Necklace Displays | Jewelry Display Ideas

Learn how Alyson Garvey of Alyson Garvey Jewelry Designs displays her jewelry on her friends:

Hand-hammered hoop necklace
by Alyson Garvey,
modeled by one of her friends
(photo by Judith Black).

Alyson shares how having friends model her jewelry works for advertising her business as well as for getting beautiful jewelry photos, in her article Getting Your Friends to Model Your Jewelry. (Includes photos of Alyson's jewelry with and without her models.)

Thanks so much for sharing your beautiful jewelry photos and great tips, Alyson!

Filed under Displaying Jewelry for Photos, Necklace Displays by Rena Klingenberg.

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Here are some jewelry display photography and editing tips from Michelle Wade of Creativity Bead Jewellery.

Michelle says:

"I have spent hours getting the right results with my jewellery photography as I'm sure you all have done too! I have found the best results come from a combination of digital photography and scanning.

Michelle Wade green necklace display
Necklace and Photo by Michelle Wade

To photograph jewellery I use a light tent/box (which I made from balsa wood and light weight white parka nylon material stapled on sides and top). Sized at around 400mm sq works best.

For lighting I bought 2 desk spotlights and fitted them with daylight bulbs, available from a lighting retailer for around $3 ea.

Position the item in the centre of the tent and position the spotlights hard up against left and right sides of the tent.

Mount your camera on a tripod, available for around $80 on eBay, or your local appliance shop, and set your camera exposure to 1.5 - 2.0. Daylight setting is best if you have that option.

For necklaces that need structure, I recommend using a white jewellery neck (bought for about $15 on eBay).

Necklace and Photo by Michelle Wade

Photograph your item, save to disc and edit it in any photo edit programme - Corel Photopaint works best and can be picked up relatively cheaply for earlier versions of the software.

Use your photo editor's brightness, contrast, intensity functions to wash out your background, adjust lightness and darkness, your eraser tool to remove any unwanted lines or shadows, and your replace colour tool if your colours come out inaccurately.

Scanning seems to work best with copper materials, light silver beads, crystal beads and lighter pinks and blues, as you get a better representation of light reflection without that horrible glare effect.

To scan jewellery, lay flat on your scanner, face down, with a white piece of card between the jewellery and the top of the scanner for light blockout and a neutral background.

Necklace and Photo by Michelle Wade

Scan your item, save and repeat the steps for photo editing as above. You can pick up a good scanner second hand for around $60.

Save your files and upload to your website… and watch your conversion rate climb!

Having really nice photos is the difference between sales and no sales as we all find pretty things irresistable!

These tips worked really well for me and saved me a fortune in jewellery photography charges!

Happy snapping!"

Thanks for the tips and photos, Michelle!

See Photographing Jewelry for more tips and techniques for getting good photos of your work.

Technorati Tags: jewellery neck, jewellery photography, jewelry display photography, photographing jewelry, scan jewellery

Filed under Displaying Jewelry for Photos, Necklace Displays by Rena Klingenberg.

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Here's a cheap necklace display you can easily make from things you probably have around the house.

Rebecca Compton of Get Wired sent in this necklace display tutorial:

While looking for cheap necklace displays to use for my next craft fair, it occurred to me that I should just try something with the random supplies that I already have….

First, I cut up a cardboard box (I used a Priority Mail box someone mailed to me). The taller the box, the taller your display will be.

I cut a rectangular portion using the top flap and bottom flap.

I then took some thick fabric (I used an old sweater) and duct taped it to the middle and top portion.

It really just needs to cover the middle portion, but I liked the look of it going onto the top a bit. Don't cover the bottom flap.

I then found some fabric to cover the whole thing. I used black velvet for one, pretty blue fabric for another.

Pin the fabric around the cardboard, good side in. You may want to draw a line to show where to sew.

Slip the cardboard out of its new sleeve and sew the sleeve shut. Flip the sleeve inside-out, showing the good side.

Slip the fabric sleeve over your cardboard that is partially covered with thick fabric. It should be a tight fit.

Carefully sew up the ends. I folded the fabric in a bit and sewed it as close to the "inside" of the display as the fabric would allow.

When you approach the middle of the sewing line, insert a piece of long ribbon on each flap.

This will be for the tie/bow.

Since my cardboard wasn't too thick, I also sewed the fabric TO the cardboard. It prevents the fabric from pulling away when the display is tied and looks much nicer.

Bend the two flaps so the pieces of ribbon meet. Tie it as tight or loose as you think looks best. A loose tie is slightly less stable, but stands up taller.