Futurehit

Thursday, 27 August 2015

Featured In Making Jewellery Designer Profile!

Issue 84 of Making Jewellery magazine came out last week and as a MJ contributor it's my turn to be featured in the Designer Profile section!

I had to answer 8 questions asking things such as - What made me take the plunge to start selling my jewellery/What are the challenges of working with enamel and If I wasn't a designer I would be...

There's some nice photos of my jewellery too.

I look a bit hot and bothered in my photo - for some reason I thought it would be in black and white so didn't worry about editing the rosy cheek thing I had going on before I sent it off :D

Thursday, 6 August 2015

New Hoops, New Bangles And A Small Soldering Obstacle Overcome

After a frenzy of bangle making recently I had a couple of slow days so I grabbed the chance the make some new stuff. I have a long list of "things to make" but decided to go for a few pairs of hoop earrings with post fitting. I've sold a few pairs recently so they needed replacing.

I started with a couple of pairs in silver - a simple hammered pair and a flattened design with embossed pattern...

I oxidized both pairs but I think the embossed pair might have looked nicer left shiny... {will do that next time}. They do look lighter in real life than they appear in this photo.

I also made a pair of hammered texture hoops in bronze and copper. I'm liking bronze more and more these days. Grappling with the thicker gauges can be a challenge as it's a harder metal than copper but the lovely golden brown tones you get when you oxidize it then clean it up with wire wool are lovely.

The more golden brown tones of bronze.

The slightly more red tones of copper.

I made some "new" bangle designs too. I say new but it's not really new it's just a hammered texture that I haven't done before on a bangle. And I got to use my lovely Fretz goldsmiths hammer for the first time. I now know why they cost a lot more than some other hammers and why they are totally worth it.

And A Small Soldering Obstacle Overcome.....

Anyone who solders knows it can be tricky and especially tricky when you want to solder a tiny thing to a much bigger thing. Things melt. Up to now I have used stud post fittings that are attached to a pad. They make it easier to solder to the earring and can add more stability. You can still melt them though but I haven't done that in a long time. The last hoop earrings with post fittings I made had the post and pad fittings that I then trimmed as they were bigger than the end of the hoop wire. This time I decided I needed to just get over it and learn to solder the tiny posts to my hoops instead.

The tiny piece of wire that makes a stud post compared to the post and pad version.

Learning to solder the posts onto my hoops would be quicker, I'd have less finishing, if any, to do and it would also be cheaper. So I melted some solder onto the end of the post, positioned the hoop so nothing would move {very important} and held the post in my tweezers while I heated the hoop. Once the hoop was at the right temperature I touched the post to it and the solder flowed. It worked and the post soldered securely to the hoop. I just have to remember to move the flame away once the solder has flowed! I didn't melt anything so it was a success and another little soldering hurdle overcome. Yay!

Thursday, 23 July 2015

Claiming A Refund For A Customs Fee Paid On A Returned Item

Up until a couple of weeks ago this was a new one on me....yes having to pay a Customs fee on a returned item, in other words having to pay import VAT on my own item to get it back!

I'm totally aware of the Customs charge that has to be paid on items imported into the UK from outside the EU that have a value of more than £15 but when a customer from the US asked if she could return a silver bangle recently as it was too large and she wanted a smaller size of course I said yes that's fine, just send it back and I'll get a smaller size made. She was happy to pay another shipping charge for the replacement so all I had to do was wait for it to arrive...

It wasn't until the postman left a card informing me there was a customs charge to pay on something - I wasn't sure what it was at that point and thought maybe I'd forgotten I'd bought something lovely.....then it suddenly dawned on me what it was for. The returned bangle! So after feeling quite annoyed and thinking the profit on this bangle is slowly disappearing, I then thought that surely you shouldn't have to pay a Customs charge on a returned item. I decided to investigate....

After a quick bit of Googling I found a form to download on the GOV.UK website. The form is BOR286 and can be used if you believe that "Customs Duty or import VAT has been incorrectly calculated on your imported item" or if like me you've paid a charge on a returned item.

It's just a one page form and you need to send all the labels attached to the package by Customs {I just sent the whole packaging!}, plus proof of the sale and that the item is a return.
I sent the form and all the proof they asked for to the Border Force address and had a reply about a week later to tell me they would refund the Customs charge - great! The don't refund the Royal Mail £8.00 handling charge however which is understandable as that isn't anything to do with them and was actually more than the Customs fee I paid {how annoying!} Still at least I'll get something back.

So what could I have done to avoid this? Asking my customer to mark the customs form she attached to the package as "returned goods" which obviously never occurred to me. But now I know and if it ever happens again I'll make sure I do just that.