All things blue...

I'm briefly resurfacing ~ from resume writing ~ to tell you all that I have a new feature in my Etsy shop. And it's...blue!


I'm introducing Gift Certificates! I've had the idea bouncing around in my head for some time and then this week I thought "why not?" Why not just design some digital gift certificates for my Etsy shop, so that friends can give each other the gift of jewellery without committing to one specific item. There's nothing worse that buying something for your girlfriend or mom only to never see them wear it because...{insert one of many reasons} they don't wear red, or pink, or earrings, or bracelets....

I've got the certificates in denominations of $10, $15 and $20 dollars but customers can also request a higher denomination if they like. Just send me a message vie Etsy and I'll whip one up for you in no time.

Two new and blue jewellery items that I've added to my Etsy shop:

1) A playful pair of genuine aquamarine (icy blue) and sterling silver earrings.


2) An Egyptian inspired 3-strand necklace with genuine turquoise "marquis" stones and a durable sterling silver clasp.


As an aside, the weather here in Toronto has perked up considerably, the skies are blue and I have started to go for leisurely, (okay, who am I kidding)....intense (huffing and puffing) uphill/downhill bike rides along city streets, bike trails and paths in my neighbourhood.

For those that are into bicycles, here's a pic of my 2 year old turquoise blue bike. Cute, eh? It would look even nicer with a basket on the front.


This long weekend, I'll be riding my bike...among other things.

To my fellow Canadians, how will you be spending the Victoria Day long weekend? Or the weekend in general?

The Distillery District and polka dot beads

This long Easter weekend was a complete blur. It went by so fast. I did however manage to squeeze in a visit to The Distillery District in Toronto. A former whiskey distillery that stopped operating in the 1920s. (Trivia: The movie "Chicago" starring Catherine Zeta Jones was filmed there because of the 1920's feel of the place). The district is a vast area of cobblestone brick paths and an assortment of newly renovated Victorian Industrial buildings transformed into posh restaurants, cafes, artisan shops and artist's studios. You can even go for a tour of the grounds on a Segway.

I especially enjoy going to The Distillery for my fix of Soma chocolates. Pricey? Yes! Delicious? YES! Olive oil, salted caramel and pecan butter crunch are just some of my favourites. No chocolates were consumed on this visit since I had another purchase in mind.

A trip to The Distillery is not complete without visiting some of the in-house artist studios, and getting a glimpse at their crafts. There are several jewellery studios over here. Need I say more?

One such venue is TANK fire + metal. This place is like eye candy for a jeweller or bead collector. It has so many stunning hand crafted glass beads and yes, some beads can be extremely pricey. They also sell their own line of jewellery using these handcrafted glass beads. Drool...

On this particular visit, I perused the bead selection and spotted these lovely polka dot beads. I love polka dots. Red polka dots especially. There is something very spring like and playful about them.


I purchased them. Ouch! A painful purchase when you aren't working. There goes my eating out budget for the month. But you see, I was smitten with these glass beads and gosh darn it, they are SO cute!

Being the proud owner of these happy beads, I have already come up with several ideas as to what to create with them. I will be eventually selling the end result on Etsy so stay tuned for that.

UPDATE! Have a look at the earrings I designed with the above glass beads. Now available on my Etsy shop.

Back on Etsy

Over the past year I have been asked repeatedly by people if I would ever sell on Etsy again.

I would reply with a quick "no."

People could not understand why I was against setting up shop on Etsy (again!)
Don't get me wrong, I love Etsy! It's great! I have purchased many items on there. And I still do on occasion. But, well, let's see...6 sales in 4 years? Hmm, not a good sign!

It's just a lot of leg work photographing and posting new products, typing up all kinds of info and listing and re-listing with zero return. I'm not sure where and why I failed but Etsy just wasn't working for me.

Seems no matter where I went, people would ask me if I had a website to showcase my work. They wanted to see my jewellery designs on-line. They would often mention Etsy to me as if I had no idea that it existed. "Yes, I know all about Etsy," I would say, adding that I had signed up back in 2005. "It's just so saturated with jewellery sellers and there is a LOT of competition," was my often repeated excuse.

Then one day, I heard through the grapevine about a site where I could create an on-line portfolio easily along with a monthly fee - of course. So I decided to do just that. The site is called wix.com. I spent hours and hours uploading images and typing text into my soon to be new on-line portfolio. I was so excited and really keen to get it done. This wasn't going to be an e-commerce site. It would just serve the purpose of displaying my work. I really enjoyed the easy to use web tools and all the interactive widgets on there. And I really liked hitting preview and having a glimpse at what the end result would look like.

Despite the extensive work I did on that site, I was still not 100% happy with it. There were constant technical glitches and often my hard work would disappear (by accident) into cyber space and I had no idea why and then I'd have to begin over again. How frustrating!

Weeks and months came and went and still I had not launched my new site. I desperately needed to set up a site to showcase my jewellery. Etsy came to mind. I toyed with the decision daily. A photographer friend of mine wanted to provide a link to my jewellery site from his photography site, yet I STILL had no site set up. "Just get something up there," he said..."a site of some kind or whatever." "Just do it!"

Becoming impatient with myself and the situation at hand, I sat down earlier today and spent 2 hours uploading images and typing out descriptions. Yes, I re-launched my former Etsy site.

I'm not expecting much this time around. I just want to have an on-line reference for anybody that may be interested - now or later - to see what I've been creating. If I do happen to sell something along the way...bonus!

Anyway, If you have any suggestions or ideas on how to improve the selling power of my Etsy shop, please let me know.

You can find my Etsy shop widget on the right hand side of my Blog.

Projects galore!

In a previous post, I had showcased an assortment of vintage beads my friend K had given me to incorporate into a necklace. Well, the necklace is finished! I have created a long necklace using sterling silver parts (chain, beads, clasp) along with the one-of-a-kind, vintage beads. I am very pleased with the results as I'm sure K will be when she sees it up close!



On another note, I have become inspired to sew a summer dress for myself.
Here is the lovely grey-blue fabric I will be using.


And here is the Burda pattern for the dress. I'm so excited to be making this dress! And you know what? The supplies hardly cost that much. The pattern, 3 of metres fabric and the zipper came out to $30 CDN with the Fabricland member discount card. Of course, there is labour involved, but since I'm making the dress for myself, I'm not factoring in the cost of the labour. I'm anticipating that it will take me a while to complete, as I am a newbie. All I know is that if I had purchased a similar type dress at a clothing store it would have been priced anywhere from $60 to $100 and it would have been made in another part of the world, and probably in a sweat shop.


I have also (finally!) completed the Photoshopped image that my photographer friend J asked me to help him with. Here is a portion of the image with the copyright watermark splattered all over it. Yes, I'm paranoid and neurotic! (As a side note, for the Bloggers that may want to know how to re-create this copyright watermark effect, there is a tutorial on YouTube showing you step-by-step how to do this using Photoshop).

On the image below (and with the help of Photoshop), I tweaked the model's make-up, the skin on the entire face and body, the eyes and eyebrows, the hair, I added a motion blur in the background and I also highlighted some details of the vintage car. I sent the photographer a jpg of the finished image and he really liked the work I did!!! I have learned quite a bit at my Photoshop course. I now have new work to add to my portfolio and a new skill set to add to my resume!

Plenty of hats...

I'm wearing many hats these days. Jewellery making is still at the forefront of my daily regime. I'm designing a necklace for a friend with some vintage beads she picked up at an estate sale years ago. The beads are gorgeous! Unlike anything I've seen. Have a look:


I'm also completing a Photoshop advanced level course at night school. This will soon be followed by InDesign. I'm trying to get up to speed in my knowledge of graphic design software. My hope is that it will open a door (or two) for me in terms of job placement. I've been wearing the unemployed hat far too long and it really sucks!

I'm still plugging away at sending out resumes, and networking, and telling everyone I know, including their grandmother, that I'm looking for work. According to the job hunting books, this is the way to do it. I've also visited two temp agencies as a last resort. And, if that weren't enough, I'm also looking to volunteer at the ROM (Royal Ontario Museum). I love learning about ancient civilizations and dinosaurs!

Friends of mine have been very supportive and have been offering me all kinds mini-projects to keep me busy and inspired. I mentioned earlier in this post about the necklace I'm working on. Another friend, a photographer, asked if I would be willing to tweak some photos of his with Photoshop in exchange for some professional photography shots of my jewellery. Sweet!

I've also been asked by friends, who are launching their own businesses, to design their business cards for them. These are the perfect projects with which to augment my design portfolio!

In my previous post, I had mentioned about working on my on-line portfolio. Alas, it is still under construction. I really want to hit the 'publish' button and make it visible to all, but it's still lacking in samples of my current work. I already have plenty of scanned images of my art class projects from high school from over 20 years ago. I doubt a prospective employer cares about those doodles. I need plenty of fresh, recent work.

So as you can see, I'm working at a variety of things in an attempt to keep busy and I'm also enjoying the creative work process. It takes time, effort and commitment to create things I feel are worthy of displaying.

For instance, I made these two pairs of earrings this past week. I am so pleased with the results that I wanted to share them with you. The 'peacock' earrings are my recent favourites. They are made with Swarovski crystals in two shades of blue for added depth. And the beads splay apart over the silver "Smarties" bead just like feathers, hence the name.


The second pair of earrings which I named 'glitterati' were made especially to be worn on a sunny day. Why? Because the sterling silver beads I've used, pick up the light and sun beautifully due to their glittery, pocked surface. A perfect homage to the sunshine we've been getting lately.


The weather has warmed up considerably and I'm much more inclined to go for longer walks with my dog. He's such a sweet, quiet little dog and he's made so many friends in the neighbourhood, with other dogs and people alike. Neighbours greet him before they say "hi" to me. I'm not complaining though, he's been (the vet and I suspect) through some abuse in his former life in Texas (before we rescued him), so he deserves all the loving he can get. Here is Dexter sunbathing, his favourite afternoon activity.

Bijoux's new jewellery on Etsy

After a bit (who am I kidding) - A LOT of thinking, I decided to give my jewellery shop on Etsy a bit of a makeover. Nothing too major. Just a new banner which I created myself and some new items, like the earrings that you see on the right sidebar.

The rings, although not recently made, have been re-posted on the shop with a new, lower price point. These are the only rings I have in my collection and I won't be making any new ones until these sell, so get 'em while they last.

One of my inspirations for creating new pieces of jewellery, is thinking about exotic, distant lands, that I would like to visit one day: I was inspired by Morocco! I love the use of vivid colours in Moroccan tapestries and home decor. I love Moroccan jewellery. Heck, I even love Moroccan food. I made a necklace with this in mind. I pay homage to Morocco by using an assortment of second-hand beads that I picked up at a flea market over a year ago. These beads just shouted "Morocco!" and so a new necklace was born.

I have only listed 10 items for now but will be adding more to the batch on a regular basis. Coming soon are some new bracelets that I am working on and many more necklaces, some new and some re-structured.

Go ahead, take a peek. Tell me what you think.

Happy Earth Day!

I know I have not posted anything in a while. I have been busily studying (read: cramming) for my final exam tomorrow for the course: "Ecological Principles of Sustainability" at the Ontario College of Art and Design. This course was such an eye-opener and I learned a good deal about what I can do as a citizen to assist in the quest for sustainable living. The bulk of the course readings and discussions included articles promoting alternative energy sources like solar, wind and geothermal powered homes and products, energy efficiency/renewable energy, ecosystems and human interferences, natural selection/evolution and modern day sustainability in our city.

Coincidentally, it is also Earth Day today and although I don't have any special celebrations planned for the day, I wanted to share something super cool with you readers.

A few weeks ago I purchased this from Etsy.com:


It's a wooden cuff made from reclaimed wood with a screenprinted image of a honeycomb pattern. I love the whole idea behind this bracelet cuff. 1) It's mahogany wood. 2) The wood is reclaimed. 3) It's biodegradable. 4) It is lightweight and fits snugly on my wrist. 4) I love the image of the honeycomb on the surface. Insects are my thing and I find them so fascinating especially how they build their homes and habitats.

The brains behind this wooden cuff is the creative and talented Industrial Designer - Sara Schalliol. She also has some colourful, geometric necklaces on her Etsy shop made from wood, which I have been coveting for some time. And that is not all. Sara also designs and creates some funky jewellery trees for displaying your jewellery collectables.

So if you want to make an eco-conscious purchase today to commemorate Earth Day look no further than here.

Why couldn't I have thought of this idea when I was a student studying Industrial Design and had access to an abundance of wood scraps from the wood shop...doh!