Tuesday 18 November 2008

Free necklace display bust template

As the craft fair season approached, I wanted some new ways of displaying my jewellery pieces - and no doubt typical of most of us crafters, I didn’t have what you might call a budget. I was going to have to make do with items I had to hand and a bit of effort.

Luckily I’m a hoarder, so I always have lots of card and papers to hand that I collect over time - you know the sort - too good to throw away and might come in useful some day, so you save it, just in case. I also regularly visit a paper mill shop and cannot resist new materials either. This is why my office is so untidy and appears to be way too small.

I worked out this shape as a quick and easy display bust for necklaces - I initially made it in card by gradually modifying the shape to overcome the various problems - my template is based on an initial scan of my prototype. At the time, one side worked rather better than the other, so I wanted to scan it and mirror the good side and print out my own template - once I'd done that and later made further modifications, I thought I may as well put it into a document and make it available to others. I've seen so many requests for help with this aspect of fair display, that I hope that it will be useful to others too.

You can get 2 busts from an A4 sheet of card (US users may need a slight shape modification to get 2 from letter sized paper) and they’re light and easy to store - they stack cupped inside each other. In fact, if you fix the sides using punched holes and paper fasteners, you could dis-assemble them after use and store them flat for an even greater space saving. They're free, lightweight and easy to store - what more do you need!?

PDF template to download:

The template, with some introduction and instructions is available to download as a .pdf document - it is around 440KB in size and you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the file. You are free to make as many busts as you like for personal use, but not for sale and the document must not be offered for download anywhere else, or modified in any way. If you want to share it with others, please refer them back here.

Last modified: 10th January 2009 to include a smaller version to take a single pair of earrings.

http://www.boo-jewellery.co.uk/etsy/NecklaceStandTemplateJan09.pdf

11 comments:

MomentsByMartha said...

These are great busts... my necklaces need something a little larger than half of A4, but with a little tiny amount of jiggling I managed to get it to work at A4 size too... I just needed a little something to weigh down the base so my heavy necklaces didn't make them topple.
Thanks Boo for this.

Bigbluebed said...

Thank you for this boo. It looks great.

Boo's Jewellery said...

Thanks for the comments. @Martha, I have added in the template notes that the graphic can be scaled larger (or stretched to different shapes) and also that I either weigh my own busts down or anchor them with blutak. Obviously made out of card they don't have the weight of commercially made ones, but that can also be advantage when carrying your goodies from the car for setting up!

Frankie said...

These look brilliant, Boo! Congrats x

Anonymous said...

Wow, how fantastic! Thanks so much for sharing, I loved your banner too, you are really thrifty and creative. Love it!!!

Boo's Jewellery said...

'Thrifty and creative'. Thanks Pennydog - some might say tight fisted and hard up! ;-) I never buy something I can easily improvise or make myself - leaves more spondoolies for shiny things.

I need to update my blog with my small earrings bust and some photos of my new banner in use.

Kitty Ballistic said...

6 comments and I can't believe no-one has taken the opportunity to say 'Nice bust!' ;-)

Anyway, great idea, and they look so effective. If you wanted to stabilise them, you could add a second piece at the base to make a cross? I'm not explaining myself very well, I'll have to make one and take a photo. :-) But anyway, thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

boo, these are ace! why don't you make some for your shop?

Boo's Jewellery said...

I did think about it Maisy - very briefly, as with my origami boxes too. I decided this was the easier option. people can get what they want then.

Lynne said...

Thanks for the jewellery display template. Its a great idea that is easy to make. I was able to use SCAL software to convert it into a SVG cutting file to cut out on my diecutting machine. I made some for my daughter and she is very pleased.

Boo's Jewellery said...

That sounds like a great way of getting consistent results Lynne - it's the cutting accurately that's the tedious bit - hence I tried to make a shape that was easy to cut out initially with straight lines, then round the corners as a second step. Your cutter might allow you to use stiffer card than would be comfortable to cut by hand too.

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