Happy Easter

Hope you are all having a lovely Easter.

Our Jack Rabbits seem happy hopping through the vineyard.  Maybe they are searching for eggs?

This little bunny looks like he's pretty happy too!

Fresh as a daisy

Are you feeling fresh as a daisy today? I do hope so!

And if you are not, then maybe my new aluminum bangle will cheer up your day!  

And why are daisies considered to be fresh, you may wonder? The English name daisy comes from the old English "daeges-eaye" or "day's eye", referring to the way that many daisies open up their petals during the day, but then close their petals at night.  So I guess, the idea is that closing it's petals suggests it goes to "sleep" at night and so wakens up in the morning all fresh and alert and well rested - and thus "fresh as a daisy".

What a nice thought.  I love the fresh green on this bangle that shows off those fresh daisies too.

Have a good night's sleep tonight!

Take time to smell the roses

Life frequently seems so busy: so many different things to do, so many calls for our attention, so many distractions..... So we need to remember to take time to smell the roses.    Just think about how it would feel to bend down and stop and smell a rose.  That's quite a powerful image, isn't it: that beautiful perfume; the pretty color of the rose; all those delicate petals. Just thinking about it brings about a sense of calm.

And that's what this bangle is all about. It is a wearable reminder that we need to take time during the day to smell the roses.   Of course, it doesn't have to be roses or smelling anything - just stopping, pausing and breathing deeply and noticing what is around you.

The bangle came about from my first attempt at Adobe Illustrator. Readers of this blog may recall that I've been wanting to try Illustrator for some time, so this little rose was my first attempt. Very basic but I like the soft pinks - and being blonde - I wear quite a bit of pink :-D A dear friend of mine said that blondes should wear pink all the time!

Anyhow I think it would make a nice mother's day gift, or a gift to a busy friend or relative who could do with slowing down a little. What do you think?

New window necklaces

As I mentioned in my last blog post, I needed to do some more stained glass window necklaces for Grace cathedral, so I finished them off today.

Three of them are utilizing the scenes from the St Matthew window in the Chapel of Grace, and the fourth - the largest - is from one of the more contemporary style windows in the nave of the church.

I will take them to the shop at Grace on Sunday when I sing there.

They vary quite a bit in different lights.  I like that aspect as when you wear it, you see different colors and suddenly, the vibrance shines through....but then you turn and it looks different again.

Hope you like them - and I appreciated your comments on the bangles. Thanks for that.

Vibrance and Grace

I took some of my 'stained glass' aluminum jewelry down to Grace Cathedral this week for them to sell in their gift shop.  I was delighted that they wanted to stock it.

The jewelry is all based on the stained glass windows in the cathedral (yes, I have permission to use it).  The colors are so vibrant, which is why I chose to call the series "Vibrance and Grace".

It'll be interesting if I see any of the congregation wearing it when I go down to sing on Sunday.

I heard that they went on sale on Tuesday and two pieces sold straight away!  How encouraging is that.

Now I'm working on some new windows - and it looks like I need to get working!

Stained glass windows

While I haven't been making much jewelry recently, I have been busy learning new things - namely Adobe Photoshop.  I want to do more stained glass window bangles, but I've never grasped Photoshop and as I need to do some photo manipulation, I've been working through the AdobeTV tutorials. They are really are good. 

When I was at the cathedral in SF on Sunday, I took quite a few photos of the windows there and so have lots of material to jiggle around with on photoshop.  There are some contemporary windows and also more traditional ones at Grace, so it'll be interesting to see how they all work out.

I get a great deal of satisfaction learning new things and while I had tried photoshop before, it was more just me fiddling around and trying to figure things out, rather than actually going step by step and following tutorials etc. It now makes much more sense and I can see myself using it for lots of different things.

And soon, there will be new bangles - if my manipulations work out!

Do you use photoshop in your work? 

(Oh dear! Looking at this post now, you can see that I am really my father's daughter! Some of you may recall his "Sunday's spotlight" blog posts, with photos of stained glass windows in them!  Am I on the same slippery slope :-D ????????)

Life on the ocean wave

A customer in Germany asked me to make her a bangle like my "ride the wave" bangle, but in a larger size. 

Hmmm. An interesting request, as now I had to remember how I did the first one!!! Yes, I'm not one of those people that has a little book and fully documents her experiments!  I guess I did enough of that when I was a research scientist.  Luckily I still had the "ride the wave" bangle so managed to figure it out and blended some colors.

Here's the result - a lovely blues bangle - either singing the blues or life on the ocean wave!

Off it went yesterday, across the waves to Hamburg.

Father and Daughter collaboration - Stained glass windows

Today's bracelets are a collaboration between my father and myself.  Any of you who remember him as my guest blogger for a few years, writing "Sunday's spotlight" may well recall that he loves photographing churches/cathedrals and flowers.  Yes, a few other buildings get thrown in occasionally, but it's very rare to find people in his photos.

I was checking his Flickr site the other day as he had added some new photos and saw a lovely photograph of a stained glass window from Peterborough cathedral.  It was a beautiful bright window, with such rich colors. 

Photo by Pete2010

Immediately, I thought it would make a wonderful color anodized aluminum bangle.

And indeed it, I think it does! The richness of the reds, blues and greens contrast so nicely with the silver of the aluminum and the black.  It is just rich!  You can see the saint with a bird here in this bangle (- maybe my dad knows the background to the window and who this is?):

I'm loving wearing one. And yes, it's shiny!  Quite a contrast for me who normally wears matt!

I think I'll be taking some down to Grace cathedral when we start singing there again next week and see what reaction I get.  What do you think?

Thanks Dad. It was great to take something you created and use it in one of my creations.  There may well be more of these in the future!

31/52 Bird a week - Create

This week's birdie is similar in style to my aluminum bangle "enjoy the journey" from a couple of weeks ago. 

Soaring birdie with inspiration words: Create, Inspire, Dream, Imagine, and Hope

I, particularly, find the bird to be a perfect symbol for these sentiments - and I guess my work shows that!

There are still a few of us keeping up with creating a new bird each week so click on the links below to see the others that have come up this week. 

Leafy Hush

While I was doing my own bangle yesterday, I also made a couple to sell. One was in the same colors as mine - Orchid Hush (soft lavender) and pink, and the other was Orchid Hush and green so I've called that one "Leafy Hush".

The colors do seem so appropriate for "hush". I find them very gentle, quietening, and calming.  Wearing these colors really does make me feel tranquil and at peace.

What do you think? What colors do you wear that are calming?

Orchid Hush

A few months ago, I bought the book "Colorstrology: What your birthday color says about you". It's a fun book and identifies a color for each day of the year, to corrolate with birthdays and then explains what the color indicates about you and how the color can help you.

My birthday color is Orchid Hush and it is, in fact, a color I like a lot and wear quite often. It's a kind of soft lavender but with a little grey in it.....   Since I found it's my color, I've been wearing more of it - but sometimes what I wear is a little more lavender than "pure" Orchid Hush, aka Pantone 13-3805.

Orchid Hush

This morning I put on an "orchid hush" tee shirt and decided, while I had some aluminum earrings in this color, I didn't have a bangle!

Gosh! What is a girl to do, but make a new bangle for herself! And thus, my birthday bangle was born, with a little pink included too!

The Colorstology book says "How this color benefits you: Your personal color helps you vibrate to your highest frequency.  Wearing, meditating or surrounding yourself with Orchid Hush helps you stay magical and lighthearted as you build your dreams into visions of glory". Now you can see why I had to make this bangle for myself!!! Visions of glory........just bursting to come out!

If you are interested in what your birthday color is, let me know your birthday and I'll check it out.  It's a fun and interesting book by the way.  Worth a browse.  By the way, it says that my compatible birthdays are February 28th, March 28th and December 20th. Let me know if any of those dates are your birthday...

29/52 Bird a week - Enjoy the journey

For my 29th week - ie my 29th bird this year...... I made an inspiration bangle in aluminum. I have been playing with some fonts and thus decided to try words on a bangle..with a soaring bird also.

The bird flies in the center of the bangle and the words are:

• enjoy the journey
• discover
• explore
• escape
• experience

I think it would make a nice gift - maybe even to oneself, to remind you not to get bogged down with the minutiae but to explore and discover.

I hope you'll take time to discover what the others who are also on this year long challenge with me have created.  Here are the links:

Give a little love

You've got to give a little love, take a little love

Be prepared to forsake a little love

And when the sun come shining through

We'll know what to do-oo...

Do you remember the song?  Does this really date me?? Yes, it was the Bay City Rollers.  For some reason, I remember my sister and I at a bus stop in Grantham (where we used to live), singing this Bay City Rollers song! Yes, we were still at school and young....but I'm not quite sure why the bus stop comes into my memory!!!

As I mentioned yesterday, pink and purple seemed to be the colors at the farmers market on Sunday so here is my second bangle this week with these colors.  Two styles of hearts printed in pink with a bright violet/purple background.  Definitely worthy of the title "give a little love". But OK! I confess. It is a little sad that when I looked at the bangle and tried to come up with a name, the first thing that came into my mind was the Bay City Rollers song!

And for all those Bay City Rollers fans - or maybe those who don't even know who they are, here is a quick glimpse!  Check out the tartan (plaid)!!  Maybe this bangle will have to be a gift for my sister, for those happy bus stop memories!!!