Green - my new favorite color?

My favorite color was always purple. But recently I find that more and more I am tending towards green. I found myself picking green items when shopping for clothes, bags, makeup and other things. So you can imagine what happened in my last visit to my gemstone supplier - many different shades of green beads and stones came back home with me!

I don't know if it's just a seasonal thing or a permanent change in favorites, but I thought my new favorite color of the moment deserves a blog post, don't you?

Maybe it's this HOT summer that makes me looks for cool and fresh looking colors. Green always looks refreshing and cool.

So here are a few of the green items I have created recently. Hope you like them as much as I do.

Chic green stackable thin bangle

Cute matte texture green earrings

Triangular green flower earrings

Floral teardrop earrings with a green stone

The funny story of my dragonfly earrings

I wanted to share a funny story about a dragonfly design I've been working on. To be honest, I don't like dragonflies too much in real, life but somehow in art forms they are just adorable. I have created several designs with a dragonfly center. I have a pendant, some hoops and a skinny bangle. For a while now I have been wanting to make a pair of dragonfly earrings with some dangling beads to add some colors to them. But the funniest thing happens every time I try to make these earrings. Every time I start working on a dragonfly I get a sale of one of my existing dragonfly designs. So I end up using the dragonfly I made to fill the order I received and the earrings don't get done. Once I tried making 2, just in case this happens again and guess what? I got 2 orders for dragonflies. What do you think is it just a strange coincidence or is someone trying to send me a message?

No picture of the earrings since they remain unfinished. If I ever manage to get them done, I promise to post a picture. 

New section in my blog - In a designer's eyes

I'm opening a new section in my blog that will be called - In a designer's eyes. In this section I will be sharing with you things that I love that were created by other designers in different fields.

I have been making jewelry ever since I can remember myself, but if someone told me I could no longer design jewelry, I would probably still choose a career in design. I just love good design in any field - interior design, fashion, houswares, industrial design etc.

Not that I think that being a designer makes me an expert on design but since I am a designer and this is my blog, everything I see is looked through my designer eyes and my design taste. Hope you'll like it as well.

I will start with something from my own field of expertise - jewelry. Though I make my own jewelry I still love and appreciate other jewelry artists that create unique jewelry works.  

I picked 2 jewelry designers that make some unique combinations of materials.

Donauluft combines metalwork with beading. I like how the connection between these 2 materials, metal and beads, looks together. Beading with seed beads is a lot of work (I should know, I have done this myself) and not always appreciated enough. I think the combination with the sterling silver upgrades the jewelry don't you?

My second pick is by 3squares who combines colorful fabrics in her metalwork. There are many ways to add color to sterling silver jewelry, some more traditional like adding gemstones and some newer and more innovative. I find the use of fabric to be an original and great way to add color and texture and to create something unique. Take a look:

  

Post earrings

As I said in a previous post I wrote, earrings are my favorite piece of jewelry.  You will probably never find me without a pair of earrings on.

One of the wonderful things about earrings is that there are so many different kinds of them and everyone can find something they like. There are hoops, chandeliers, dangling earrings and there are post earrings (or stud earrings).

There are many reasons people like stud earrings. Some people don't like to see the ear wire of the earrings and feel the design is more complete if it starts directly from the ear. Others just want to hide their ear lobe. And others might be sensitive to long or dangling earrings and simply prefer a very small stud earring that sits on the ear and doesn't move and bother them.

So basically stud earrings can be a tiny small dot or a large fancy piece. The possibilities are endless.

I have been experimenting with different styles of stud earrings and I really like the results so far. Here are just a few samples of what I've got so far. More designs will be developed and listed in the near future.

   

Casual jewelry for everyday

In the past few years statement jewelry have been very trendy. These are big noticeable pieces that upgrade your total look. If you are going to a party or just a night out in the town, a big statement necklace or bangle will definitely do the trick.

But for everyday these jewelry might be too much. When going to work, meeting friends or any other casual everyday activity, you would not wear something too extravagant. For casual activities you will need more simple and quiet jewelry. Jewelry that will upgrade your look in a more moderate way. I call these - casual jewelry. Maybe it's a bit less glamorous than statement jewelry but they are very handy and you can wear them longer as they will probably not go out of style too quickly.

Here are a few casual jewelry items that I like in particular:

To see more casual everyday jewelry, visit my store.

My jewelry washing machine!

Ever wonder how jewelry gets it's beautiful shine?

Friends who visit me in the studio are often surprised to see how my jewelry look like before they are finised.

I make most of my jewelry from scratch. This means I take raw material like silver wires or silver sheets and work with them to create my design. I cut, drill, bend, solder etc, as needed to create the design I have in mind. When I am done, the metal has the shape and form that I intended for them to have but not the color and shine of silver jewelry as you know it. Not yet.

To make them shine and sparkle they need to be cleaned and polished.

For the final step I enter my jewelry into a thumbler. There are many different kinds of thumblers, mine is a rotary thumbler. Basically it works like a washing machine - for jewelry.

I put in my jewelry with a spcial soap, set the timer and press start. The machine then starts turning and thumbling and when it's done - my jewelry comes out clean and sparkling!

I love taking the items out of the thumbler and seeing how beautiful and shiny they look. Don't you?