RingBling/WireGenius - Making Chainmaille/Jump Ring + Wire Sculpture Jewelry

If you're a jewelry maker or designer and you're running a website or a blog, here's a little-known potential source of income: repackaging public domain books. As an "Internet Solutions" consultant, it's my business to learn about all manner of opportunities for earning income on the web. One such opportunity is taking books whose copyright has expired (usually so if they are published before 1937), rearranging the text and graphics, then republishing it under a new copyright, usually as an e-book (electronic book).

After I found about how popular this activity has become, I went to my local university library and signed out a couple of books from the early 1910s. Now I have not yet verified with the United States Copyright office whether the books I have had their copyright expire, but it is very likely since they were published before 1937. However, only one of these books is worth the effort of repackaging. It has some incredible instructions for wireworking that I have yet to see in any modern day book.

The book title is "Jewelry Making And Design" and is written by Augustus F. Rose and Antonio Cirino, B.S. The book was originally published by Metal Crafts Publishing Co., Providence, R.I. (United States) in 1917. Now I just don't have the time to repackage this book, and don't want to spend time verifying its copyright status, but you're welcome to do it. Just a word of caution: Dover Publishing republished this book a couple of times, in around 1922 and 1937. Don't repackage their copies: their copyright has likely not expired. Get the original edition. [In future posts, I will provide links to some e-newsletters that offer information about the public domain.]

While I'm not repackaging this book, what I have done is made several pages of sketches of original wire, bead and jump-ring jewelry designs that are highly influenced by the wonderfully detailed instructions in the book. The result, of course, is that my designs look like they were from the early part of the last century. And wirework is such that there is always someone who will like it. There's something about creations of twisted wire that appeal to people. And if you are already selling your work at weekend markets, you may want to add some new creations to your repertoire.

That said, I'll be posting all of my designs here. Feel free to use them as you will. Just forgive me for the time between postings, as I have to re-sketch numerous designs digitally with a sketch tablet, then manipulate them in graphics software to clean them up. I'll try to post at least one per week, probably on Monday or Tuesday nights. Once I have all of the sketches complete, I'll compile them into a PDF file and post that here as well. You can use any or all of the designs, but if you republish the actual sketches, you'll need to give me copyright credit. Stay tuned.

(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://ringbling.blogspot.com

Technorati : chainmail, chainmaille, copyright, earning opportunities, jewelry design, jewelry making, jump-ring jewelry, public domain, wire jewelry