My New Favorite Gemstone

One of my favorite parts of being a jewelry designer is working with gemstones. I'm no gemologist, so a lot of the stones I come across are still very much a mystery to me. I am constantly amazed that these things are mined from the earth. Occasionally, I buy a some new beads that are beautiful, but that I really can't identify (which is usually because I somehow lost the label they came with!). Conveniently for me, one of the designers I work with at my 12 Lions boutique happens to be an actual gemologist. So I am always bringing her my mystery stones to identify! My latest mystery beads turned into this necklace here! I could not remember for the life of me what kind of stone these were made of. A man came into my shop last Saturday, loved the necklace, and wanted to know all about these stones. So of course, I ended up completely mispronouncing the name and saying random things, which were not true. Which was embarrassing. So, for the record: The stone is Chrysocolla!

I think this might be my new favorite stone, actually (with prehnite a close second....I will post some pictures of that one sometime soon!). I love Chrysocalla because it can look a lot like turquoise, but with more green, and with a rougher texture. I am also always interested in what the gemstones have been traditionally used for. According to crystal-cure.com, Chrysocolla is a "healing stone...used for strengthening the body's resistance and bringing about calm feelings where there is upset." Which I like. Maybe I will end up not wanting to sell this necklace either!! Either that, or I will just have to make one for myself....

Bleeding Hearts in NYC!

I have been so busy running my new store that I somehow didn't realize that all the flowers have started blooming in our backyard! I couldn't resist posting this picture of our beautiful Bleeding Hearts--if you've never seen them, you are really missing out! These were my favorites when I was growing up in North Carolina. After my parents sold the house I grew up in, I thought I would never get to enjoy these flowers again. And now, magically, they are blooming in my backyard! Thanks, of course, to my amazing dad who drove them up to us in NYC last April. So, there you have it--we are in the middle of our beautiful, early spring here in NYC and I could not be happier!

Also, everything at my new store has been going really well. Not that I haven't been having several minor freak outs every week, but that seems like par for the course when you have your own brand new small business!

To keep up with sales at the store, I have also been making a lot of new jewelry lately. It's a lot of work to always be making new pieces, but it's also incredibly fun, especially because as the designer, I get to make anything I want! I love testing out new pieces and seeing how people react. This pair of earrings is one of my brand new designs, and I love it because it combines two of my all-time favorite elements in jewelry--silver hoops and unique gemstones! I love when pieces manage to be organic and industrial at the same time. Silver hoops are the staple of my daily jewelry, and I think these amethyst pieces are especially beautiful and special, especially when paired with the hoops. See more about them and my other earrings HERE.

And here's a new necklace that I finally added to my website--it's been one of my best-sellers at the store, so I figured maybe people would like to buy it online too! You can find it and the rest of my new necklaces HERE.

Happy Spring everyone!!!!

My One Month Anniversary!

Hi everyone--sorry it's been so long since I have written! I was busy having my 28th birthday (I am officially old?) and making more jewelry, like usual!

I have actually been making lots and lots of gold things lately, which is pretty unusual for me. Most people who know me know that I wear mostly silver. I don't know how or why I developed such a strong preference, but for the majority of my life I have worn silver jewelry almost exclusively. That only started to change recently, since I started my jewelry company. First, I started to notice the gold chain in supply stores. Then I started to think how beautiful gold would look with certain gemstones. And somehow, over the past six months or so, I have really started to get into gold. I wrote a blog post about this last fall, after I made my first pair of gold earrings. But now, I actually wear gold myself! One day last week, I wore only gold jewelry--and I liked it! Above, you can see a few of my latest gold creations. The only one that made it to Etsy is the middle necklace--it is named after my awesome cousin Jamie, and you can find it HERE. I think I have already sold the other two....it's so hard to keep track of everything that's online versus what is in my physical store, and figuring what to put where!

Speaking of my store, it has now been open officially for four weeks! It will be one month this coming Sunday. Crazy. Sometimes it feels like this month has passed in the blink of an eye, and other times it feels like the store has been open for years. Either way, it is going well and I will officially be there for at least one more month! If you find yourself in NYC, you should come say hi. The website is finally up too, so you should check that out HERE. I think 12 Lions is a great name for a store. I never realized where the name came from--there are 12 lion gargoyles holding up the roof of the building. I am totally going to write a blog post about that and put up pictures one day soon--there are some great photos of the lions online.

I will finish this blog post with a photograph of the lovely Kristina Hyrri modeling one of my watches! She is a super sweet girl from Finland who came by my booth at 12 Lions last week and shared delicious Finnish candies with me and bought two watches. I am glad the watches have gone to a good home, and a big thank you to Kristina for coming to my store and for being so sweet!

Hope everyone has a great week, and come visit me and the 12 lions sometime! xo

My jewelry booth is open!

I am excited to announce that my new jewelry booth is now open! There's an article about the new store here, featuring a really nice picture of me wearing jewelry from my collection. Come see the booth in person at 12 Lion Studio - the address is 684 Broadway, at the corner of Great Jones. We will be open 11-8, Thursday through Sunday. Today was the first day, and it went really well. I am looking forward to many more days of fun and hopefully of many sales!

Jewelry Booth Set-Up, Day 2!

I just got home from another long day of setting up my jewelry booth at The Event NoHo. It looks a little messy in the picture, but it is really starting to come together and feel like a real store. A very tiny store! The only thing that is noticeably missing is, of course, my jewelry. But that will be remedied tomorrow. I can't believe we are opening in less than two days! I am starting to get very excited...

Jewelry Booth Installation, Day #1

For those of you who don't know, I am opening a brand new jewelry booth this coming Thursday! I will be one of about 20 different vendors at a brand new designers' market opening on the corner of Broadway and Great Jones St. here in NYC. There is going to be a nice range of products, from jewelry and handbags to clothes and skin care products. And more. I finally started meeting some of the other vendors today, and everybody so far is very, very nice. Thank God, because we will all be spending a lot of time together in the days and weeks ahead! I can't wait to meet everybody else as the week goes on. As you can see, I have made some progress on what was originally a plain white booth. The walls have now been painted green, which I really love. The color looks a little drab in the picture, but in person it feels very bright and natural, which is exactly what I was going for. You can also see an upside down clock off to the left, which I will be turning into a jewelry display. It's hard to get a good sense of everything that will be happening in the next two days, but I figured I should post a first picture today so we can compare my progress later this week! Truth be told, I don't even fully understand what the design will look like yet. But that is half the fun!

So much Etsy competition!

I always knew there was a lot of competition among jewelry artists on Etsy--it is, after all, the biggest and most well established venue online for handmade jewelry. But just looking at these stats really put it into perspective for me just how many fellow artisans there really are. All of us, of course, vying for the same clientele. No wonder I'm not making that many sales!

Finding a way to stand out online feels a little bit impossible sometimes, but this goes to show just how important it is. I know I have not yet hit my Etsy stride, but I do think it's possible. I really do believe there is potential for making a decent amount of sales, or at least much greater potential than what I'm currently doing. Seeing this information is certainly very helpful, if slightly depressing!

All of these stats are courtesy to Pearl Blay over at The Beading Gem's Journal, and you can find her original blog post here. And now I am off to make more jewelry--can't believe I start moving into my new jewelry booth tomorrow! Where, hopefully, I will stand out very much.