Please note that Special Delivery items posted on Thursday 5th April will not be guaranteed for delivery until Tuesday 10th April, unless the item is for delivery in Scotland where normal deliveries take place on Good Friday 6th April or where the appropriate Saturday supplement has been paid for, for delivery on Saturday 7th April.

This information is also available at: www.royalmail.com/bankholidays

The Jewellery Mob are wishing you a very Happy Easter!

So please take a look at the last recommended dates for Christmas posting from the UK:

Posting before the last recommended date is advised.

In relation to any orders for jewellery from designed for you this means, order early, order often, and if you find that perfect Christmas present the last minute, make sure you use the fastest posting method at checkout!
And if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us

The Jewellery Mob

Autumn fashion colours this season still carry a glow of summer within them, black & monochrome are prominent this season along with spots, and no Christmas season would be complete without a brilliant red!

After playing with colour charts & jewellery, plus extensive discussions, the jewellery mob has selected pieces from ‘designed for you’ collections which we think match this season’s shades beautifully. We’ve also slipped in a few contrast ideas, too.
Click on any image to land on the right section of ‘designed for you’.

‘Rosewood, Lampwork & Eagles eye’ Autumn: BAMBOO, Emberglow, Cedar, Coffee Liqueur, Nougat, Quarry. Spring: Margarita, Tangerine Tango, Solar Power.		‘Floating by’ Autumn: BAMBOO, Orchid Hush. Spring: Solar Power, Bellflower.		‘Coiled in Wood’ Autumn: BAMBOO, Emberglow, Cedar, Coffee Liqueur, Nougat, Burnt Sienna, Raspberry Wine. Spring: Margarita, Tangerine Tango, Solar Power.
‘Copper Blue Goldstone’ Autumn: EMBERGLOW,  Nougat.		‘Green Agate in Obsidian’ Autumn: EMBERGLOW, Coffee Liqueur, and black.		‘Autumnal Spirit’ Autumn: Bamboo, EMBERGLOW, Cedar, Nougat. Spring: Cabaret, Tango, Starfish.
‘Purple Agate and Lava’ Autumn: HONEYSUCKLE, Orchid Hush. Spring: Driftwood, Sweet Lilac, Bellflower; contrast Cockatoo.		‘Riotous Hoops’ Autumn: HONEYSUCKLE, Phlox, Orchid Hush.		‘Chiselled Marble’ Autumn: Emberglow, Cedar, Coffee Liqueur, Nougat, Burnt Sienna, RASPBERRY WINE. Spring: Margarita, Tangerine Tango, Solar Power, contrasts: Cockatoo, Bellflower.
‘Amarilla’ Autumn: PHLOX, Orchid Hush				‘Amethyst Rose’ Autumn: Honeysuckle, PHLOX.
‘Green Marble in Boxwood’ Autumn: Emberglow, CEDAR, Nougat, Burnt Sienna. Spring: Margarita, Tangerine Tango, Solar Power, Starfish		‘Oak Leaf Fall’ Autumn: Emberglow, CEDAR, Nougat, Raspberry Wine, contrast: Bamboo.		‘Polished Wood Showpiece’ Autumn: Emberglow, CEDAR, Nougat
‘Coppered Sea-Stripe Jasper’ Autumn: DEEP TEAL, Coffee Liqueur. Spring: Starfish.		‘Floating Flowers’ Autumn: DEEP TEAL Spring: Sweet Lilac		‘Skittles’ Autumn: Emberglow, Cedar, DEEP TEAL, Coffee Liqueur, Nougat, Quarry.
‘Chrysanthemum’ Autumn: Bamboo, Emberglow, Cedar, COFFEE LIQUEUR, Burnt Sienna, Raspberry Wine; contrast: Phlox. Spring: Tangerine Tango, Starfish, Solar Power.		‘Hanging Lanterns’ Autumn: Bamboo, Phlox, Cedar, COFFEE LIQUEUR, Nougat, Orchid Hush.		‘Seashore necklace’ Autumn: Emberglow, Cedar, COFFEE LIQUEUR, Nougat, Burnt Sienna, contrasts: Phlox, Deep Teal, Orchid Hush, Quarry, Cadet. Spring: Margarita, Tangerine Tango, Driftwood, Starfish, Solar Power, contrasts: Cockatoo, Bellflower.
‘Cream with Natural Agate’ Autumn: Cedar, Coffee Liqueur, NOUGAT. Spring: Margarita, Starfish.		‘Eagles Eye View’ Autumn: Cedar, Coffee Liqueur, NOUGAT, Burnt Sienna; contrast Cadet.		‘Boxwood Lava’ Autumn: Emberglow, Cedar, NOUGAT, Burnt Sienna; contrasts: Quarry, Cadet. Spring: Margarita, Tangerine tango, Starfish, Solar Power, Cockatoo.
‘Fiesta’ Autumn: Bamboo, Cedar, ORCHID HUSH. Spring: Bellflower, Solar Power.				‘Lampwork Luxury’ Autumn: Bamboo, Cedar, Nougat, ORCHID HUSH, Quarry. Spring: Margarita, Starfish.
‘Turquoise and Black Spot’ Autumn: QUARRY.		‘Asymmetric Lace & Lilac’ Autumn:  Coffee Liqueur, Nougat, Orchid Hush, QUARRY. Spring: Driftwood.		‘Orange Peruvian Tubes’ Autumn: QUARRY. Spring: Tangerine Tango, Cockatoo.

These colours are modified for Spring 2012 as you will see in the following article. Many of the pieces above do match next seasons colours as we have shown above.

all of us at designed for you Jewellery would like to thank you for your patience while we undertook major maintenance on our site.

History
Following the sad death of our web host and IT maintenance contractor Dave McIntosh, we were blessed by the help of an American customer of Dave’s who helped us move the site to Quebec and hosted it for us. Our site was hosted in Quebec for 8 months until we decided that to make more progress on site renewal we should move the site back to the UK again. Being back in the same time zone for maintenance makes life a lot easier!

Site Move
All site moves tend to be packed with incidents, rather like moving house. Following a very sleepless time over some days we got the site working in an orderly way. We then installed a more substantial and rigorous encryption system on the site. Whilst we were installing the new encryption system the site was completely out of action. We apologise for this and hope that none of you were severely inconvenienced. Believe me, we worked more hours than I wish to remember whilst trying to identify the cause. It is amazing that even tried and tested excellent software can be delivered faulty! That is all now thankfully behind us.

GeoTrust Encryption System and Security

Our new Geotrust encryption system comes into play when you create and use ‘my account’ and during ‘checkout’. Your personal information is well protected by the encryption system and all financial dealings you do with us are fully encrypted when transmitted to PayPal, so cannot be seen. We do not keep any financial information on the site and hold no financial data on you at designed for you.

'My account' in Mozilla Firefox with our new Geotrust encryption system

'My account' in Internet Explorer with our new Geotrust encryption system

All your credit or debit cards are handled via the PayPal portal. Likewise all BACS payments are made by your bank to ours, no information about your bank details are given to us. All cheques go straight to our bank, only the amount being recorded.

Other site updates

We have been doing a lot of testing and tidying to make sure that our site works better than before and have been updating:

• our shipping pages in checkout for clarity.
• our postage prices to be in line with the Royal Mail charges.
• our Shipping and Returns page to reflect the changes made.
• our Courses page and Course Bookings pages to reflect new courses and to let you know of available dates for bespoke courses
• our Home page has been updated and is updated quite frequently although the pictures do not always get re-newed as often as we wish

Future Site maintenance
More site renewal is in the pipeline.
We also aim to make our Archive more prominent – at the moment it can only be found via the Bespoke and Commissions pages – to give more price brand information and have a more up-to date look to the site.

Our first priority however is to customer service and to provide you with great products. Thanks for reading this and visiting our site. We are here for you.

Jess – on behalf of the jewellery mob

Hopefully this week, there will be a new pole, a new cable…and then a phone connection and proper broadband again!

As soon as all our communication channels are fully functioning once more, we will let you know on our blog and on our contact us page.

Thank you very much for your patience
The Jewellery Mob

However, we are not cut off from the world yet!

Internet is slow, but steady, so we are still able to respond to any queries via email – we might just not be as quick as usual.

Thank you very much for your patience
The Jewellery Mob

Whether you are chasing Easter bunnies, have a Royal Wedding Tea or Street Party, or dance around the Maypole with bells on your toes, the holidays will affect the postal service, and therefore the posting and delivery of orders from designed for you.

The following table shows all Royal Mail’s deliveries and collections for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland over the next two weeks.

*Please note that Special Delivery items posted on Thursday 21 April will not be guaranteed for delivery until Tuesday 26 April, unless the item is for delivery in Scotland where normal deliveries take place on Friday 22 April or where the appropriate Saturday supplement has been paid for delivery on 23 April. Similarly Special Delivery items posted on 28 April will not be guaranteed for delivery until Tuesday 3 May unless the appropriate fee is paid for delivery on Saturday 30 April.

This information and further information about other UK public holidays are also available at www.royalmail.com/bankholidays

Wishing you all a very enjoyable holiday period whatever you’re up to…

The jewellery mob

Art Deco Tulips

Tridents

In a sudden surge of inspiration our designer put together a Yaesique range featuring Red Coral with semi-precious Black Agate, or for some earrings Black Onyx or black glass. Each of these designs are unique, distinct and beautifully made. The whole range was designed and created within 2 days.
While this range was being created, we considered the shapes, how they relate to each other and what the shape represents. The names of each of these individual earring designs show the ideas that inspired them.

Red Hot

Old Flame

Our designer deliberately acknowledged that black and red apart from looking stunning and dramatic together, have more sensual associations. These were not flaunted in the descriptions – as a family friendly business we do not try to sell our products by sexy marketing.
We did however acknowledge that a vibrant red is considered hot, fiery, angry, exciting, fearful, dangerous and passionate.
Black is an absense of light, so is likewise associated with death, night, the dark, stealth, secrets, confusion and risk.

Dark Passion

Hidden Promise

Taking the two colours together many of the names used in this range draw on these colour elements, e.g. Old Flame, Red Hot, Night Out, Passion Flower, On Fire, Hidden Promise and The Blush.
Some of the names however refer mainly to the shape, e.g. Tridents, Art Deco Tulips and Sunset Palms.
Whilst still others have both colours and shape associations, e.g. Love Knot Promise, Geishas and Love Knot Flame.

Love Knot Flame

Geishas

However all of these earrings are in fact quite small, so are delicate and just give hints of the potential of the name, so can be worn without being overtly ‘sexy’. They have been designed both to be vibrant and to be worn with a secret smile, and, dependant on the wearer, perhaps just a little ‘come hither’!

The aim of this range was to make the wearer feel smart and good about themselves. If a present, it allows the giver to enjoy bringing a smile to ‘the lady’.

So, we now have divided our articles into categories in the top bar above: jewellery related articles first and then designed for you personnel related articles. We’ve also made it easier for you to link between our blog and designed for you jewellery site, and access older designed for you blog entries.

Please feel free to read and add comments to our blog postings. We appreciate your feedback and manually approve all comments before publishing them.

Thanks for reading our blog.
JW of The Jewellery Mob

If  you want to look at the jewellery on our main site, please click on the image of the featured item.

Autumnal Spirit necklace

Since women are spending less on clothes, they really want to show off their accessories. Collar necklaces and bib necklaces are certainly BIG.

Moon Jungle necklace

One feature you are going to see a lot this season are bangles and bracelets, either one big piece or a few stacked on one’s arm.

Sebuca and cheetah spot bracelet

Turquoise horn with Carnelian bracelet

Pink Baroque bracelet

Also up and coming is multiple function jewellery – necklaces that turn into wrist wear, day jewellery that doubles up as evening wear…

Night and day earrings

Hoop and chandelier earrings will be very prominent this season.

Turquoise all the way earrings

Gold n gunmetal dance duo earrings

Jewellery features a mix of colours and textures, for instance metal, chains and textile beads.

Copper shield earrings

Chained Haematite earrings

Turquoise seas necklace

Natural beads, seeds and pods used in jewellery are reflecting the influence of ‘eco’ and ‘slow fashion’.

Ebony and Sebuca Seed bracelet

Traditional arrangements of gems and pearl,  so-called ‘heirloom jewellery’, will also be a prominent feature this spring and summer.

Rose Leopard Skin Jasper - Vintage-style necklace

The fashion also celebrates nostalgia, whimsy, childhood memories and grandma’s treasure box.

Amethyst Rose necklace

Golden Butterflies earrings

Brown and Orange Cubes necklace

Oh those memories!

For colours this season, please check out Fashion Trends Spring Summer 2011 – Colours.