I cannot believe that I have not posted in so long! Well, I have been busy. Probably like everybody else... And I have new jewelry to show! Santa Cruz Open Studios Art Tour 2011 is coming up fast (starting on Saturday Oct. 1st) and I am participating again! I have many new creations for my visitors to check out and I am looking forward to it! I am sending out my mailings, planning the set up, getting the wine and snacks and doing all the usual last minute stuff before an event. Well, and in between I am still creating... Continue reading

My latest addition to my lines of artisan silver jewelry are small crosses. I made the very first ones just with the birthstones for my 2 little nieces Baptism. I love it because each handcrafted cross is one-of-a-kind like their little personalities. I made a couple of extra ones where I combined the silver cross with little white freshwater pearl. They looked really beautiful and I sold them right away! Actually I sold them to adults. :-) My nice's Baptism gift with a Swarovski Crystal birthstone light amethyst for June So now I decided to make a few more and... Continue reading

I have dreams... They might be a little different from other people ;-) A little while ago I had the joy of taking a one day etching workshop with an other Santa Cruz Open Studios artist Daria Salus. Daria's studio is full of wonderful tools. Sigh. Her work is beautiful and unique and she works with different metals and uses a rolling mill to impress her images/textures into silver and copper before she finishes her pieces with a variety of metalsmithing techiques. So I learned how to create a brass texture plate with etching solution. That is very cool since... Continue reading

(warning, this is a "better late than never" kind of blog post) Way back in January I went up to San Francisco to participate in my first trade fair: the San Francisco International Gift Fair, or SFIGF for short. The event kind of blew me away so I figured I would write about it now. Let's see, back then I had just gotten over the busy holiday season with multiple fun shows, and then Christmas, and then New Years, and then when I was thoroughly pooped I remembered I had foolishly (or admirably, if you want to look at it... Continue reading

Just in time for Valentine's Day, and supporting a good cause, the Hearts for the Arts silent aution at Artisan's Gallery in Santa Cruz is this Friday. There will be lots of beautiful pieces by local artists (even a heart piece from me, I am proud to say), and wine and appetizers to keep the conversations well lubricated! The auction benefits SPECTRA Arts Learning, a program of the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County The silent auction runs January 14th though February 14th, but the opening reception is this Friday, Feb. 4th from 6 - 8pm. Come downtown and join... Continue reading

I am very happy to announce that my silver (PMC) jewelry is now available at Artisans Gallery in Santa Cruz. Yeah! I am so pleased that I can send all my local customers just downtown. Not only do they carry my artisan jewelry pieces but also my popular LoveLetter line with all the initials and affirmation words, birthstones to build your own, unique LoveLetter Necklace. Strangely enough, it took me going up to San Francico, the San Francisco International Gift Fair early this year, in order to actually meet the owner of the store. Of course, I could have just... Continue reading

Every once in awhile a new product or service comes along that changes everything - in my case, the product was a little white Square device that I attach to my iPhone! What is it? Basically the square allows me to use my iPhone as a credit card reader, so I can now accept payments anywhere I can get a phone signal. But that is not all! Aside from the card reader, Square has a whole backend that allows me, as a small business-woman, to save a lot of money. I am so happy that I don't have to pay... Continue reading

Some time before last Mother's Day I started creating my LoveLetter Charms with the general idea that Moms, Grandmas, and others would love getting their kids and grandkids initials stamped on my unique PMC (fine silver) pieces, put on necklaces, and worn in celebration of the ones they love. Over the last six months my initial idea morphed and grew into something even larger, inspired in part by my customers, who are continually suggesting new and interesting ideas to me. For example, now I am adding charms with encouraging words on them, such as dream, heal, imagine, faith, smile and... Continue reading

Last Monday I was featured in the Santa Cruz Sentinel newspaper under the section "Santa Cruz County Stories"!! http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/rss/ci_16366010 The story is very nice and accurate - I love living here in this beautiful part of the world where my friends are so wonderful and nice. I have been lucky this last few years to really concentrate on my Art, and on getting my business up and running. The Open Studios Art Tour has certainly been a HUGE help for me, both in terms of inspiring me and now helping people find me and my jewelry. I am so thankful... Continue reading

This last week I have been busy preparing for this weekend's encore presentation of the Open Studios Art Tour in Santa Cruz. Last weekend was a blast, with tons of people coming by (over 130 one day and over 140 the next!), great weather, and even my birthday celebration squished in between everything. The weather was really to die-for. We had an indian summer weekend, with gorgeous blue sky every day and no fog at all. The temperature was perfect - not at all like last year when we were shivering under the heater one of the days. Everyone (including... Continue reading

I have finished checking off most everything on my to-do lists, and I still feel a bit anxious as I prepare my house to receive the visitors for the Open Studios Art Tour here in Santa Cruz this weekend. I took an ill-timed but well-worth-it vacation a couple of weeks ago which threw off my schedule, but I think I am all caught up. I have been using these last couple of days to go back into the studio to polish up some new pieces (literally!) and getting the house and garden cleaned up. Poise Colletion Circle of life collection... Continue reading

I am so excited! I just booked an ad in the local Santa Cruz newspaper The Sentinel! The Santa Cruz Open Studios Art Tour is going to start for the South County this weekend. I am living in the North County and get to open my studio October 9 & 10 and 16 & 17. From the redwoods to the sea, thousands of art enthusiasts visit with artists in their studios to see the creative process at work. The Open Studios Art Tour is a self-guided tour with 300 studios open throughout Santa Cruz County. Art Tour information is available... Continue reading

Recently I made some fun personalized Bridesmaids favors! One of my favorite stores (that sells my jewelry) is Zinnia's, in Scotts Valley. Just recently they asked me to do some personalized favors with the bridesmaids' initials. I created them like usual from Precious Metal Clay (which turns into fine Silver after firing). The brides' chosen wedding colors for the bridesmaids and decoration are brown and pink. So, of course, I added brown and pink pearls. The LoveLetter Charm Necklaces look really beautiful. They all have the same lotus texture on the front, but each back side is different. Each piece... Continue reading

A few nights ago I made myself a little family charm bracelet. It consists of various word charms and the birth stones of my family members. Now I have my family always with me. While sorting some supplies I found a plain but pretty coarse sterling silver bracelet I had gotten a little while ago. I was changing out my LoveLetter charm necklaces once in a while because I like to exchange word charms. Sometimes I fell like “mom”, sometimes I feel like “smile” or “relax” or “believe”… So that silver bracelet gave me a new idea how I could... Continue reading

Bae Home & Design San Francisco, blogged about my jewelry in the store http://bae-home.blogspot.com/2010/06/jewelry-is-girls-best-friend.html Continue reading

I am so happy I finally finished some samples of one-of-a-kind Wedding Favor Jewelry and Bridesmaid Jewelry the last couple of days (I was planning it for quite a while). I am sure I can up with 100+ different designs with still using the same shape. That should be fun! I chose the heart shape in this case, because it fits so well to Love and Weddings... o.k. I am a romantic... But of course I could use an other shape... Wouldn't it be nice that every time in the years to come the person who wears their Wedding Pendant,... Continue reading

I am currently working on samples of unique Wedding Favors. When I think about weddings, I think about love (of course!), and when I think of love, I am captivated by hearts. So, I decided to make a bunch of hearts for the necklaces from my favorite material PMC (Precious Metal Clay). These all are made with different texture plates, all looking similar but still all different from each other and one-of-a-kind. I figure they can be given to the guests as wedding favors, or they could be given to the bridesmaids as their gifts... Here is a photo of... Continue reading

I am going into my studio and turning on the music (probably ABBA again), opening up windows and going to work on my just fired PMC creations... :-) Continue reading

I created my first LoveLetter Charm Necklaces for myself and my friends with our kid's initials on them. My initial thoughts about how people would use my charm necklaces was just that moms and grandmothers would wear them with their kids and grandchildren's initials, a celebration of our children and their individuality. Well.... a lot of them do - but some are using them in ways I never expected. For example, I have had girls wearing their own initial and a birthstone, or women wearing their fiance's initial with a love charm. Or (even) men wearing their initial (OK, I... Continue reading

Wow, it has been super busy here, both with home stuff and work stuff, what with Mother's Day right around the corner. To top it all off, my family is visiting from Germany, so there is an extra 5 people in the house (granted two are little, but you know how it is....). I love having them here, but sometimes it is hard to get away to post something, even though it has been a super busy week for me! Let's see... my Mother's Day show here at the house was a great success, lots of returning and new customers... Continue reading

Since I just applied for the Santa Cruz Open Studios Tour (in October) again, I remembered the video from last year. A great local media agency Awake media, made that YouTube video in September 09, as part of my preparation for my first Open Studios Tour in Santa Cruz. I took a look at it again... No, this is not a belated April Fools joke - it is really me! I always feel very excited about the Open Studios Tour. And well, I have to admit... I feel kind of awkward about the video... Well, here is the link, in... Continue reading

I delivered the application for the Santa Cruz Open Studios Art Tour today! I have been working on it for a long time. I am so glad it is finally off my conscience because it was on there for quite a while! You can only send it 6 photos of your work and it was really hard to decide which ones to choose. Silver or Bronze, or both, or glass beads? In the end I chose the Silver/PMC pieces because this is the material I work most with and I feel the strongest about - at the moment at least.... Continue reading

I'm so glad that the Bronze Jewelry from the First Graders from Westlake Elementary, Santa Cruz, is finished! I created the pieces with them a couple of weeks ago. The Bronze jewelry pieces turned out so beautifully -- I am curious to see how they will be received at the event. The annual Arts Auction (which is going to take place this Saturday, the 24th) is at the Seymour Center Long Marine Lab in Santa Cruz. It is a wonderful and very fun event. So many parents volunteered to help and lots and lots of auction items have been donated... Continue reading