These Boots Were Made For More Than Dancin !

A recent search by iKandies on Pinterest for interesting shoe designs resulted in this page of Shoe Decorating Designs http://www.pinterest.com/linzifer/shoe-decorating-ideas/.  Some of these are quite unusual  You can decide if you like them or not, but regardless of your decision, we're sure you'll agree adding "eye candy" to shoes and boots is definitely the "in" thing to do!

iKandies noticed the trend and decided to add a few Boot Bracelets to our line of jewelry to test the waters.  We're happy to report that they've been a popular item: not only showing up at the top of our Search list on our iKandies Etsy Site site, but we've also sold several of our designs.  Although they may be simple designs, they're very flexible because they can be worn on any number of boot styles. 

Our designs range from simple copper chain

 

..to more ornate chain with charms

 ... to a leather buckled strap with Swarovski crystal accents

We'll soon be enlarging our boot bracelet offerings by adding a few fun designs. So no matter what your preference, you're sure to find something to make those ordinary boots do more than dance!

Of Dogs and Leather ....

Leather clothing and accessories have become all the rage this past year.  Everybody is buying, selling, or wearing it and recently I found that one of iKandies' canine friends has suddenly taken to leather too. She not only likes to wrap herself in it but has been including it in her diet.  We lost several leather bags, a book cover, and some of our leather jewelry supplies to this leather-loving carnivore.  The other day I found her in the final stages of devouring a leather bracelet I had been working on. Maybe all she wants is a leather collar...

Regaliz Black Leather Bracelet for Men

Regaliz Purple Leather Bracelet

 So iKandies has added a few leather pieces to their line of jewelry, like these leather bracelets.  The black and purple bracelets are made of Regaliz Italian leather while the blue bracelet is leather cording.


Blue Larimar Jasper Wrapped Bracelet

A source of some of our leather has been the online wholesaler, Best Beads.  We also saw them at the 2013 Bead and Button Show.  They have all sorts of leather sizes, styles, colors including the newly popular Regaliz Italian round and flat leathers.
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iKandies recently visited a local Tandy Leather Store to search through their scrap bins for unusual pieces to incorporate in their jewelry. We also found a few accessores we'd like to include as we design our jewelry, like this Pulsar Star concho  and easy lock bracelet clasps.

Many fashion trends come and go but it appears that leather is here to stay, at least for a while longer. 

iKandies Adds Licorice to our Jewelry

Licorice?  Well, our name is "iKandies"!  But we don't mean licorice candy.  We're talking about Licorice leather or what is better known as "Regaliz" leather.  This is pronounced "reg-AH-leez" and has been all the rage in Europe.

The Regaliz bracelet component system consists of genuine Greek leather 6mm by 10mm in size and found in a variety of colors. High quality beads, caps and clasps in zinc and pewter are electro plated with 99.9% sterling silver.  Ceramic large hole beads and rubber rings add color and style options to each bracelet.  The nature of these bracelets make them appealing to both men and women.

Seen first at the 2012 Bead and Button Show, iKandies began noticing more and more bead supply stores offering these components.  So we tried our hand at making a woman's and a man's bracelet and here's the results:

Men's Regaliz Leather Bracelet

Women's Regaliz Flat Leather Bracelet

The Regaliz system includes ceramic beads, rubber rings and other pieces to adorn and finish your leather bracelet creation. We decided to create sterling silver metal slides for the Men's bracelet.  The sterling pieces were textured, annealed and then formed into slides that would fit on the leather cord.   For the woman's bracelet, we textured, annealed and oxidized a copper component to attach to two strands of flat Italian leather.  A Swarovski flat back crystal was glued to the copper piece, creating an eye catching focal point for this bracelet. 

We were able to attain quite a bit of leather from our supplier, Primative Earth Beads, so we'll be making more of these luscious bracelets!  Check out our website for these and other fine pieces of jewelry.