The Threepenny Opera

I am so excited!!! Pomona College theater department in California purchased one of my clockhand chokers to use in their performance of The Threepenny Opera!!!! This production will be shown at the Seaver Theatre at Pomona College in Claremont, California. This play is a personal favorite of mine. I can’t wait to see the pictures. Please visit their website for details about the performances http://theatre.pomona.com . I hope,I hope that the character Jenny (Low-Dive Jenny, Jenny Divers) will be wearing it. She’s my absolute favorite. You can't imagine how excited I am about this. The song Mack the Knife has been a constant fixture in my life, and well as the movie The Threepenny Opera with Raul Julia. So to have one of my pieces anywhere near this production is just bliss.

Airship Captain's Badge of Honor

I love this design so much. So imagine how happy I was a couple weeks ago when a customer contacted me to make one for her special for the Christmas holiday's. Last time I listed it I made one for me and one for the shop. As I was wearing mine out one day a very nice lady forced me to sell it to her on the street. Awesome! then she contacted me that night and purchased the second one for her friend. So I had to take the listing down. That evening I was contacted on Etsy to make one as a custom order. So after all of that the necklace was finished and shipped, and I just heard back from the client today that she loves it. To quote "I am beyond infatuated with this necklace! Thanks so much for making one for me!" I am over the moon :)

For A Lovely Fall Wedding

Just heard back from a VERY special customer that I've been working with for the better part of a year now. It started with her commissioning me to make a number of floral sticks for herand her bridesmaids bouquets. They turned out lovely, but WAY more difficult to make than I ever thought they would be. I will know better for next time. Then she entrusted me to make her a set of jewelry for the big day, necklace, earrings, and bracelet. And finally I was honored to make her hair ornament. Her dress is so lovely, and I just can't wait to see pictures of it all put together. It will be a beautiful Fall wedding for sure.

Steampunk- anime Wedding

I just finished and packed up a very challenging commission. So I had to write a celebratory blog post about it. Sometimes metal leafing is a breeze. All goes well, and it is completed in a timely matter. And then there are times when everything goes wrong. The weather flop-flops making drying time impossible to gage etc etc. There are some art processes that you are completely at the whim of the fates, metal leafing is one of them. And during those times you hope that you have patient, understanding customers. The bride to be that this hair ornament is for was one such customer. So unbelievably sweet and patient. Her wedding is Anime/Steampunk themed, and I just can't wait to see the pictures of the event. I hope she has a very, very special wedding day.

London Calling...

Commissions out of the blue are among my favorite thing in the whole world. Last week the sweetest lady from London message me saying that she just had to have one of my hair stick in gold. Now I have been working on making some of my items in gold for a long time now. For some reason I always go back to painting the clock hands black, but gold, white, and silver have always been on the drawing board for quite some time. As it turns out the hair stick she wanted was exactly the same one that has been lying on my work bench half way finished for the last three months. The poor thing kept staring at me to pay it some attention, and I being the horrible designer that I am blatantly ignored it. Then POOF out of the blue my procrastination is squashed by this kind lady. The hair stick is all finished, and sparkling, and pretty. No more sad looks from that side of my work bench anymore. I hope she likes it.

A Flower Darkly…

Another wedding commission is completed, and I am exhausted! The bride to be came up with the best idea. She wanted me to make floral ornaments for her, and her bridesmaid’s bouquets. The idea popped into her head when she saw my hair sticks and we ran with it from there. Designing exactly the right ornaments to accent her wedding theme, and dress. I just love what we came up with. They have a quality reminiscent of a lotus blossom opening, but in a really noir mechanized world. I hope she sends me pictures of the event; I can’t wait to see what it looks like all together.

The Necklaces Night Out

Presenting Laurie Hassold wearing the necklace I created for her. She is graciously taking a moment out of her busy night at the opening of “All Gurlz Again” showing at Eclectix Gallery. Standing in front of her sculpture, which was the inspiration for the neck ornament. I am so glad she liked it, and the two pieces really look nice together.

Boutonnières Anyone?!?

I just finished making my first Boutonnières!!! I am so excited about them. The bride also ordered a suite of jewelry to go along with it including tiara, and earrings. These are to be worn at her summer teatime event. It sounds so lovely; I hope she sends me pictures. I want to see what the wedding party looks like so bad!!

Well…I Was Sort of In a Print Magazine…

I just love this necklace. It took me so long to make. The designing alone took me at least a month and a half. What I wanted to do was resonate the feeling of Laurie Hassold's sculptures without mimicking them too much. Just a whisper of the essence of them. She wanted something very unique, and eye catching to wear to art openings and other various art functions. Once I finally got the design down the intricacy of it had me sawing and filing the sterling silver sheet at the jeweler's bench for at least another month. Then after that it was riveting the little beauty together, oxidizing, and then finally working on the chain. The chain turned out to be the hardest part of the piece. It went through so many different versions until I braved this design. So the piece was finished, and Laurie was VERY pleased. Then she notified me that she had worn it to the photo shoot for an article on her work in Art LTD. Magazine. I couldn't be more thrilled!!! So see just like I said I was sort of featured in a print magazine. My necklace was there promanate so everyone could see blazing from it's pages.... AWwwww.. Come on I think it counts! In any case Laurie looks beautiful in the pictures, and the necklace looks very at home with her sculptures.

Gilding the Lily… or Tiara

A very dear customer came to me a month ago with a commission. She wanted a tiara, earrings, and necklace set for a Ball she was attending. The obstacle was that the set had to be gold. I usually shy away from making metallic pieces because the effect is so hard to achieve. However, it was my favorite type of commission, and it was for my favorite kind of event I was going to make it work. I ended up gold leafing everything a couple times over, with an interesting painting technique underneath to bring out the gold even more. I am so pleased with the results. Now I just have to work on photographing them because taking pictures of shiny metallic pieces is even trickier than making them.