Faceted, polished, smooth

We recently dropped off an order at Honey and Hazel with some new faceted wooden charm necklaces.  Each of these are completely unique, handmade from scraps of exotic woods. They are cut into a faceted shape, then sanded down win increasingly finer grit paper until they are super-smooth. Finally they are polished with a beeswax based finish that makes them feel downright silky. They have a great tactile sense (for those of us who like to play with our jewelry) and they look cool too!  Right now these five necklaces are at Honey and Hazel, so get 'em while they last!

Ancient Jewelry

Some of my favorite pieces of at the Met are in the Roman, Etruscan, and Greek jewelry collections.  The simple, hand forged earrings and rings with rock crystal (I love all the rock crystal!), agate and other polished stones always make me want to go straight home and hammer some metal.  Everything is technologically simple, but also has a  beautiful sophistication, and of course, I'm always enamored with the immense volume of gold in the collections! 

Here's that elegant and simple construction

Look at all the gold!

I love these earrings. 

There are a lot of earrings and rings with animal heads: rams, dogs, dolphins, lions.   

Three Treasuries

We've been lucky enough lately to be included in some incredibly beautiful collections on etsy's treasuries.   I'm so in love with some of these pieces (and I'm not talking about ours!)

I love this necklace, this painting, and these earrings

Origami porcelain figurines! and chalkboard silver trays!

But this treasury is really my favorite.  I like this ring, and this necklace, and this print, and these insulators (I have a collection myself), but I really would have to say that I'm completely drooling over this collection.   I may just go and buy it myself. . .

Of course, you can click on the image to view the actual treasury on etsy.

assemblage, part 2

 Some of the items I was working on last week.  I'm very excited about the watch band bracelets (like the one above)

Now that I have photos, I'll be working on a shop update!

Old Things

We've got a table at the BIM again, and this weekend is the annual steampunk fashion show.  It's not actually at the tent (it's a few subway stops up) but we're going to make a few special pieces anyways.  I am excited to get into my boxes of old, antiquey trash and play around with some new things.   I've compiled some of my inspiration today, and I'll show you what I've been working on soon!

I love this keyhole bracelet from Daniellerosebean:

And these brass filagree bead earrings from EricaWeinerJewelry (but of course I covet everything in her shop):

I love this key brooch from Redheart13:

But the queen of assemblage is Sparrow Salvage.  Her pieces are always fantastically pieced together, and she has a great blog too! (And I'm in love with her new collection postcards)

So I'm going to be using up some of my collection of lace, leather, old chains, brass findings, and bits of broken old jewelry.

This is what my table looks like now:

I'm having so much fun!

Some New Items in the Shop

New in the shop

Our oak branch necklace:

Our horizontal mesquite necklace:

Vertical mesquite necklace:

And new teeny tiny stud earrings!

You can click on the photo or the link to view the listing.  I'm so excited about the wooden pendant necklaces. Mesquite is such a beautiful wood to begin with, and we made some homemade beeswax polish to finish them--it makes the wood look so beautiful.  I went on a furniture polishing rampage throughout the house after I made it!

Crochet Necklaces

Some new necklaces we've been working on. . . These will be in the shop shortly!

They are all crocheted onto the chain; some of the motifs were made separately and then attached to the chains, and others were directly crocheted into the chain and worked from there. I'm very excited about these new necklaces!

A Few New Pictures

I re-shot and updated a whole bunch of photographs in the shop: all of the twig necklaces, and some others.  The twig pendants are some of my favorite necklaces that we make, and I'm sad that we haven't sold a single one.  I'm still convinced that they are a viable market item, so we'll see if the new photography helps.  It really is much better. Click the photo to see the item in the shop!

While I was at it, I also re-shot the screwed necklace, which is definitely a love of mine:

And I finally made a post for these earrings (which we've been making forever): the smoky quartz and brass drops.  We've had a listing in silver because silver tends to be more universal, but the brass posts compliment the smoky quartz so well, we thought we'd include this option, too. (I like these ones better)

New Things--Necklaces

Three new necklaces in the shop!  I'm very excited about the copper and brass pendants.  While I was in Arizona I was able to visit my dad's machine shop and cut the pieces.  I love the sawed texture on both of them and I can't wait to make more.