jewels

I've been making jewelery since I was in college and discovered this amazing store called The Bead Gallery.

I don't even remember how who told me about it or how I got the idea that I could make my own earrings, but I did and that's what I started with. The year was 1990 and I was in love with garnets & sterling silver.

Then I cut off all my hair and stopped wearing big earrings (that episode from Felicity was so my life). I moved on to necklaces but a lot of the pieces I made were very formal and though I loved making it I didn't always like wearing what I made. My mother on the other hand was crazy for coco-puffs about my designs so she became the primary recipient of my creativity. The woman is hard to shop for so it was a great way to make her eyes light up on her birthdays, mothers day and x-mas - she now has a very sizeable collection.

Eventually I grew my mane out and got the bug for big earrings again. Then last winter I rented the Sex and the City movie when I was recovering from my breakup with P and even though I thought the movie sucked, SJP's jewellery in the Mexico scenes blew me away and got the ol' creative juices flowing.

I basically decided that I was going to spend the summer wearing long flowy dresses with long strands of big beads, or even short dresses with long flowing beads.

I started small.

But then I discovered chain.

And then I was in a rush to make a piece I wanted to wear to a party and I threw this together.

But I'd been intended to do this in chain also. I finally got around to doing it this weekend and my friend who threw the party took this pic in her backyard on a slightly chillier day.

Now I needed something I could also wear to work.

As you can see I am obsessed with all things turquoise.

 

Marcel likes it too!