Lend Me Your Ears!

Your earlobes, that is!
I've been busy making some new earrings. Check em' out:

BIG GIRL HOOPS

HARD CANDY HOOPS

ICE CUBE EARRINGS

Go Big, Go Bold or Go Home!

My latest pieces. I'm really diggin' the big centerpiece stones.

LAPLAND LARIAT agate and quartz crystal druzy with sterling silver

ATMOSPHERE LARIAT crazy lace agate and sterling silver

ATMOSPHERE II LARIAT crazy lace agate and sterling silver

NORTHERN LIGHTS NECKLACE agate and quartz crystal druzy with sterling silver

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

This past Friday (10/23) I went to an open call for designers at NYC's legendary Henri Bendel. It was quite an experience to say the least.

The open call was scheduled to open at 9 am, but based on the photos that I saw on the Henri Bendel website, I thought it best to get there early:

This photo was taken at a previous open call, not the one I attended, but I can attest that the line was VERY LONG. The line started on 55th St. in the middle of the block between 5th and 6th aves., wrapped all the way around on 5th, and went around the corner onto 56th and ultimately went in the employee entrance in the middle of the block on 56th.

Yes, it could have been worse. It could have been raining or snowing or been kiln-like in temperature. Friday's temperature was cool but when the wind kicked up, and boy did it, the temperature really took a nose dive!

We were all cold but all were troopers. I and the rest around me waited 3.5 or MORE hours to get our chance to meet with the buyers of Henri Bendel.

My experience with one of HB's buyers took around 2 minutes. I started off by showing my barbed wire jewelry. She (the buyer) held my High Voltage Earrings and contemplated them briefly, asking me what they were made of and what the retail price of them was. She said that my items were too edgy for Henri Bendel. Next.

I knew when I set out to go on this open call that it was a long shot at best. I went because you never know what will happen. While my jewelry did not fit with Henri Bendel's aesthetic, I was inspired by the tenacity of the people around me, all with hope in their hearts and their products ready to show. I met many nice tourists who all seemed to gravitate towards me to ask why we were all standing on this very long line. I gave out a lot of business cards to those around me. I got to see the inner sanctum. I set out to do something and I did it.

Harness the Power!

I'm on a harness necklace kick! Here are my two latest creations:


RAELIN HARNESS NECKLACE available in my Etsy shop, Girl Tuesday Jewelry.



BRANWEN HARNESS NECKLACE available in my Etsy shop, Girl Tuesday Jewelry.

Wait till you see what I'm cooking up next! I have the most amazing, heavy, large link chain that I'm making into a convertible necklace/harness. Will be available late this week.

Hmmmmm...

My usual morning ritual is to check email and see what's up with the traffic in my stores. This morning I noticed that the number of views for my recently added Maeve Harness Necklace were approaching the 500 mark. I Googled my necklace to see where the traffic was coming from and to my surprise, my necklace was featured on NOTCOUTURE.COM.

Wow. The views were now up to 611. Checked back in an hour, up to 750+. Came home later this evening, view count=1289.



I am working on some more harness style necklaces and hope to have them in my store late this week. Glad so many people love this style of accessory as much as I do!

My Latest Creation

I have been wanting to come up with a good design for a harness style necklace for a while now. After much sketching and procrastinating, I came up with this, the Maeve Harness Necklace:

Looks amazing on a white shirt:

Available in my Etsy store, Girl Tuesday Jewelry.

Hot Off the Workbench...

I just finished making this necklace yesterday. For something that appears simple, it took me a long time to work out the design kinks.
What I set out to achieve in this design was to create a cherry cluster that was made from a single piece of wire. I hate clutter (even though I am entering this post at a cluttered desk) but I especially abhor a cluttered design. I wanted the stems to come up and create the loop from which it would hang. Sounds easy, but I went through A LOT of brass wire (that's what I use when I'm working out a design because it's pretty cheap) before I figured out just the right stem length, curve, size of loop at top and how many wraps of the wire I could do around the loop for it to be secure yet not look like a noose.
Attaching the leaf was easy and I got it to look right on the first shot.

The chain for the necklace was another issue. I thought a regular oval link chain would be fine, but it really didn't do anything for the cherries. After scrounging around in my supplies I found some bar and link chain that I forgot I owned. After polishing the bar and link chain, I slid the cherry pendant on and was satisfied with the overall look.

Necklace measures 16" in length and is available for sale in my etsy.com store, Girl Tuesday Jewelry.