April Stone/Glass Jewelry Challenge

Last month I challenged our group of talented designers to move from our Cultured Sea Glass themes to some items from our warehouse that may not otherwise get much attention.  I called this the "Diamonds in the Rough" challenge.

Pick Your Diamonds
After doing some digging in the database and flushing out all the items that did not get much exposure in the past few months, I gave them a list to choose from.  Each designer picked a few items that caught their eye and I added a few to spice up the mix.  If you've been in the industry a while, some of these items may bring flashbacks!  They are beauties overlooked by everyone in our rush for what's new, what's fresh... but not any longer!


It was our belief that these diamonds just needed some love and attention.  The designers on our team were ready to answer the calling!  We will reveal their creations on Znetshows Facebook page and also in our Jewelry Gallery as they come in.  A final Blog hop will be announced once we have all the entries.


Winners Picked by Facebook Likes
And this time, there's going to be a twist: a Facebook voting contest! Instead of the judging being entirely done by our own staff, we're going to open up the voting for everyone!  Our staff will pick the top 20 designs and then allow all our Facebook fans to vote on who the winners are.

Top Prize: $100 Gift certificate to ZnetShows
Second Prize: $75 Gift Certificate to ZnetShows
Third Prize: $50 Gift Certificate to ZnetShows

Watch for New Designs
Keep an eye out for posts as designers finish their creations on our Facebook page.

Jewelry Gallery is always open.

Stay Tuned...

Bead Style magazine - May 2013 - Cultured Sea Glass Necklace

Our Cultured Sea Glass item has been featured in one of the jewelry designs made by Kelsey Lawler, Assistant editor at Bead Style Magazine!  Her design is extremely elegant and simple, but packs some fashion whollop for any laid back bride or wedding party!  If you haven't already subscribed to Bead Style, visit their site and sign up!

It features our Marquise Spindle Cultured Sea Glass shape in three separate colors.  


P09-B16  - Amber
P09-B84  - Lemon
P09-B83  - Tangerine

 

 Wanna see how to make it?!?  You gotta get the magazine!  Props to our friend Michele for showing it to us or else we may have missed this entirely!

Cultured Sea Glass Design Team Winners!

The votes have been tallied and all 150+ designs have been carefully scrutinized.  The standards we used for these votes are a little different from what would be just a plain "gorgeous" vote.  We wanted pieces that really showed off the sea glass, used it as the focus and most importantly, helped us sell the sea glass at our booth in Tucson.  The decisions were very tough and the top 7 designs were so hard to whittle down that we ended up making a new category: Honorable Mention.

And finally, here are our top winners (drum roll please):

First Place: Michele - Shelly's Shelf

Seashore Necklace and Earring Set

Second Place: Gretchen - Gretchen Nation Collection

Gypsy Rodeo Necklace

Third Place: Bobbie - Beadsong

 Embroidered Sea Glass Pendant

Honorable Mentions

Christina Miles - Wings N Scales

 Hope Smitherman - CraftyHope

Heidi Kingman - HK Jewelry

Becky Pancake - BP Bead Designs

Cindy Edwards - Live to Design

In all, we chose over 40 pcs to take with us to Tucson.  The entire list will be posted along with pictures of our booth starting at the beginning of February.  Keep posted and please congratulate all the winners on their great designs.

If you are interested in joining in on the fun, we have another design group starting in February for our March newsletter.  Please send us an email with a link to your blog page and some examples of your work.  We will send out notifications to chosen designers in the new few week.

Thanks for looking!

Tucson Cultured Sea Glass Design Team Reveal

A big thanks to all the designers, artists, crafters, and enthusiasts for agreeing to help out and participate in our Cultured Sea Glass design team.  The response as been amazing - my inbox was bursting with beaded awesomeness.  Two weeks is a very short turnaround but many of our team members were able to get things done in just a few days after receiving their samples.  I barely had time to post my blog entry announcing the challenge before I received designs sent in from excited members.

Members each received a randomly selected bag of mixed sea glass and crystal beads.  Some had pearls, base metal and other products but the sea glass was our main focus this time.  Here is a sample bag from Hope. 

Their instructions were simple: create pieces focusing on the cultured sea glass while trying to incorporate as many of our samples as possible.  This was particularly difficult since they didn't get any say in what color, shapes, materials or how many of each they got.  But with no exaggeration do I say they rose to the challenge and dove right in with relish.

Here are a few designs examples from our submissions.  To see all of them organized by designer, please check out the ZnetShows Facebook Page. 

 

Special Thanks to these designers who submitted their works.  Please take a look at all their blog pages and check out their designs.

Anitra - LeeLu Creations 

Becky - Becky Pancake Bead Designs

Bobbie - Beadsong Jewelry

 Charlie - Clay Space

Cherrie - En La Lumière
 
Christina - Wings N Scales

 Christine - Sweet Girl Design

 Cindy - Live to Design

Donetta - Simply Gorgeous
 
 Gretchen - Gretchen Nation Collection

Heather -  The Crafthopper
 
 Heidi - Heidi Kingman Jewelry

Hope - CraftyHope

Kay - KayzKreationz

Kelly - Traveling SideShow 

Klaudette -  Only Road

 Mimi - Beads, Baubles, Other Curiosities

Pam - Crazy Creative Corner 

Rachel - R. Baron Designs

Sandi - Do Be Do Bead Do

Suzette - Ellie's Bijoux

To get the design juices flowing and give everyone a little push, I sent out these pictures threatening baby teasing if they didn't make the deadline!  Seemed to work as we got everyone's designs!

 

We will announce which designs were chosen for our Tucson booth and also which designs are the winners of our top prize soon. 


Stay tuned....

Tucson Sea Glass Design Team

Cultured Sea Glass Design Team Challenge

A group of designers, artists, and hobbyists accepted our challenge: design some jewelry with our newest sea glass items with a deadline only 2 weeks away! Here's the story of those brave enough to accept the challenge!

 We made all the sample packs to go out with the idea of giving each designer a theme and seeing what they come up with. View it like a one way bead soup exchange. We are so excited to see what everyone comes up with. No everyone got the same colors, so it'll be very interesting to see what happens.

Each designer will submit photos of their completed works and we will then select the designs we feel really represent our products and mail them to Tucson to display at our booth!


In addition, all designs mailed to Tucson will be judged by our staff and customers at Tucson for a prize drawing of up to $100 Gift certificate to our website. 


Winners of the first round will be announced on this blog and on facebook soon. 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151324230924523.490178.87744049522&type=3

Cultured Sea Glass

ZnetShows' sea glass products are finally getting a name!  We are proud to present what we consider is a more accurate description of what our products are.  Similar to cultured pearls in the salt and freshwater industry, our glass beads are not 100% natural.  They are hand made with multiple steps between raw glass material and the soft, matte finished glass bead in front of you.  The glass is painstakingly transformed over many weeks from non-descript, unattractive raw glass to frosty beads capable of captivating beaders and fashionistas alike. 

We mimic the natural process of the sea with a matte finish (no acid etching is used).  The color of the cultured sea glass is original and is not dyed nor plated on.  Finally, the sea glass is actually glass!  Many customers have asked us in disbelief: "How can you sell sea glass so cheap?  It has to be plastic!"  To that we reply: "Sorry about that, if you would like to pay more, we'd be glad to raise the prices..."   The way we keep our prices low is to have a fully vertically integrated system from design to prototyping to materials to shaping, matte finishing, stringing, packaging, and shipping - we do it all.  This way we have no middlemen to pay, no expensive mark ups to pass on and you get direct from the source pricing. 

Cultured Sea Glass Beads

As with other cultured products, we can also make custom designs.  The prototyping may take a while and training our craftsmen to learn a new shape may also take a while, but almost any shape is possible.  For more information about customizing a cultured sea glass shape or production, please give us a call: 1-800-808-1782

Thanks!

Orange!

This is the fall season where pumpkins, leaves, candy and everything else in between turn orange and yellow and red!  Get the latest orange items and go for some classics with our large selections of orange items.

http://www.znetshows.com/GemShow/Retail/itembrowser.asp?Format=2&Keywords=orange

Or you can do the same thing for your favorite colors.  Just type in magenta/purple/aqua/etc.  And you can see your favorite colors as well.  If you can't find something, just goto the top of the page and click on "View By Stone" and see all our stone and material selections.