Richmond Arts Center Holiday Fair

THE HOLIDAYS ARE HERE!!!! My goodness how time flies. I am thrilled to be doing some great fairs, jewelry parties and I was also picked up by some new shops around the Bay Area. I would love to see you at any or all of these events! ALSO – if you would like to get some great jewelry for FREE let me know if you are interested in hosting a jewelry party, I will bring a full inventory of awesome handmade goods for are very special, private shopping event just for you and your friends!

Come on Down this Friday for the Market SF Opening party.

This is another fun event that I will be doing with the very talented Shenny Cruces you can check out here fantastic porcelain jewelry here.

And of course you can always see my wares in the Marina at RABAT on Chestnut and in the Noe Valley.
I hope the holidays are off to a great start.

CULTURSHOCK Review

MAN, I had the best time at Thursday’s CulturSHOCK. It was a fantastic evening with loads of high points. One of these high points was that the beautiful Ellen came out and I got to spend a lovely evening hanging with her. Ellen and (my stunning sister) Mel, came and worked the crowd as glamorous models decked out in TOMgirl Jewelry – that was great! I also shared an area with Vanessa Gade, she is an extremely talented local jewelry designer and even though she is exceptionally talented, she has not let it go to her head. I had a great time getting to know her and salivating over her beautiful jewelies. At the end of the night we had both agreed to a TRADE and I got myself my own Vanessa Gade Original! It’s the one in the picture! Check out her work on the link I posted. I wore a necklace thinking I might peak someone’s interest in purchasing a necklace when they saw how loverly it looked on – and low and behold I sold the necklace right off my neck… TWICE!!!!!! (different necklaces) That was pretty fantastic! Eden Stein also made it out. She is a local entrepreneur and runs Secession SF, a super cool shop in the Mission that is currently showcasing both mine and Vanessa’s work (check it out if you get a chance, it is really worth it!). Much thanks to Sarah Wood and Michael Moreau of CulturCosm. They put a lot of work into the evening and I loved every moment of it!

New Leather Necklaces

So, I am getting pretty excited for Culturshock this Thursday. I have been making, making, MAKING! I have callousness on my fingers from cutting so much (I just realized that doesn’t sound so good!). BUT IT IS! So – check out the new necklaces and if you get a chance to stop by it’s at SPACE GALLERY on POST – the information is right under this, in the previous blog posting – just click on the image. Should be cool – there is a bar and everything! I am always a fan of shopping with drinks!

CULTURSHOCK

HEY! I’M DOING THIS EXCITING, FREE EVENT THIS THURSDAY.
I hope you can come on down and check it out.

Growing Up

Happy Four Year Anniversary – again

or
(sub title)
Happy Four Year Anniversary – The end

So, today is October 20th, 2009. The day my Cross Country Bike trip officially ended. Today (four years ago) was the day that Amy and I woke up in Davis, California and bicycled to San Francisco, our ultimate destination. The night before, as we rolled into Davis, we were stopped by a professor. He was also on a bike and wanted to talk with us as we were a very approachable duo with fully loaded bicycles. Turns out he had a son attending Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Pa and Amy knew him and some of his friends. The Professor was really nice and gave us a tip on where to stay. He recommended that we go and seek out “the Dome People”. It’s a somewhat hippy, dippy school housing program were the folks that live there have to make domes and live in them (something like that). We found them and saw that they were having a community meal and they included us. We then were offered MANY options on where to stay. Most of them were by men and included bubble baths, chocolate and wine and although that all sounds fabulous now – it was a bit creepy at the time and we opted to sleep under the stars in a half way finished dome that was the home to a rat. (We didn’t know the last part – and might have reconsidered our choices had we known we were sleeping with a rat! What can you do?)

As usual, I had a five am wake up call from my body and had to knock on one of the Dome People’s doors to use the facility. As luck would have it I picked the one hippy who didn’t believe in doors and had to do my morning business somewhat in the open. I didn’t totally mind – or really, I couldn’t be bothered, because at that point I was just pleased to be in contact with a toilet. Amy thought it was pretty hysterical though as she came into the dome to use the restroom after me and was privy to my event.

After that, our day was perfect. Beautiful weather, Bright blue sunny skies. We had a deadline to catch the last ferry that would take us across the bay as the bridges near us were motor vehicles bridges only. Once we were on the ferry we were STARVED and unpacked our last bit of trail mix. We were soon joined by one of the ferry guys, a young, handsome man named Augustino. He was chatty and kept eye-balling our trail mix, but I KNEW Amy was thinking the same thing I was – He didn’t just ride 40 miles and we are NOT going to be “considerate” and share, because we NEED this food”. Well, NEED is a little strong. You see, after 2 months of living and biking with Amy we really could read each other’s minds. After eating every last bit of chocolate from the trail mix I thought to myself “It wouldn’t really matter now if Augustino helped himself,” and sure enough after the last M&M was popped, Amy offered Augustino a dip into our food. It cracked me up.

After disembarking the ferry I proceeded to take Amy through a horrific stretch of road. I was unaware of bike routes from the City to the Peninsula and so I took her on some illegal bits of high way. It was scary to say the least. (That was the only part I was responsible to figure out and I sort of failed) But we made it. I was so excited to make it home, to see my childhood house after bicycling for two months. I hoped off my bike and said “AMY WE MADE IT” and began to go to the door. Amy stopped me and said – “Wait a minute – we’re here, we finished.” And we both started crying. It was an incredible adventure.

ICE CREAM AND CAKEY-CAKE!

So this week has been jam packed with loads of work, birthdays, projects, preparation to climb half dome and my exciting cake decorating class that I took with my mom! It was a fun night. we got to learn loads of cake decorating tidbits – like dots, stars, lines, BASKET WEAVE, gardenias, leaves and ROSES!!! I loved it to say the least. At the end of the class we all got our own personal-mini, two layer cake, and we got to decorate it any way we wanted! I was in heaven. Here is a detail of my master piece.

loverly, eh?

I would totally recommend this class for ANYONE. It is taught out of a San Mateo bakery called Kathy’s Kreative Kakes and Kathy herself teaches the class. She is not only beautiful, but super nice, knowledgeable and has some awesome, heartwarming stories to boot! It was funny, there was only one man in the entire class of around 20 women, and I think because he was a man everyone thought he was SO GOOD. Well, let me tell you, he wasn’t. He was just a man who did some lattice work on the cake – but if he did not have that one appendage between his legs no one would have thought it looked that great. So, if you are a man and want an ego boost – go join a cake decorating class and everyone will ooh and ahh at your work. I sure didn’t (and probably wouldn’t over yours [blog reading man]) I was way to impressed with my own stuff!

WORK ROOM!

I have been wanting to have a fantastic studio to work in. This summer I finally got around to making it happen. I am still planning on making this table more work-able. I would like to make it taller and a bit bigger. BUT now, I have a lovely laminate floor (that I DID MYSELF)! I still have to add the base boards – and I will – soon.

YEAH BABY!

I would LOVE those swanky recessed lights (I think they are called canned? I don’t know) – but I decided to go with something a bit more economical – so I gots me some fairy lights!

oh my.

DIY Anthropologie aka Bougainvillea THIS!

Okay – who is not in love with Designsponge? It is the best blog in the world and I have gotten to the point where I cannot go about my life without a daily check in – LOVE IT! BUT, let’s get real with cost. Sometimes the under 100 dollar category leaves me less than high (emotionally) but totally high (as in high and dry and left behind). SO – I like to modify stuff. This next post might be slightly illegal – but who gives a shit. I originally saw this switch plate featured on designsponge and LOVED IT. BUT, I will not SHELL OUT 24 BUCKS for a switch plate made in CHINA – and quite honestly (and judgmentally) neither should you! SO – here is the link . . .

Bougainvillea what?

And here is a picture of my versions.

Bougainvillea THIS!

OKAY – so I obviously do not have the lovely metal frame OR the mother of pearl, but who really cares. What I did involves two options. The first one I printed out the image and just glued it on to my 79 cent plastic one and the second, I splurged for those $3.99 plastic photo frame plates and stuck the image in – they both suit me just fine and for a fraction of the cost!
That’s what I call going GREEN! Well, sort of.

I was pleased

FINALLY – Before and Afters

Okay, so I am finally getting around to posting images of my NEW EXCITING kitchen! This summer was a great time for me to get caught up with house repairs and improvements. I was so giddy with my new digs – but I must say it is not exactly the before and after effect that one gets on those design shows where everyone gets new furniture and all. So, here are my mini make-overs. I hope you can tell the differences.

Ze Lovey Kitchen

I HAVE A CHAIR GUARD!
What is a Chair Guard? Does it guard the chairs? Does it guard the wall from your Chairs? DOES IT GUARD THE WALL FROM SCRAPES? HELL NO! Well, maybe a little bit on the last one – but then again, HELL NO! A chair guard is that lovely boarder that is breaking up the color in my dining area. I love it – it is so nice, and let me just tell you if someone where to hit is with a chair – I’d probably castrate them.

These are close ups on all my little details – I have my Amy Pina original (isn’t it beautiful), my spray painted bottle vases (one with rosemary so it smells nice too) and my red collection (complete with fire extinguisher! Thanks Loren!).