Jewelry Blog

Robin Atkins, a well known beader and author of beading books, started a bead journal project. There are over 200 people signed up to participate in this project, which involves creating one beaded journal page per month.

I can’t wait to see the results! From the main project blog, you can click over to the various members’ blogs for lots of bead eye-candy.

The project blog

Rubies and sapphires belong to the same family of minerals and thus have the same physical characteristics. Among gemstones, they are the hardest, second only to diamonds, but still require gentle handling. The term ruby only applies to the color red. However, sapphires range in color from blue to green, black, orange, pink, yellow, purple or colorless (white).

Rubies and Sapphires

I have a few shows coming up - one in the south bay, one in SF, and one up in wine country.

June 3rd - Southbay Soiree with Pleasanton Craft Mafia - 11:00-3:00 at A Work of Heart Art Studio, 1060 Willow Street in San Jose, CA.

July 7th - Guerilla Fashionista at Foreign Cinema on Mission in San Francisco, CA

September 16th - Ravenswood Marketplace at the Ravenswood Winery in Sonoma, CA

I’ll post more details about the last two

My show schedule

This is my favorite crocheted jewelry design so far. I wanted to learn some new crochet stitch patterns, and found a bobble stitch pattern in my Reader’s Digest needlework book (it’s a huge hardcover book that was given to me by a friend’s mom, and has instructions for all kinds of needlework including knitting and crocheting).

Crocheted Bobble Cuff

What is gold?

The word gold, used by itself, means all gold or 24karat (24K) gold. Gold has been a monetary standard throughout the history of mankind. Gold is a soft but heavy metal.

What is a karat?

Karat tells you what proportion of gold is mixed with the other metals. For example, 18 karat (18K) gold contains 18 parts of gold and 6 parts of metals. Therefore 14 karat (14K) gold is less valuable than 18 karat gold since it contains 14

Gold Buyer’s Guide

Maven Fair last weekend was a blast. So much talent in one place! And a well-organized show, with great gift bags for customers, and freebies from sponsors BUST and CRAFT: magazines.

But you don’t have to take my word that it was an awesome show. Check out my friend Andrea’s very sweet post about my work from the show.

Also see what Andrea had to say about Raquelle of Pretty.Fun and Delia of Catholic Guilt (LOVE that name, by the way).

Maven Fair Wrap-up

Garnets are a related group of gemstones. This family includes the rhodolite, demantoid, grossular, hessonite, spessarite, almandine, mandarin, malaya, tsavorite.

Garnets are available in many colors such as orange, green, purpe red, pink, gold and more. They may look similar to ruby or emerald. The dark, slightly brownish or violet red color is the most popular.

Garnet

It’s been a while since I last wrote about caring for jewelry - and since I use a lot of silver and pearls in my work, it seems appropriate to mention how to care for these materials.

The key to preventing tarnish on silver is keeping it clean, and storing it sealed off from air, humidity, and chemicals. Anti-tarnish cloth lining in jewelry boxes also helps.

The key to caring for pearls is to avoid contact with chemicals and anything

Care for your jewelry

That’s right, in less than 24 hours I will be at the Maven Fair selling my jewelry and hanging out with lots of wonderful, talented artists and designers.

I’m really looking forward to it - and realizing I still have a lot of work to do. I’ll be spending my Friday night finishing up as many of my unfinished pieces as I can, and getting all my diplay materials organized.

In the meantime, a shipment of my jewelry is supposed

Maven Fair is Tomorrow!

I got a *ton* of entries for this carnival. If I missed your entry, I sincerely apologize - don’t hesitate to submit to the next edition. A few people submitted more than one article, and in those cases, I picked one to include. Since there are so many entries, I’ve divided them into a few categories.

presents Transformations…The Art of Recycling exhibit online posted at Recycled Stuff.

presents Tenacious Trees posted at Idle Minutes.

Carnival of the Creators - May 12, 2007