tarnish like sterling silver.

I ordered some circle blanks, jump rings, and ball chains from my supplier in New York and must say I am quite impressed. Aluminum is so much easier to stamp on than sterling silver and allows me to still provide a quality looking product, yet make it financially accessible for most customers.

Aluminum Ohana Necklace

$6

Aluminum Single Blank Personalized Necklace

$6

Aluminum Triple Blank Personalized Necklace

$20

Aluminum Triple Blank Personalized Necklace

$20

Special Gifts and Request

The best part of this business is the ability to personalize items. I can make gifts for friends that are really special and unique and I can fulfill requests for customers I don't even know.

There is a group of moms from Kendall's old school that get together for breakfast or coffee occasionally and at least 3 times a year to celebrate birthdays. We laugh and enjoy the company of one another. I brought personalized necklaces for two of the women and a bracelet for the third.

However this was a dream that one of the moms and I had talked about and so I took the birthday gift as an opportunity to finally make it:

Cheryl's daughter Sami is a cheerleader at Rosary High School. The mascot is the Royals and they use the crown specifically as a symbol. Although the crown is silver-plated it worked out perfectly and has a three-dimensional look to it that I loved. Cheryl was so surprised and happy with how it came out.

I received a custom cuff request a couple weeks ago and I think it's just perfect:

Sterling Silver Hand-Stamped Personalized Cuff Bracelet

$35

Custom Request

When I made the statement piece with the different shaped blanks a couple months ago, Kim immediately was eyeing some of the blanks. They were new shapes she hadn't seen and I also had experimented with gold-filled. So as per the usual, she made a custom request.

I put her off for awhile because I wanted to experiment with a different chain and the ability to separate the charms versus them overlapping each other on the chain.

I started with two the square gold-filled blanks, which I stamped with the names of her boys. Then she wanted the circular sterling silver blank with the heart cut-out for her husband.

I then connected them to the chain and ended up with this:

It's more of a statement piece and she loves it. I love the fact that is lays perfectly and the blanks don't ever overlap.

Custom necklace, pricing varies based on blank shapes, size, and material.

Winner

The most expensive part of starting Stamplified Life was purchasing the tools. I initially bought a starter set when I was going to try my hand at this trade. Once I realized I could do it and was good at it, then I started wanting more and more tools. 

One of the wholesale companies I have been doing business with is Halstead Bead in Prescott, Arizona. They are family owned and operated and are a pleasure to work with. Halstead Bead has a blog and they offer grants and giveaways. I have never entered a giveaway, but I did this month. They simply wanted to know what my "go to" tool is, you know the tool you can't live without. This was simple for me, boring yes, but simple. It's my bench block:

This is a block that is steel and is what I stamp all my blanks on. I replied that it is the tool I can't live without because when your business is all about hand stamping jewelry, it would be impossible to stamp anything without this.

Well guess what...I was selected as one of the 3 winners. 

This is what I won:

This is a dapping set and block. This will allow me to take round/circle blanks and make them either concave or convex. This is where all those blanks I damaged with mistakes early on will come in handy so that I can perfect this craft.

Love Adds Up

This is one of my new favorite ideas that came from my friend, Laura. She was looking for a gold bar necklace with the names of her two boys on it.

I have not ventured into cutting my own bars yet, therefore I am limited to approximately 7 characters, based on the font style that is used. Laura wanted to give me the business, so she came up with this clever idea:

She even decided to add her husband's initial. We left this one as is, instead of blackening it and I really like how it turned out.

14k Gold Filled Bar Necklace on 16 or 18 inch chain

$35