Paper Jewels

I’ve just uploaded my new Mother’s Day jewelry gifts pages. Of course the biggest gift is that you remembered to get her a gift But hey, it’s also nice to find something special, maybe customized just for her. Like this, for example:

Lacquered Paper Hearts Custom Lariat Necklace

Or if your mom prefers a little humor (and you like a really small price tag!) check out my eco-friendly, reclaimed scrabble tile pendants. Here’s one example:

The quote’s from Roseanne Barr, who can drive me nuts sometimes, but then again sometimes she is exactly on target. Sometimes you just have to laugh!

I’ll have more Mother’s Day specials listed soon - maybe you should bookmark this page and check back soon

We have two wonderful pet birds - or they have us. Willy is a Quaker Parrot, opinionated and fussy and egotistical and very smart. Zini is a Sun Conure, the baby of the family (though she’ll be five this year) and the most adorable (charming, spoiled, and did I mention egotistical?) person in the house. Here they are after a bath:

So my question / problem is… toys. They are both smart and active and when I’m nearby, their cage is open so they can wander around at will (on top of the cage, not through the house!) And we need more toys for them. Toys they can interact with, puzzles to solve, things to take apart - Zini especially thinks the very best toys are ones she can destroy. This is fine with me, but it’s so hard to know what’s safe.

Many commercial bird toys are too big for them - or uninteresting. (A series of alphabet blocks in safe finishes? Fun to look at but they don’t DO anything.) Leather strips? Fun to chew on - but potentially dangerous.

P.S. I should add, the very best toy we’ve found so far, is a peanut (with shell) wrapped in a square of plain white paper. Wrap the peanut in the paper, twist the ends, and they have to work to extract the peanut from the paper. They both love these. Willy likes to eat the peanuts, and Zini could care less about eating them - she just wants to destroy them. And they make a very satisfying CRUNCH while she’s at it.

I’m always on the search for fun safe toys. If anybody has a suggestion, I’d love to hear it.

I’ve been peeking at Budget Diva, an online budget shopping blog that also has its own thrift store. Not only is it great fun to look around there, you can also score great deals in their shop. Right now they don’t have tons of goodies there but it’s totally worth checking out. Look at these shoes for example!

Nine West Pumps

These are work pumps, not as fun as flip flops maybe, but so goodlooking and if I have to dress for the office, I want my shoes to be this cool! If they were my size I’d have grabbed them asap. I have hope though. If they can find goodies like this once, they can do it again. Check them out!

Turquoise is one of my favorite gemstones and I’ll bet money (Monopoly money anyway!) that it’s one of yours too. It’s gorgeous, it’s flattering, it’s not hard to find, it looks good all year round and with all skin tones…. you know what I mean!

And sometimes it’s hard to know if you’re looking at the real deal, or a pretty fake. Of course if it’s pretty enough you might not care - unless you paid for Sleeping Beauty Turquoise and got assembled crap instead. (And if you paid for Sleeping Beauty Turquoise, believe me, you’ll care).

This post is a very short primer on some of the differences. Take a look below - here’s a couple examples of real versus not:

and

Only one of these examples is real turquoise - (1) I bought those teardrops (upper right) in Arizona in person, and (2) I do this for a living and after a while you can tell.

The other pics show very attractive beads - they’re just not real turquoise. Tricky, ain’t it?

After I started this I realized it could get kind of lengthy. So I’ll continue in Part 2. (soon!)

,I’ve just started working with antique silver finishes… am falling in love with them

There’s such an advantage! When the finish is oxidized or antiqued, you don’t ever have to worry about tarnishing. The silver is supposed to be antiqued And I’m not a snob about it - I work with sterling silver but also silver plate over brass. It’s affordable, and hey right now, that’s of the good.

Silver plate over brass has a lot of the perks of sterling - it’s supposed to be antiqued, and even if the finish wears (plating will wear, eventually) it has a sort of deepish silvery finish underneath. I’ve experimented with it - it’s not yellowy underneath. That’s why silver plate is nicer than gold plate - even when it “tarnishes”, it’s still antiquey-silvery.

Here’s one recent example - I love the lacy, delicate femininity of this pendant:
.

It’s available in my Etsy shop - I have lots of goodies there at very reasonable prices Go peek!

Gotta love this. I was peeking around and found this majorly good-looking tee…. it’s casual but with a little extra spiff That’s my kind of style…

Then I read a little about it and saw it’s made with organic cotton and water-based inks (solvent free) which is very high on my list of “this is how clothes should be made”.

It’s from Harrilu and no she didn’t bribe me to mention it - I just think her work is cool

A happy day - I got a new shipment of yummy brass fittings. Gentle aged patina, perfect to fit stones I already have, all I have to do is put them together and voila! yumminess.

It’s never that simple though, yknow? The “gentle patina” (the vendor didn’t use the word ‘gentle’ - I think they said “mild” or some such) is, well, varied. That’s inevitable with brass, especially when it’s not new (I don’t know the age for sure - so can’t guarantee 20+ years vintage). Brass varies. The copper content varies (brass is basically a zinc and copper alloy). And metal ages differently.

But - every piece is different! Some pieces are so faded they’re almost silvery. Some are so warm they’re almost coppery.

And that’s enough grumbling. Because on the other hand - using genuine brass pieces that were rescued from an old warehouse - you get pretties that are unique, and they were already made or mined or whatever, so there’s practically no (new) footprint to mar this nice little planet we have… and that’s worth a LOT.

Also it produces pretties like this:

and that’s worth sifting through to find just the right fittings

Paper Jewels make great presents - especially anniversary presents. If you think about it, this makes sense - each Paper Jewel is made by hand, and each is a pretty piece of jewelry that can be customized for the recipient. (ike I said in a previous post - it’s all personal.)

And Paper Jewels are even perfecter (if that’s a word!) for first year anniversary presents - the “paper anniversary”. You can get a pendant or necklace for your wife (or your husband!), or a pair of earrings with both your names - in English or in Japanese or Chinese. You can get a heart with her initials - or with both your initials. And you don’t have to spend a lot of money.

You can get exactly the personalized present you want for your sweetie. And that’s kind of what anniversary presents are about

Make yourself a super-it-really-fits-you dress form from duct tape! This isn’t a new idea, but I recently ran across some pretty clear instructions:
Clone Yourself a Fitting Assistant.

The instructions are from a Threads Magazine story.

The article also tells you how to make one out of brown mailing tape. You can’t get much cheaper than that. And anybody who sews knows how handy a dress form is - when it works. This one is modeled on YOU.

I was so tickled to learn that the Obamas (or somebody on their team, I guess) have decided that it’s a good idea to do some organic gardening at their new house This is the kind of thing that’s only a symbol, I suppose, but it’s a pretty terrific symbol.

Together with a bunch of school kids (I know, I know, what a photo op) Mrs. Obama’s going to start an organic garden at the White House. Read more about it here and here.

And somebody’s got a sense of humor about it (photo mock-up courtesy of Eat The View).