Where I will not be this summer....

I will not be in my beautiful, wonderful, studio (unless),  making silver earrings like these.  It is a sad, sad, truth.  Maybe in the winter...........

Still hot

It's hotter yet.  Air conditioning is my only love...  (well maybe not my only love)  Pretty things still hold sway.

Hot, hot, hot

It's getting hot here in the big city.  I like to wear a loose dress and a long necklace.  The less confining the better.  Let's hope for a breeze and working a/c on the subway...  For those of you at the beach, well, I envy you.  Let's just leave it at that.  Here is a summer sizzler for you.

My pile

Lately I have been grabbing things from inventory to keep for myself.  The pile is getting a little too big, but I am just sure that I need them all....  Maybe I just need more hooks to put them on.  When I move I will have to devise a better system.

Many layers

I just finished this long necklace of green, white and coral colored vintage glass.  I love the white ruffled beads so much!  The coral glass beads are dear to me as they are very hard to find.

I messed around with some layering options.  This one is simple and obvious.  The pendant here is a vintage glass cab wrapped in vintage brass on gold filled chain.

This one gets a little crazy - I added a big chunky quartz necklace to the ensemble.

I liked the quartz so much that I thought it might look great with this turquoise and mother of pearl pendant necklace.  This is a great union.

Detail of the pendant necklace.

Another take on the turquoise with the coral, green and white.

layering necklaces...

I have to use my mac photo booth to take self portraits so they have this cool, grainy quality to them - which I kind of like, actually.  Anyway, the purpose is to show how I like to wear my jewelry.  Layered.  

This is the grouping that I love the most right now.  My, current favorite,  yellow necklace (long) with two smaller necklaces of linked beads, vintage of course, and a pendant necklace with tiger eye quartz and a little mother of pearl flower.  It makes a pretty great combo.....

Things that I love

I spend a great deal of time in bed, sitting up looking out my window.  So I have things that I love on the windowsill to please my eye (turns out this is "good" for my mental health).  My lovely aunt gave this beautiful bird to me - she gives the best presents.
My shell jars remind me of my mermaid soul.  This yellow necklace is my current favorite.

It is made from vintage (of course) glass beads that I bought from Wilma Mangum at Beader's Paradise in Blackfoot, Idaho.  She traveled the world with her husband buying up old beads.  I have been buying beads from her for many, many, years.  The last time that I was in her store, last summer, I was privileged to be in the room with Wilma, her daughter, her granddaughter, her great granddaughter and the newest addition to the lineage, her great great granddaughter.  How amazing is that?

One of the things that I love about Wilma's beads is that I don't see them anywhere else.  These beautiful yellow beads are a great example of that.  They are strange and lovely.  I think that they make a classically beautiful necklace that fits well with today's trend of bright, bold colors.  I've been wearing it often.  There is just this one...