Mother's Day Auction, May 5th

Handmadeology teams up with Tophatter for a Mother's Day auction, live on May 5th!
If you haven't checked out Tophatter yet, it's a live auction site, where you gather in a room with other bidders and bid on jewelry, art and other great items right there, on the spot, with all the excitement of a real auction!!

It's totally addicting, so enter at your own risk!  :)
But I have to say, I've found some amazing items there at great prices!
To join the auction, you have to sign up as a member of Tophatter, then RSVP to this event on May 5th..



Email me if you have any questions or need help, symphonyjewels@aol.com
Hope to see you there!

Wow, where do I begin???  I've been engrossed in all sorts of jewelry stuff for the last few weeks.  I'm lovin' it, but the hours and days just slip by!!!

A few updates...

• More gorgeous beads!!! I just received a few wonderful briolettes, in peach & pink chalcedony, mystic green quartz, green apatite and rubellite quartz. I don't have many of these, so these jewelry pieces will be very limited and very special!

• And I couldn't stop there, I ordered more gorgeous gemstones due any day now!  I figured  if I have to miss the upcoming gem and jewelry show next weekend because I'm too pregnant to walk around, I better order some through the mail to make me feel better.
• I also have some more sterling silver wire coming so I can do a lot more wire wrapping.
• I've been posting a bunch of jewelry to my Etsy store. Check it out at http://symphonyjewels.etsy.com
• More jewelry photo shoots!!  This pendant is called Malaysia and can be seen at my Etsy store or website. I hand cut metal sheet into an oval pendant shape, filed the edges smooth and hammered it for a lot of texture. Then I added a rich patina to the pendant, hung a couple chain danglies and a copper and sterling silver charm, on a gunmetal chain.

• The studio relocation (from the new baby's room to the office) will be complete this weekend. (So will some much-needed housekeeping!!!)
• I've been updating my website and my database so that inventory is perfect!!
• I've also discovered Tophatter, an online auction site. Nothing like ebay! Users gather in an auction room and bid right there on the spot. There's plenty of socializing and plenty of cool things! I'll elaborate more in another blog post. But if you'd like an invitation, email me at symphonyjewels@aol.com for one!

Okay, that's enough for now!  Gotta get back to it all!

My most recent gemstone purchases are smaller, daintier gemstones, mostly faceted briolettes and some tiny rondelles. Although I say these are my most recent purchases, they've been in my studio for a while! Maybe it's been my brain trying to figure out just the right designs to make with them so I don't waste them! Especially since I have a limited quantity of quite a few of these. 

But in the last couple weeks I've created a few new necklaces with these gems. One of which, Dancing with Dryads, is now seen in my banner for my blog and website. 

My 2nd one is pictured here. I bought these swirly smoky blue pietersite briolettes at the last Gem & Jewelry Show in Rosemont that I attended... had to have 'em! And now they debut in this necklace, Spirit of the Sea.

 
Added a few other smoky blue stones... kyanite, sodalite and some deep metallic blue Swarovski crystals... wire-wrapped them all together with a nice dangly pendant cluster, and I MUST have one of these for myself!!  :)

You can find this necklace on my website here.

Fun With Photography!

I bought my new awesome DSLR camera last spring and have been trying to learn more and more about photography and lighting.  I've come to the conclusion that I love indirect natural daylight the best.  I've learned somewhat how to manage to work with indoor lighting, but it's harder and much more time-consuming in the final photo editing process.  And the color is just far superior and much more true with natural daylight. 

My latest experiment this morning is my setup shown below.

First, this table is located right next to a huge patio door.  The morning sun shines brightly through this side of the house.  I want to avoid harsh shadows around my jewelry, so I placed a large piece of wax paper on the window to filter the light, but still keep the optimum color temperature.  

I then covered a bi-fold cardboard cutout with aluminum foil to put on the opposite side of the window to reflect light back onto the jewelry.  

I have a few pieces of scrapbook paper with neutral themes to use as a background to lay my jewelry on.  

Props can be really cool if done nicely... I don't like too much stuff in the background, but I loved this decorative wood frame and the washed look on this wood box.  They have turned out to be super-cool props and the wood box is my favorite yet!!

Here are some of the results from my photo shoot.

   

   

What do you think??

New Custom Bracelet

I recently had a request to design and make a custom bracelet for a new mother.  Mom just had a son and Grandma wanted to make a bracelet with his name and Mom and Baby's birthstones in the bracelet.  She wanted crystals and silver, chose a couple name bracelet designs that I had made in the past that she liked and I got to work making her a custom bracelet.  This was the preliminary design that I showed Grandma. Baby's birthstone was amethyst (February) and Mom's birthstone was pink tourmaline (October).

She loved it!  So I got to work making the final design, adjusted a couple little things here and there to make it the perfect length and sent the finished product out. 

My Mess...

Over the months and years as I make jewelry and make messes at my workstation, things scatter around my studio, leftover beads and material get left out and it eventually adds up.  Probably about 2 years ago, I gathered up all this stuff, in my attempt at de-cluttering, and put it all in a plastic container.  I was trying to put it all in one place to more easily go through it.  But the plastic container got shoved out of the way on a shelf and forgotten.  

For the past week, I have been completely rearranging 2 rooms in the house to get ready for the new baby, due June 4.  My studio (the extra bedroom) is now turning into the baby's room and I am consolidating and packing half the office so I can move my studio into a section of that room.  So I stumbled across this tucked away plastic container.  

I've at least opened it to see what's in it.  Some beads, some finished jewelry pieces, some stuff that needs re-design or repair, some practice wirework stuff... and it's now my goal to finally get this mess taken care of!  I will try very hard to be more disciplined in the future and put stuff back where it belongs right away, so I don't have to deal with this again!!