Feel Free...!!!!

Feel Free

I thought it about time to post up some of my Artwork again.. Loosen those ties guys... and well just Feel Free.. It's well amazing.. 

Meanwhile... I've been busy designing and making some more necklaces for Orlando Menswear. At the moment I'm currently working on a rather striking necklaces made with the beautiful blue gem stone Lapiz Lazuli. Meaning 'lapis', the Latin word for stone, and 'azula', the Arabic word for blue. It was once one of the most precious and expensive gem stones and because of this many pictures of the Madonna, were created using paint made from pigment ground from this stone. So if your looking for the truest blue of them all this is the magical 'Ultramarine'. Coming soon...

Vintage Men's Style...So Deschevele...

Native American Bear Necklace

I thought it was about time that I posted another in my occasional series of men's style/fashion tips. I love... the look of the vintage style distressed beads.. which I use in my jewellery designs @ Orlando Menswear...and what better to go with them than Vintage jeans...

Too new and jeans.. well.. just don't.. cut the mustard...And definitely no creases down the middle plea...se... (reserve them for when you wear your nice little striped polo shirt...Perfect for visiting your mother in law....!!!!).... We're thinking....Cool ....Warrior.. the kind of guy who would.. Well...Wear my Native American Bear Necklace...

Beams Plus Slim-Fit Washed-Denim Jeans £190

Source: mrporter.com via Jolie on Pinterest

 

Try teaming them with a suitably dishevelled shirt... so deschevele....And no ironing required...

Hartford Classic Linen Shirt £100

Source: mrporter.com via Jolie on Pinterest

   

Go easy on the boot polish... Try these for size...

Church's Sahara Suede Burnished Desert Boots £235

Source: mrporter.com via Jolie on Pinterest

 

And don't forget... Real Men... Smear their butter on their toast...

 

Browser Compatibility Problems!!!

Just as a I thought it was safe to get back to my jewellery design…. O my G… Browser Compatibility Problems @ Orlandomenswear.com …… Well…I paused to think… how on earth am I going to cope with this…I sighed and reached over to my pile of Dummies Guides…this time ‘HTML, XHTML and CSS’ by Ed Tittel and Jeff Noble (if you wish to know more, check out the Amazon widget at the bottom of my sidebar..). I was advised to go to the great Validator in order to find out what was wrong with my seemingly innocent HTML. From what I could decipher, this Oracle told me it had something to do with old HTML in my front page layout.. (Oracles speak in strange tongues..)…It didn’t like my Meta tag language very much either. I decided this might be something to do with my using a very old copy of Dreamweaver… which due to somewhat straitened circumstances …I cannot afford to update. Thankfully, however, my trusty guide advised me that all was not lost, I could actually go to the ball after all… With a wave of the magic wand.. A free WYSYG editor called Kompozer appeared and I was able to design a table for my front page in quite a straight forward way, without any depreciation in the design. I then pasted my table into a ‘Test’ page on my website, to check it’s compatibility with other browsers. I’ve been working on my website so far on a MacBook with a FireFox browser. It didn’t look to cool in Safari. With a little tweaking I deduced that I needed to widen my Header in my CSS style editor, as my logo and search box were cut off at the bottom. It is a little wider than I like in FireFox now, but in order to make it look good in Safari I had to compensate. I then checked out how it looked on Internet Explorer on my Mum’s PC Laptop, then went onto see how it looked in Google Chrome and Opera. It now appears to be fine in all these browsers. Just to be on the safe side, I  also decided that I had better check my links using Broken Link Checker. I thought this wise, as I transferred all my posts from my Blog… Jewellery by Jolie… on Blogger, using the WordPress plug-in Blogger Importer. All the links seemed to be working apart from a link to M&S where an item was no longer stocked. Sigh of relief….
I apologise if you have had problems viewing my Website, please contact me if problems persist, and I will see what I can do ( famous last words..)….
Now time for some SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). On the advice of ‘The Idiots guide to Creating a Website’, by Paul McFedries (if you wish to know more, check out the Amazon widget at the bottom of my sidebar..), I submitted the Url  Orlandomenswear.com to Google, Bing and Alexa. I found this a little problematic in WordPress, as you are advised to paste the Verification Meta Tag into the HTML in the Header part of your Web Site. You can’t do this in WordPress as the Header is in CSS. Thankfully, I found a plug-ins for this WordPress SEO, by Mervin Praison. Go to Plugins – Add New – search- WordPress SEO – Install – Activate. Go to the bottom of the Dashboard and a large M will have appeared – Google Authorship and Analytics Settings – Webmaster Tools. Thanks Mervin! Finally, following the advice of Paul McFedries, I decided to submit my url using multiple search  engine submission sites Add Me and Submit Express.
Now… fingers crossed.. its back to some jewellery design….

Orlando Menswear Store is now officially open.....

Arrowhead Warrior Necklace

I declare Orlando Menswear Store is now officially open!!!..And this is my first blog... Those of you who have been following my blog will know that it has taken quite some time to get this site going. So I feel it is quite an accomplishment to get this site officially launched!!! I was intending to tell you every thrilling installment of my struggle to create this web site... This being a site about the day in the life of a Jewellery designer starting her own business. However, I felt I had to keep working away and get it constructed.. There were some hairy moments... and so I haven't blogged for a while. I thought I might share what I have learned, none the less...

 Taking the advice from The Dummies guide to Social marketing. I decided I wanted a WordPress blog,and on further investigation found that many web sites are designed with WordPress. Including Etsy and Life Magazine. I thought I could maybe be a bit more ambitious and have a store of my own. I followed the recommendation of the Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies and chose the Server Bluehost as they already have WordPress installed, so you don't have to launch your website into hyperspace using FTP.. Which does take a lot of the stress off. Needing more information.. I bought...WordPress For Dummies, WordPress Web site design For Dummies, HTML, XHTML and CSS For Dummies and Blogging for Dummies... If in doubt, buy a Dummies guide or five... On the advice of the WordPress web site design guide, I decided to modify a theme. There are free themes which you can select through WordPress in the way you can choose a Template in Blogger. I chose the theme Pinblack which is inspired by the Pinterest site, which I like. It's not as easy as it seems modifying a site...just a word of warning...I altered the CSS style sheet and it's rather like a detective game trying to find out which fonts, backgrounds etc..are the ones you are looking for.. and once you decide to change the colour theme.. you have to keep on going until it all coordinates..It took a bit of tracking down.


For my Store I designed the layout in Dreamweaver MX. I luckily have an old version I bought, when I designed my web site for Ziffo eleven years ago. Fireworks MX isn't compatible with Mac Os X 10.5.8, but thankfully Dreamweaver still works!! I created the layout in Dreamweaver, copied the HTML, and pasted it into the WordPress page window. I also used Dreamweaver to create a layout for the HTML in the sidebar. I pasted the HTML into the Text widget section. I decided to use Mal's E-Commerce, for the Shopping trolley, which I also used in my Ziffo web site. You can link your store to his site using hyperlinks and it's reasonably straight forward.... What's more it's free for the PayPal version. I tried using the WordPress plug-in Cashie Commerce, but I found it a little complicated. Next I decided to be brave and upload all my blogs from Blogger, I used a plug-in for WordPress called Blogger Importer. You can find this by going to Plug-ins on your WordPress dashboard - Add new- type in Blogger Importer. The nice thing about WordPress is you get lots of free plug-ins, tools, widgets etc..It only took a minute to import, but about three days to check the HTML and re- load the featured images so they appeared on my Blog Board.

It's now back to SEO again ( l am learning the jargon... for the uninitiated that's Search Engine Optimisation..)...I am amazed to find that that's now a specialized subject and there are now books devoted to it!! I thought you might be interested in the books I used for this project...So I've put all the Amazon books I mentioned on a widget in my side bar. I've got this widget thing going.. while you're at it, check out my current favourite tracks on the Amazon MP3 player... Cool...

Native American Symbolism...

Native American Style Men's Necklace with feather Charms and Turquoise Stones..

I thought it about time to give you a sneak preview of my Autumn range for Orlando Menswear. I am very inspired by Native American design and this collection has quite a few pieces that particularly reference Native American culture.
The Native American feather was given as a sign of respect and honor. Native Americans who had a personal accomplishment or achieved something great for the tribe was often given feathers by chiefs or elders as a symbol of strength. The Native American with the most feathers in his headdress is usually the chief.
One must complete a brave deed in order to be given one of these feathers. For example, coming back from battle after conquering the enemy or returning from a hunt with food for the tribe would most likely earn a Native American feather. The feather could only be worn once the Indian has retold their story of bravery in front of an assembled tribal court.
In this necklace I have combined the feathers with Turquoise stones. Turquoise is commonly referred to by Native American  as the Sky Stone evoking the sky-blue shade of the stone most commonly found. I liked the connection between Bird and Sky.
Native Americans believe that the earth is alive and that all things, no matter how small or apparently inanimate, are precious. To the Native Americans, turquoise is life. There are stones medicine men keep in their sacred bundles because they possess powers of healing. Stones and crystals have unique attributed that support and heal us. Turquoise, especially, is known for its positive healing energy, an aid in mental functions, communications and expression and as a protector. If you’re wearing a turquoise ring and you look down and see a crack in your stone, the Native Americans would say “the stone took it”, meaning the stone took the blow that you would have received.

Native American Style Men's Necklace with feather Charms and Turquoise Stones..

Sky Horse...Native American style men's necklace

The horse was one of the biggest contributors in the progress of Native American civilization. It was taken as a symbol of honor and reverence and treated with great respect.The horse was a symbol of grace, beauty and nobility.... As well as of strength, power and freedom...

Sky Horse...Native American style men's necklace

The Native Americans also attributed the horse with the four elements of earth, air, fire and water. In some tribes the horse was prominently featured on war art. This was because the horse fought bravely alongside the Native warriors in the battle field. Special war shirts for example were often adorned with horse hair of different colors to honor the contribution of.. and the relationship between man and horse.
The horse is a powerful being, that combined the power of the earth with the wisdoms of the spiritual world for the Native Americans. The honored animal was proudly featured on many different works of art. 
I have chosen to complement the horse in this necklace with Turquoise stone, the symbol of sky. Along with the traditionally used silver... Silver has a transcendant, spiritual quality which is believed to be magical.... Which is why I chose to call this piece...Sky Horse....

Son of Suntree and a slowly developing website...

Son of Suntree..

Son of Suntree.. Wallpaper..

I have been busy... Things are slowly happening on my new website Orlando Menswear. I have chosen my host (hopefully with the mostest..). I have decided Blue maybe lucky for me - so I have taken the recommendation of my copy of the  Social Media Marketing All-in-One For Dummies  and decided to go with www.bluehost.com. I liked the idea of  building my site using Wordpress... so I bought more Dummies guides both Wordpress for Dummies & Wordpress Web Design for Dummies ... and have been dedicatedly reading...

After much deliberation... I decided that I wanted to customize a Wordpress theme, so I chose the theme PinBlack.. It is based on the Pinterest site, which I think is very well designed. I then did a little decorating and changed the background to a wallpaper developed from one of my art works based  around the theme Suntree (you may remember an earlier Art work - the one I used for Facebook), I will call this one Son of Suntree.... I am now slowly working on deciphering CSS and HTML....

Meanwhile.. I have designed eight new necklaces for my Autumn range @ Orlando Menswear. I took my first photographs today.. Sneak preview... coming soon...

Reflections In The Magnifying Glass

Reflections In The Magnifying Glass..

As promised... I thought it was about time I put up some more of my Art work. Here is a photograph I took in my bedroom of my magnifying glass...

Today is the Ist of September... somehow, that day always seems a little sad... Maybe it's because it heralds the end of summer... Here in Colchester, England there is a definite chill in the air and the sky is grey....

Meanwhile... I have been busying working on my new range of men's jewellery for the new website  orlandomenswear.com ( still working on that too... awaiting one last Dummies guide.. hoping it will fit all the pieces of the puzzle together... Voila....). I thought it would be cool to have different designs from my Orlando Menswear store at Etsy. I am particularly inspired by Native American jewellery, so expect to see feathers, bears, horses, arrow heads, distressed beads and turquoise. I do love beaded jewellery.....

Back at my Jewellery by Jolie  Etsy store I have put up two new pieces  of jewellery using Swarovski crystal:

Denim blue Swarovski heart necklace...

Tell your jeans you love them... Denim blue Swarovski heart necklace... with beaded silver chain and matching Denim blue Swarovski cut crystal bead, set of with delicate blue seed beads. Finished with round silver toggle clasp. Handmade by Jewellery by Jolie.. £12.95 GBP Only 1 available

Size :
Length of chain - 16 inch/400mm chain
Heart pendant - 18mm

&

Pink Swarovski Butterfly Necklace

Prettiest...Pink Swarovski Butterfly Necklace with Silver Beaded Chain... accented with delicate seed beads. Finished with silver toggle clasp. Handmade by Jewellery by Jolie.... £12.95 GBP Only 1 available

Size:
Length of Chain - 16 inches/400mm.
Butterfly pendant - 18mm wide.


Coming Soon.... Pink Swarovski Butterfly Drop earrings...

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