This is a wonderful way to bring color to your seasonal wardrobe without the expensive investment of fine jewelry. It is affordable, popular and fashionable. You can create your own style for each season with new and favorite pieces that cross over seasonal fashions.

Create Your Own Style

With the rich heritage in design and style you can create your own style with fashion jewelry. I know I have jewelry sets for different looks and different outfits.

This is also known as fashion jewelry with the term really becoming popular in the 20th Century, even though it has been worn from the year dot. We love adorning ourselves whether that be with precious gemstones or with handmade glass beaded jewelry. Now the desings of the last 200 years are being collected and celebrated and being used for inspiration for contemporary designs.

Swarvoski Crystals Technical Breakthrough

The skills in cutting and setting techniques made a huge leap in the 18th and 19th centuries, including the crystal machine cutting revolution of Daniel Swarvoski that created the Swarvoski crystals we all love today.

Just across the border in Bohemia, now Czech Republic, high quality paste stones and lampwork beads were being created to meet the growing demand by the blossoming European middle-classes. The regional competition between the manufacturing countries created top quality, colorful and creative designs that we are still benefiting from today.

For the first time designers had a wide choice of components with which to work. The designs quickly became extravagant as designers could take greater risks with the non-precious components that they could not take with expensive gem stones like diamonds. So costume jewelry design ended up leading fine design and still does in many ways today.

The Revolution Right Here, Right Now

Costume jewelry is going through another revolution today with the emergence of manufacturing China, the internet with its breaking down of access barriers for independent designers around the world.

Chinese manufacturers are clever at finding stunning designs through out this type of design history to copy but they are not focused on creating original designs. The quality of the Chinese products is improving but it is still miles behind the standard of excellence of the European costume jewelry.

The Chinese work is very cheap and designed for a short couple of seasons life in the most popular colors of the day. While European companies, like Swarvoski, are solidly working on creative and original designs for each season that will last for decades and are already becoming collectors pieces.

Swarvoski is keeping alive the exciting and colorful heritage of this design that is accessible, affordable and leading the way for contemporary design.

Other independent jewelry designers are using the top quality European components like Czech handmade lampwork beads and crystals for beaded jewelry, Venetian glass heart pendants for loving necklaces and the bead charms of Denmark's Trollbeads.

Right Costume Jewelry Designer For You

So when you are going through your wardrobe and looking at your jewelry color themes for the coming season have fun exploring the online stores for the designs that will give you the look you want. Online directories can give you great access to talented designers who can even do custom jewelry pieces for you.

If vintage costume jewelry is what you are after you can find that online too as well as designs created today.

Of course online stores are just one of your options. You can find it at nearly all retailers, at your local shopping mall, arts and crafts fairs, bead shows, wedding expos, markets and fairs, as well as home party plan showings. So enjoy yours, adorn yourself in the colors and styles that reflect your personality and style.

By: Belinda Stinson

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Fantasy figures have always been a popular theme from fairies, elves, and dragons through to unicorns, the mythical Pegasus and even mermaids. Fantasy figures and symbols are very popular in jewelry items both for young adults as well for those that are, shall we say, more mature. Fantasy jewelry has also gone more mainstream with the recent Troll Bead line that incorporates the softer elements of fantasy jewelry into different types of beads, rings and pendants that are a bit less edgy than some of the more traditional pieces.

One of the amazing things about fantasy jewelry is that it is well appreciated by both men and women. The handcrafted designs of the traditional silver and gem pieces such as dragons, druids, ruins and circlets have been traditionally popular with men, while the lighter more stylized symbols have been equally popular with women. The jewelry ranges from heavy to light, chunky to fine and highly gemmed and jeweled to plain silver or gold. Since there is such as wide selection of fantasy jewelry it is sometimes hard to categorize it into one big group.

Dragons, which form a great deal of the inspiration for many of the fantasy jewelry pieces are often shown in collections with semi-precious stones. Typical gems seen in these pieces will be amethysts, carnelian and amber. Carnelian is a relatively new gem in commercial jewelry and has a metal ore looking red to rust coloration with variations throughout the stone. Dragons can be curled around the gem, embracing the gem or perched on the stone in rings, pendants and necklaces.

Fairies are very popular with women and tend to be very delicate, feminine and stylized. They may be displayed in the setting with a gem such as lapis lazuli, amethyst, or sapphires. Often the fairy is in flight with delicate filigree wings and accents of roses, birds or vines. Again, like with dragons the fantasy jewelry for women can be in silver or gold and is often custom designed or one of a kind.

Troll beads, unlike traditional fantasy jewelry can have obvious fantasy styling but they can also be incredibly beautiful just as a bead to add to any type of chain. Each style of Troll bead has its own particular story as to how it originated. The beads can be put together with other Troll beads as a type of story bracelet, or they can be mixed with gold and silver beads, which are also available as Troll beads, to add a touch of fantasy to any piece of jewelry. Each year new designs of beads are added, each with their own history and mythical or fantasy background story.

If you have always wanted something different, something that is really unique but you didn't want to go all the way to fantasy jewelry, Troll beads, rings, pendants or starter sets may be just what you have been looking for. Not all stores sell Troll beads, although the company's website allows you to search for retail stores in your area. If you plan to visit the site, make sure you have a couple of hours to browse through the beads and read each history, it is really amazing.

By: Amy Carrington

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