Beauty Everywhere I Look - an etsy treasury

My "A New Day" pendant is featured today in this lovely treasury titled "Beauty is Everywhere I Look", created by Mocahete. This treasury is so colorful, featuring items of orange, blue, rust and grey. Take a look here and discover some wonderful artists!

Robin Eggs

My latest creation is a tribute to the robin that built its' nest just outside my kitchen window. The gorgeous Amazonite stones are robin egg blue. I've set them in fine silver bezels and backed them with textured sterling silver. I gave them a light patina to bring out the texture and hung them from handmade sterling silver ear wires. A little bit of springtime to wear!

They are in my etsy shop here.

Spring Break! - Year of Jewelry 2011 - Week 11

The theme for this week's Year of Jewelry Project is "Think Spring". For most of the US, it's been a very long winter and everyone is eager for spring to arrive. Officially, it's right around the corner - Sunday, March 20th! I won't be able to take a spring break this year, but I long for beautiful, tropical ocean views. My favorite beaches are in SW Florida. Where are your favorite beaches?

In honor of the arrival of Spring, I've created the pendant pictured on the left. It's titled "Spring Break". The luscious color of these chalcedony stones remind me of a tropical beach. They are set in fine silver and backed with sterling silver. All of the silver is polishes to a high shine. The pendant measures 1-7/8" long and hangs on a 16" sterling silver box chain. You can view the necklace in my etsy shop here.

Now let's all ban our black sweaters and break out the colorful pastels! Happy Spring!

Feeling Blue?

With the NW winter grey sky approaching quickly, I've been craving the sight of blue lately. I've been busy creating some new items, most are blue - green - turquoise and make me yearn for a Caribbean. vacation. After making several rather complicated pieces lately, I decided to make a few items that have a more simple, classic design with small, luscious stones. They are all in my etsy shop now, so feel free to click on each link below for more photos and descriptions.

Pisco Blue Gem Chrysocolla

Ocean Breeze - Peruvian Blue Opal

True Blue - Ajax Mine Turquoise

Simplicity - Candelaria Veriscite

Midnight Dance Earrings - Black Candelaria Veriscite

Treasury of EtsyRain (Seattle area) Artists

Today I made a treasury filled with incredible blue items, all made by local artists. We need some blue sky here and these items made me smile. This treasury will be active until 9:00pm on Monday. Take a look!
http://www.etsy.com/treasury_list.php?room_id=44425

Beads have a plan of their own

I set out today to make a necklace out of a strand of lovely graduated sized turquoise beads and sterling spacers. I strung and re-strung and just couldn't seem to find an appropriate necklace design for them. While I was flinging the strand around, it landed on my wrist and looked and felt beautiful! The beads were telling me they need to be a bracelet, of course! I just needed to listen to them guide me.

It does seem that most of the time I make something, I go back and re-do it, sometimes several times, to get everything right - the right balance, color, shape, weight... While I sometimes find that tedious when I just want to get something finished quickly, I try to remind myself that it's all part of the process of making jewelry. It isn't about getting to the destination. It's about the journey. That's really what I love and find soothing about jewelry making.

My jewelry making day was made even better today because a dear friend joined me for the afternoon. She's a brilliant peyote beader! While we create, we more importantly build our friendship.