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If you aren’t from Seattle, you might think the rain here is a negative — all those gray days and drizzle have given us quite a reputation (and a huge coffee habit). But come spring, we reap the benefits in the form of gloriously lush green gardens from which burst forth the most amazing colorful flowers you will see anywhere. Case in point: my backyard, which is bursting with a huge range of purple hues right now. Mingled with the green leaves and grasses, it fairly shouts “spring is here!” I don’t think a day went by in April without a check out my dining room window to see if my lilacs were blooming yet. I watched them turn from tight buds of deep fuschia to soft open purple blooms and brought them into the house by the bucketful to enjoy their lingering scent. And somewhere in there, a series of jewelry designs was born.
These are sneak peeks at some of the new pieces. I’ll be listing them in my Etsy shop as the week goes by, hopefully one or two per day. First I’ve got to get them properly photographed and written up!
Spring Blossom Design #1: Crocus
 Crocus necklace: crackled rock crystal faceted slab nuggets, amethyst, peridot, and sterling silver. Spring Blossom Design #2: Violets in the Snow
 Violets in the Snow necklace: crackled rock crystal slab nuggets, fancy faceted amethyst, smooth peridot rondelles, and sterling silver. Spring Blossom Design #3: Passion Flower
 Passion Flower necklace: smooth rock crystal abstract nuggets, amethyst and peridot rondelles, sterling silver. Spring Blossom Design #4: Wisteria
 Wisteria earrings: rock crystal with "disco ball" faceting, amethyst, peridot, white topaz, sterling silver. Spring Blossom Design #5: Grape Hyacinth
 Grape Hyacinth earrings: polished round amethyst drops, amethyst, peridot, white topaz, and sterling silver. There are more designs to come — as long as my supply of crystal, white topaz, amethyst, and peridot holds out, I’ll probably keep finding new ways to express the spring flora through them!
I’ve been away from the blog for far too long. That’s the life of a mom/wife/part-time editor/dog walker for you.
A lot of my time was spent making jewelry for the EtsyRAIN craft show (waves hello to anyone I met there!) and next up will be a sneak peek of pieces coming to my Etsy shop soon. As soon as I can get them all properly photographed, written up, priced, and listed!
We had our first spring-like weather and first day of our family boating season this weekend. I always forget things in the off season. Like the proper way to tie lines, judging from my inelegant knots at the Friday Harbor dock.
Troy, our yellow labrador retriever, goes with us and manages to be continually underfoot no matter where he sits. He doesn’t like boating. He hates being too low to see out the windows, doesn’t like the motion of the boat, and balks at jumping on and off. But he loves the destinations, so he puts up with it and tries to look happy for our sake.
 Our dog Troy getting some fresh air, sunshine, and sea spray. Yes, he owns a life jacket, it's just not on in this pic! And a day out on the boat leaves him too tired to do anything but this the next day:
 Napping in the sun He has barely moved this morning. Lucky dog.
You know how you think about what you would try to save in a fire? Aside from the obvious (kids, dog, husband), my “must saves” are things from my family history. We have some wonderful old family photos, letters, and ephemera. It still wows me to hold a letter written more than a hundred years ago. What penmanship they had then!
I also have several pieces of treasured jewelry that has been passed down to me. Not necessarily of great worth, except to me.
 From my mother's jewelry box The pieces in this photo all came from my mother, who passed away in 2005. I have a lot more, but these just say “mom” to me. She loved cameos and owls, and was in the a capella group at Everett High School. She had a very nice singing voice and was always in the church choir.
 Engagement ring -- but whose? This ring was in my mother’s jewelry box. I don’t think it was hers, though — at least, I don’t remember her ring looking like this. My parents divorced in 1985 so I certainly hadn’t seen a ring on her finger for years. I thought maybe this was my grandmother’s, but my aunts don’t think so. I wish I knew for sure.
 My Aunt Fran's watch and rings My Aunt Fran was not really my aunt — she was my great-great-aunt — but everyone called her Aunt Fran. She was 99 when she passed away during finals week of my last year of college. She was such a beloved person in our family, a very special lady with a great sense of humor. My daughter’s middle name is Frances, named for Aunt Fran. I have had the watch and two rings in this picture since I was about 12 years old. The ring on the right has the crest of her college sorority on it — the same sorority (the same chapter!) that I joined when I went to the University of Washington, about 75 years after she did.
 Aunt Fran's sorority pin This was her sorority pin, which she passed on to me the year I was initiated.
 Aunt Fran's rhinestone bracelet Isn’t this pretty? It’s in good shape too, only missing a couple of rhinestones.
 A student handbook from the Uw Not jewelry! This is a student handbook from the University of Washington — it belonged to my Aunt Fran, but it was originally her brother’s. I threw it in because I love it and because I use it as a prop in my jewelry photos!
 My class ring I couldn’t end a post about my most treasured jewelry pieces without these last two. This is my high school class ring. Class of 1986, Zweibrucken American High School in Germany. I spent most of my growing up years in Zweibrucken. I am still friends with many of my high school classmates (thank you, Facebook!) and I think we are unusually close because we went to a small military dependents’ school overseas. I can’t remember if that’s an actual aquamarine (my birthstone) or a spinel — seems like the ring company offered the less expensive spinel option to bring the cost of the ring down, so that’s probably what it is. Funny, because of that I have always thought of spinel as a “lesser” stone, but have since learned better.
Last photo! Whew!
 My wedding and engagement rings These are my wedding and engagement rings. My husband and I have been married 15 years, and it seems to have gone by in the blink of an eye. He proposed on an impulse (which I have since learned is how he makes many decisions!) and we went ring shopping the next day. He didn’t have the money at the time to buy a ring, but surprised me a month later at Christmas with this one which we had seen when we were shopping together. He would love to shower me with jewelry — instead he buys me the rocks to make jewelry with!
I’d love to see or hear about others’ favorite pieces of jewelry — drop me a line in the comments!
 Baseball Season!!!
From the look of this darn website, you’d never know I used to create web pages. That was back in the day when it was all HTML, and WYSIWYG hadn’t been developed yet.
And then I went and had babies, and went to grad school, and stopped keeping up. Somewhere in that time it all passed me by like a freight train. Frames? Java? Flash? CSS? It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel like saying, “back in my day, we had to write in code, and all web sites had only one column, and you had to think about how long it would take to load for people who hadn’t gotten 56K dial-up yet…”
I think I need to go buy a “for Dummies” book so I can figure out how to put actual pictures up there in the header area, not just have rotating stock photos from iPhoto. Sad.
I’ve recently finished another auction piece, this time for the International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN) 2009 conference, which is in April. ICAN has been a big part of my life since my son was delivered by cesarean section almost 12 years ago. I used to edit the newsletter and do some writing for the group, but sometime around move #5 (in a 13-year span) it just got to be too much for me. But I still try to support them when I can, and this is one way to do that.
This necklace will be included in the silent auction at the conference. I knew when I found the pendant more than a year ago that it would find its way into something special.
 Blessed Belly Necklace The star of course is the pendant, a penultimate womanly figure with ripe belly and full breasts created by Mamacita Beadworks in lead-free pewter. I played around with a LOT of different stones trying to find the perfect complement. Then I hit on moonstone, with its ancient associations with childbirth and its soft peachiness. Small pewter-colored freshwater pearls bring out the bluish tones of the pendant and Thai Karen Hill Tribe fine silver spacers add a little shine. Dangling from the clasp is an extender chain with a simple Karen silver charm.
Karen Hill Tribe silver is made in Chiangmai, Thailand by artisans who incorporate traditional symbols and inspirations from nature into their work. Hill Tribe silver is 97-99% pure silver, which is higher even than sterling. I strive to use only fairly traded Hill Tribe silver in my work, which helps provide a source of income for the Karen tribe.
You’d think I’d just go ahead and list the pieces I have made, but I’m not satisfied with the pics on these. I feel like I need one more picture that shows the scale of the earrings better.
 The Snow White and Rose Red Earrings Round freshwater pearls, sterling silver hand cast beads, and faceted diamond-shaped garnets, hung on sterling silver earwires. Dainty; about a 3/4″ drop from the bottom of the earwire, 1 1/4″ total. Bonus points if you know the literary reference for the name of these earrings.
It’s always so sweet to wake up to a convo at Etsy letting me know I’m in a treasury!
Etsy seller vintagedchic put together the juiciest treasury I’ve seen in a long time, full of pink and orange and red. Yum!
The treasury will only last a couple of days: Electric Eclectic Treasury.
Here’s my necklace:
 The Citrus Necklace at my Etsy shop Made with three cuts of pink grapefruit chalcedony and punctuated with sterling silver spacers, it will give a jolt of spring to your wardrobe!
Some of my other favorites from the treasury:
From whimsicalvintage
 Vintage 1950's Lisner Pink Rhinestone Earrings
From Andromedii
 Pink Sherbet Earrings at Andromedii
From bluemango
 Red Coffee Cups Original Oil Painting
Welcome hits of color on a grey and snowy day in the PNW. Ahhhhhhh….
Ahhh, tanzanite! There’s no other stone like it, and it’s only found in one place in the world: Tanzania. I hear tell the mines are nearly exhausted, so unless they find more deposits, it will remain very rare. It’s rarer than diamonds already.
I have shied away from using tanzanite in my designs because the vast majority of what is out there in bead form hasn’t knocked my socks off. In fact, I just checked, and yup — socks are still there. It’s very pretty, but something has kept me from buying any. Come to find out that the tanzanite on the market today simply isn’t the vibrant stone of yesterday.
Take a look at these tanzanite briolettes, which retail for over $300 a strand:
Or these 2-4 mm rondelles, retailing for $45:
 Today's tanzanite
Now compare them to these babies I picked up yesterday. These photos are straight out of the camera, with only the image size changed from the original:
 A luscious strand of vintage tanzanite.
 Another view, looking bluer.
These beads cost me a mint, but they’re the real deal. These have a very saturated hue and exhibit a lovely dichroic (two color) effect, varying between violet and blue depending on the angle of viewing. The two pics above were taken minutes apart next to the same window, just slightly different angles.
Aren’t they gorgeous? They sparkle like a bride on her wedding day. My bead supplier has held onto these for over a decade, and I got the last strand. Every time he goes on a buying trip, he looks for anything close to this quality, but it just isn’t out there anymore.
The only question is — what shall I make with them? Until I figure it out, I’ll just keep taking them out every day to gaze in wonder.
Dang, my feet are feeling a little colder…
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