a break

I'm now officially in the home stretch, busy preparing the new work for my solo show. So I've decided it's best to take a break from blogging for the next month or so (including the photo-a-day posts) so that I can really focus all of my energies on the work. Wearable Nostalgia opens December 5th at Luke & Elloy Gallery in Pittsburgh and I am still not quite ready just yet… yikes!

I'll be picking up blogging regularly again December 1st, but for now I bid you farewell. As always, thank you so much for all your support and encouragement, and for following along with my blogging adventures… it means the world to me!

mounds

Snowflake Barbie Hanger Ornaments

I made a couple prototypes and am really happy with them… can't wait to make more! I'm having a lot of fun. I do wish I had more colors to choose from, but sadly it's just pink and green. Also, I thought I would be able to make a whole bunch to sell for the holidays but it turns out I won't have nearly as many hangers as I thought I had, since each ornament uses eight Barbie hangers. Oh well… they will be extra special limited edition ornaments I guess!

success!

The backplate of the lotus necklace soldered on without problem this time.
Hooray for second attempts! I'll have some major decisions to make in terms of the resin. So many options to weigh…

hanger ornaments

Last year I made a hanger ornament for Facéré Jewelry Art Gallery so I thought this year I would expand on the 'hanger ornament' idea, for sale in my etsy shop for the holidays. I bought a whole mess of Barbie doll hangers from ebay a while back and I've been playing around to come up with new snowflake shapes. What do you all think?

New Retailer! Soo Visual Arts Center

This is a preview of the grouping of work I just finished before it was packaged up and shipped off to my new retailer in Minneapolis: the Soo Visual Arts Center. If you're in that area, be sure to stop in and check out their gift shop for some of my jewelry.

Lotus - #2 - in progress

I attempted to make this piece once before and failed, so this is actually the second incarnation of the design. In version #1, I (foolishly) chose a gauge of silver sheet for the back plate that was much too thin for the overall width/size of the piece. This threw off the heat distribution when I went to solder, and caused the whole thing to warp. It was a royal mess which I then proceeded to make worse by attempting to "fix." I ultimately decided it was best to scrap the whole thing (all that time, hard work and silver… YIKES) As frustrating as that is however, sometimes it's better to admit defeat.

I definitely do not enjoy starting a piece over and would often rather just move on to a new design, but I'm particularly fond of and see the potential for this piece so… here we go again! I've scaled it down this time (it's about 3" x 3") and I'll be using thicker gauge sheet for the back plate. Often starting over makes the second go round, go that much smoother and usually the piece becomes even better as a result. …Fingers crossed!

silver hands

chains

pencil point

order 3 prep

Another wholesale order, prepped and half way to fabricated.

blood coral arm necklace

I have to report to jury duty today and was thinking of possibly wearing this necklace… you know, to hopefully be excused… hahaha

the view outside our apartment window

They were filming that new tv show The Good Wife literally right outside our apartment earlier this week (including inside the bodega downstairs and what used to be Joe's coffee shop on the corner!) I just had to document the craziness…

I haven't watched this show but uh, heard it was supposed to take place in Chicago? Does anyone know if that's true? In that case Brooklyn seems like an odd choice…

color palette

Neon yellow, hot pink, mint green, black and khaki.

I saw this grouping of laundry bags at the laundromat recently and I'm feeling inspired by this color palette.