Design This – Custom Music Themed Necklace

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about some new music geek items that I developed for my EclecticSkeptic shop as a result of a custom order. Today I thought I’d share with you the necklace that sparked the new items.

Ever since I made the first pair of custom cufflinks for my customer to give as a gift, she had talked about wanting some type of custom charm necklace using the image I had developed. She tends to wear a lot of black and silver jewelry and she had showed me some styles that she liked and we brainstormed what components drew her to them. I had the opportunity while I was putting together a supply order this past summer to add some components to it that I thought could be worked into a custom necklace that would suit her.

Once I had my shipment, I scheduled to meet my customer. I laid out my new supplies as well as ones that I already had on hand. I asked her to pick out the pieces that she liked the most. I mocked up some suggestions based on what was left and after we had a necklace design in place my customer asked about the possibility of a charm bracelet too, made using a heart that didn't make it onto the necklace. I then took down some measurements to work from.

One thing that I still had to do was to come up with an image of a keyboard for one of the charms for the necklace. I took several close up photos of my piano’s keys and worked up a couple of photographic art images. The charm images needed to be black and white but I loved one of the intermediate color steps so much that I saved it to come back to later. (I used this image on the new piano keys necklace that I added to my shop earlier this year. I have also framed it as a ready to hang piece of photographic art. I will have it with me next week at my Dallas show.)

While I was working on this image, I put together enough of the necklace and bracelet to be able to do a test fit, got approval to go ahead, put the rest of the pieces together after finalizing the piano keys charm image and delivered them to a very happy customer.

Happy customers always make me happy too. It’s great to be able to create something that is special to someone. If you would like to discuss the possibility of a custom creation, please contact me. I have completed many custom orders long distance in addition to local ones as described in this post.

EclecticSkeptic Expands Music Line

The new and improved music themed cufflinks, that I introduced to my EclecticSkeptic shop and wrote about developing earlier this year, have been a popular item. Over the summer when my friend, whose earlier custom order prompted the development of the cufflinks as a stock item in my shop, requested a custom music themed necklace, I took the opportunity to brainstorm some new music themed jewelry items for my shop using some of the new supplies and tools that I purchased to fill her custom order. (Stay tuned for the “Design This” post about her custom necklace.)

So far I have added music note earrings and a necklace to my music geek line. For the earrings, I am using the music note graphic that I designed for the cufflinks. The earrings, like the cufflinks, are available in silver plated or gold plated styles. Unlike the cufflinks however, the image of the sixteenth note and music staff are printed in a very dark brown instead of black when paired with the gold plated earrings.

The necklace incorporates an image that I developed in the course of working on the custom necklace order. The image is a close-up of piano keys and has a vintage quality to it that nicely complements the antiqued brass tone bezel and chain that I used to complete this necklace.

I have always enjoyed the challenge of a custom order. It is a bonus when custom orders are a catalyst for new items for my shops.

Design This – Music Cufflinks

Some time back when I mentioned to a friend that I was working on developing a line of flying pig cufflinks for my EclecticSkeptic shop, she asked if I could design a custom pair of music themed cufflinks for her to give as a gift. Since the flying pig cufflinks included a printed image of mine, I assured her that I could come up with something and asked if she had any basic thoughts about what she would like for them to look like. After sending a couple of examples her way, we hit on a personalized final design. In addition, I drew a generic music themed design from scratch since I was looking to expand my shop’s offerings by including some items for the music, math or science geek. While she and I, as well as the eventual gift recipient, were pleased with the final product, I found that I was having consistency issues as I continued to produce my cufflinks using the production method that I had researched, so it was “back to the drawing board” for me.

I searched for other options and tried different materials but was not one hundred percent excited about the final outcome until I finally located some low profile glass cabs. About this time my friend mentioned that she wished that she had suggested a slightly different design for the custom music cufflinks that I had made for her previously. I took this as a good opportunity to have someone test out the new cufflink construction that I was planning on using. I developed a new custom design using hand drawn letters based on a monogrammed handkerchief belonging to the recipient of the first pair of cufflinks and my hand drawn music note. This new design made the handkerchief and cufflinks look like a set. Everyone has been very pleased with the results and I have started stocking my silver plated or gold plated generic music themed cufflinks using the new materials in my EclecticSkeptic shop.

Music themed cufflinks make pleasing presents for the musician or music teacher. They would also be great groomsman gifts. If you are interested in multiple pairs of cufflinks, please contact me to check on the lead time needed to complete your request.