Girl Gone Mad!

Just when you think you know my style of design I go and do something that throws you off...but just a little. I have long had a fascination of all things small (thus explaining many of the men I dated over the years!) -- and many of those tiny things can be found in the least unexpected places, including hardware stores. Sigh...should a normal girl (I use the word loosely today as a self-descriptor) get giddy in a hardware store? All those nuts, bolts, wire, slugs (not the squishy kind that grow to the size of manatees here in Oregon, but the metal kind of slugs is what I'm referencing), cording, rope -- oh the list is endless. While it wasn't really a hardware store, one of the many part-time jobs I held while in undergraduate school was working for a sailboat manufacturer in Belmont Shore. Anyone who has ever owned a boat knows how many bits and pieces of things it takes to keep them sailing. And, in those days all those glorious bits and bobs were all brass. Well, no surprise, I had a blast finding the most creative way to incorporate those pieces into bags and jewelry -- even then, back in the day, I was clearly well on the road to lunacy -- finding a way to work small things into my life.

That being said, while in Tucson 2010, you can imagine my joy when my niece discovered a vendor who carried tons of twisted wire in all kinds of metals, sizes and shapes. It was a proud moment for an aunt...knowing that I have had some influence on the girl over the years! She finds the best things -- and since she is quite young, her vision is much better, so often she finds things I miss altogether. She's the perfect picker and Tucson Gem Show shopping companion! Over the months I have played with several of the those magical wire beads -- working them into pieces that showcase my personal spin. I love surprises -- mixing metals, textures, colors and the totally unexpected and I think it shows in my jewelry. Here are two pieces that have recently been added to my web site, which means they are at this moment in time, for sale -- and don't despair, there are similar designs sitting on the bench in my studio as we speak. But, believe me when I say that most of these pieces are truly "one-offs" -- meaning there is only ONE of each design. So my best advice to you -- if you see it, buy it. Nothing is worse than seeing something, deciding you can't live without it, going back to buy it and truly make it your own only to see that darn "Sold Out" tag at the end of the item description. Bummer! Okay, back to work...for all of us now. Oh, I am at work right now. I have so much fun with the business of jewelry, I sometimes forget that it is actually what I do for a living! Hope you're as lucky as I am -- I love what I do!!!

Sure Signs of Fall

I don't care what the color Gods have to say about it -- to me fall will always mean burnt oranges, browns, deep russet and greens. In jewelry those colors translate as carnelian, red agate, green aventurine, smoky quartz and deep green freshwater pearls. Of course, I have to toss in some glittery Czech glass fire-polished beads to represent the sun as it bounces off the colors of autumn.

Vintage Jewelry and Heavy Sighs

Did I mention that while I was in Tucson I finally watched Julie & Julia? What fun. Meryl Streep was an excellent Julia Child. In fact, throughout the movie I had to keep reminding myself it was Meryl that I was watching and not Julia.

Oh The Joy!

What a surprise. Today I was running in and out of the house and studio getting "outside chores" done in between the rain storms. At one point, I thought I caught a faint scent of Japonica but I kind of chalked it up to wishful thinking. So you can imagine my surprise, when on the next trip out, I got a whiff again which spurred me to look a bit further. SURPRISE -- there are beautiful blush-white blossoms on the big old giant bush out back.