The origins of a jewelry designer

Post author By Davina
Post date August 30, 2011

First Byzantium Collection Necklace - Cat's Eye by Davina

The Origins of a Jewelry Designer

The Byzantium Collection

As many of you have realized, 2011 marks a year of intensive change for me and my company. I moved into a new studio (just to find out that the building is slated for demolition and my time here is limited) and discovered all kinds of treasures. As I start purging the UFO’s (Un-Finished Objects) and sift through raw materials in preparation for using them or letting them go, I’m finding all sorts of lovely things that had gotten buried.

In one corner of the workroom is a pile of boxes full of beads and jewelry making supplies. I have already sent many of these supplies out into the world in the form of raw materials to fellow jewelry artists, finished pieces for my patrons, and even a few gifts to myself. As I’ve been working through a rather epic pile of tribal jewelry components, I found the very first piece of jewelry I designed and made myself.

I hired my good friend and jewelry mentor Laura Thompson of Beadzilla Jewelry to come and host a “ladies lunch & tea with jewelry” at my home. There were five of us around a table, crafting away, and I made this necklace from a handful of beads and a piece of kuchi jewelry I adored. Needless to say, I was instantly HOOKED on jewelry making and sucked up as much knowledge from Madame Beadzilla as I could. Before I knew it, I was making and selling jewelry as a creative side-line to my costumes. As time passed, I realized that jewelry making is fun, but it’s just one facet of my life as a designer. Now, I make jewelry when called upon to do so. I also make a few pieces and take them to art shows now and again. But the truth is, I’d rather be making a head-to-toe costume than just focusing on the neck. The Byzantium Collection is now created on a piece-by-piece custom for each client, sometimes even including a coordinating necklace. But I’ll always treasure this very first piece.

It’s fun to sometimes peek into the past and see the personal relics and marvel at how things got started. I’ve had a ton of fun as a jewelry artist. Be sure to try your hand at jewelry design at some point! Take a class, buy a book, or just get some materials to experiment with. It’s fun, relatively easy, and you never know where you it will end up. Enjoy! ~ Dawn Devine ~ Davina

Tags jewelry

Costuming DIY General

Costuming Pattern Lines

Post author By Davina
Post date August 7, 2011

Davina's Belly Dance'O'Rama Display, inside the Simply Stylish booth, Cairo Carnival 2005

Davina's Products in 2004 — Davina's Belly Dance'O'Rama Display, inside the Simply Stylish booth, Cairo Carnival '05

Hello Gang,

I’ve been working on a an article and pouring through old photos. In my world, photos can represent a moment in time or serve as documentation for a project. Today, however, while looking for something very specific, I surfed past this photo on my harddrive. It made me think back to the days when I was an active vendor, attending shows, festivals and events up and down the West Coast.

Madame X patter 9803 — Madame X - Adjustable Beladi Dress Pattern - 9803

To augment my book collection, I carried several different pattern lines for DIY costumers looking for actual patterns. While my books give directions on how to make patterns from your measurements or drape a custom garment to your body, many costumers simply want to pull out a pattern and use it.

TempestBeltFrontSM — Tempest - Tempest's Corset Belt Pattern

With this in mind, I began carrying patterns to help my customers out. This includes patterns from belly dance costume designers Madame X and Tempest along with a select group of designs from the Caravan Collection by Folkwear. I even developed a great pattern for opera length gloves and other arm accessories that I could print out on my old beast of a printer, Gloves and Gauntlets.

Why did I choose these patterns? Well, honestly, I have personally, and successfully, used each of the patterns I sell. Bottom line, I sell them because I like them and they work.

FW144F — Folkwear Patterns - Tribal Belly Dancer - 144

Although I’ve scaled back my business and I’ve retired from vending at shows, I still travel to teach both dance technique and costume design. I have taken my retail business online and you can buy my books here (by clicking on any of my book covers to the right) while other items like patterns and one-of-a-kind costume pieces are available over on my eBay store, Davina’s Bellydance-O-Rama.

I still have that old book rack and it’s ready any time I want to bust it out and hit a belly dance show! Perhaps when all my books have been transformed to their new binding, I’ll hit the road again. In the meantime, I’m going to keep sewing and writing.

Happy Costuming ~ Dawn Devine ~ Davina

General

Cairo Trend Report by Princess Farhana

Post author By Davina
Post date August 4, 2011

Hello Gang,

I love to read everything that Princess Farhana of Hollywood writes. She’s witty, has a point of view and is willing to share it. She’s also a FANTASTIC performer and I highly recommend her! (As you can tell, there is absolutely total bias going on here – but I have nothing to gain from the sales of her videos or your hiring her to be a workshop leader at your next event!) She’s a total pro in every sense of the word.

Today she published an excellent post to her blog on Cairo Costuming Trends. Not only does she address the stylistic elements that are most current, but, she also does a house-by-house run down of the current fashion leaders in belly dance costume design. This is a must-read article for belly dance costume designers and dancers who want to be on the leading edge of fashion! Until I can get to Cairo myself, I’m going to live vicariously through articles like these. Enjoy!

~ Dawn

Cairo Costume Trends by Princess Farhana on her Blog

Princess Farhana website

Follow The Princess on Face Book (That’s what I do!)

Publications

News & Notes for Mid July

Post author By Davina
Post date July 16, 2011

: Bedlah, Baubles & Beads is now available here on and Amazon.com.

Hello Gang,

I’m going to take a few moments to tell you about the exciting things that have happened in the past two weeks. The first is that I’ve been down in San Diego visiting friends, family and attending two events. The first event, SAMEDA Faire is hosted by the belly dance club here in San Diego. The event is tomorrow (as of this posting date) and it promises to be a great show. I’m planning on covering the event for Gilded Serpent as part of my ongoing “Trend Report” series of articles. If you live in Southern California, especially in the San Diego region, I highly recommend joining SAMEDA! Check out their website for more information about their events, find teachers, places to see dancing, receive a great monthly newsletter, and more! http://www.sdsameda.com/ The other event I’m attending is Comic-Con International. It’s amazingly huge and a ton-of-fun.

I’m pleased to announce that while I’ve been in San Diego, that the newly renovated Bedlah, Baubles and Beads is now available both here on my website and on Amazon.com. The new cover is gorgeous! A talented young graphic designer, Kristina Rheinholds, based out of San Francisco transformed the old black-and-white art work into a gorgeous new cover. If you visit her portfolio page – be sure to “appreciate” her work. You know that I do! Our next project together is the upcoming Belly Dance Costumes to Color book in .pdf. The illustrations are drawn, the tentative layout looks great, and the text is in editing. Be sure to subscribe to my mailing list to receive a link to a free copy when it’s done.

Ziti-Web — Belly Dance Costumes to Color - Sample Page in Progress - 20 page downloadble .pdf - Coming Late August. Free for newsletter subscribers or in the no-strings-attached version for $3.95.

Belly Dance Publications

Belly Dance Magazines, Newsletters & Blogs

Post author By Davina
Post date June 25, 2011

Belly Dance Magazines, Newsletters & Blogs – Belly Dance Information in the Information Age.

Do you subscribe to a belly dance magazine? I must admit, I do! I find it enjoyable to read articles written by dancers in far-flung areas with different perspectives, views and ideals. I learn things, live vicariously through travelogs that document exotic trips, and am frequently amused by the warmth and humor that pours forth from our community. There are dozens of magazines to choose from in print and eMag format, and at the end of this article, I’ve a not-quite exhaustive list of readily available print publications.

But in this era of the internet, there is much-much more information available. Today, social networking has taken the world by storm, and thousands of dancers are logging on to FaceBook, starting Yahoo Groups or are blogging away about their unique experiences. There are monthly newsletters, quarterly magazines, daily email missives available on a myriad of topics. There is truly a mind-boggling array of resources to choose from.

Digital Magazines
Print magazines have not yet been replaced, but rather, have been enhanced by the development of the digital magazine. Unlike a print magazine, they take up no space on the shelf, allow you to access large archives, and because they are limited only by the size of their site, they can publish as many articles and authors as the choose. The web’s oldest and largest digital belly dance magazines is The Gilded Serpent – with 1000’s of articles in their ever growing archives it would take an age to read them all www.gildedserpent.com. Other digital magazines include, The Hip Circle www.thehipcircle.com and iShimmy www.ishimmy.com. Several print publications are beginning to offer digital version of their print magazines at reduced costs and are a greener alternative. One magazine, Fuse, a tribal/fusion themed mag now offers a digital version www.fusetribalmag.com. I recently switched, and I love that I can easily store the issues on my computer saving both money and space.

Social Media & Internet Groups
There are numerous message-board based communities that have belly dance groups. A quick web search will turn up thousands of belly dance themed groups on sights such as Yahoo.com, FaceBook, Linked In, Tribe.com and LiveJournal.com to a name few. If there is a major social community group – there probably is a belly dance presence. Two of the most influential communities exclusively devoted to belly-dance are Bhuz bhuz.com and Belly Dance Forum www.bellydanceforums.net.

Clubs with Newsletters
All over the world dancers come together to form like-minded community groups that produce informal newsletters or professional publications. Many major belly dance magazines have emerged from humble roots. In order to access these newsletters, you often have to join a club or simply subscribe. Two that I personally have participated in are MECDA – www.mecda.org and San Diego based SAMEDA – www.sdsameda.com You should look around for a club near you.

Blogs, Blogs, Blogs
If you’re reading this right now, you’re probably reading my own blog, Costumer’s Notes – www.davina.us Simply use your favorite internet search tool to type in the words that best identify your belly dance style and the word blog, and you will find there are hundreds, if not thousands of blogs everywhere. Two that I’m following include. Belly Dance Diva – bellydancingdiva.com and Dilara’s Hip Mix – www.hipmix.net.

Newsletter Marketing
Practically every pro dancer now has a newsletter. Part of the brave new world of internet marketing, these newsletters vary in quality from well crafted and informational with articles and useful links, to banal listings of classes and events. I must admit, I’ve signed up for dozens of newsletters in an effort to learn more. I particularly enjoy Mahin’s BellyDance Quickies, www.shes-got-hips.com/Quickies.html and her monthly newsletter which always has cute YouTube links. Another great newsletter is the .pdf formatted Hawaii Belly Dancer Monthly Magazine www.hawaiibellydancermagazine.com

Of course, (insert shameless plug) you might be signed up to receive my own, costume-centric belly dance newsletter & digital magazine, Costumer’s Notes. I think it’s got excellent content, but I must say – I’m a big biased! (Psst – The sign-up is on the top right!)

With so many informational options, no one person can read them all. So explore and choose the ones that are best for you.

Good luck and enjoy your hunt,
Dawn Devine ~ Davina

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The Origins of a Jewelry Designer

The Byzantium Collection

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Belly Dance Magazines, Newsletters & Blogs – Belly Dance Information in the Information Age.

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