Some time ago, a customer asked if I could make small charms and put them into my Etsy shop. I had settings I was using to make French wire earrings. She told me she wanted them to make wine charms. It was one of those “Ah ha!” moments. I had never thought of wine charms before. It took some experimentation with wires, beads and spacer beads. I learned I had to pay attention to which way the bail was oriented on the tops of 12 mm charm settings. To slide onto a wine charm ring, they need to be in the same orientation as a pendant would be. Otherwise, you need to add a jump ring.
For most of them, I’ve used the same painting with a different colored beads to use as wine glass id, but I’ve painted so many portraits of our dogs over the years that it was easy to create a set of charms for basset hounds, dachshunds and old English sheepdogs using six different paintings. I could also do sets of butterflies, cats, sea life, a rainbow of flowers, Christmas and Easter Eggs.
If you ever wonder if an Etsy merchant can make something they don’t have in their shop – ask them. You never know, you might open an entire new world for them.
PaintedbyCarolBlog 