wear your story.

One of the most rewarding things about designing jewelry is hearing from a customer who identifies something I've made as their signature piece. Reaching for the same pair of earrings day after day because it makes her feel like herself. Wearing a particular necklace because she knows it will make her smile when she looks in the mirror. Putting on a custom bracelet as a reminder of her strengths before starting a difficult day.

Bracelets have always been my favorite pieces to design and make. To me, they're more narrative than any other form of adornment. ID bracelets, medic alerts, friendship bracelets, mourning armbands, cuffs - something about wearing that encircling form on our arms speaks to identity and sense of self in a very powerful way. They can be a mark of possession or self-possession, a talisman to the wearer - intimate, kinetic, sometimes hidden. You can't look at a whole bracelet at once when it's being worn - it's in constant motion, with different focal points as it moves. The story is in motion.

Here are some of the stories I've been working on recently for Leaves of Glass. This week I'm making handcuffs - but that's a story for later.

workingworking, plus color friends.

It's been an almost normal week of creative work, as I find my way back into doing my thing. Working with glass again has felt like coming home, and I got to make some pieces for the new collections that I've been thinking about for months. Shana and I put together several color pairs in the last few days. It's amazing how much easier that is when we're sitting right next to each other. No more late-night badly lit phone pictures to try to coordinate colors and lines. It's so much nicer when I can just poke her and say, "Is this awesome or horrible?" We did one this week that I think is my favorite colorfriends effort ever.

One of the collections I've had in mind is a series of jewelry designs inspired by fairy tales, and my contribution to this colorfriends is a pair of earrings in vintage glass and vintage metal. I used glass beads in black and wasabi green, and added vintage metal birdcage charms that I patinaed in a matte, aged white. They're odd and distinctive and lovely. Shana made a yoyo necklace in matching colors with cotton and silk, and in a truly inspired move, used a print with a text pattern that added a whole other layer to the fairy tale idea. Together, they're beautiful. We've called the pair Bird of Sorrow, after a Turkish fairy tale. You can read the full text here.

Shana's necklace is available in her shop, and my earrings are listed at Leaves of Glass.

You can read her post about our other colorfriends pairs on Shana's blog. Stay tuned for more new designs in both my shops, and more colorfriends.

please stay tuned.

I've been taking my product photos the same way for years, and I had the thing down to a science. I get fidgety with my styling, but I've been able to get the same clarity and color for a long time. And now here I am in a new place with new light from new directions and the backgrounds I normally use are packed away who knows where, but I'm doing new work and it needs to be photographed. IT IS NOT GOING WELL, people. I took three sets of photographs of the new pieces I made this week, and none of them are singing to me. It's going to take a lot of experimentation and practice to get them back up to standard, I think. In the meantime, I have work to list so I'm using the third set of photos. My sense of pride in presentation has taken a hit, though; so consider this an excuse post to salve my ego. Argh.

In less frustrating news, I'm enjoying working with vintage glass again and have several new pieces that will appear over the coming weeks. I'm adding to my occasional Holy/Shadow series, and am doing new interpretations of some older designs. I'm hoping to start work soon on a collection inspired by {bloody, dark and grim} fairy tales.

local love

This weekend, I have the honor of being the featured showcase artist at RR#1 during the West Town Art Walk. RR#1 was my first wholesale account, and they remain my biggest fans and best supporters in my small corner of the handmade jewelry world. The shop is beautiful. Housed in a former apothecary, it retains the original wood and glass fixtures, rolling ladders and tin ceiling, and is home to a meticulously curated collection of gifts and papergoods. (The RR is for Red Rooster.) I’m proud of my long association with this lovely shop, and I’m so pleased to be participating this weekend!

The West Town Art Walk will be held on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, July 22-24. Details and a list of participating businesses can be found on the Facebook page for the event.

I’ve made lots of new pieces for this weekend, almost all of them one of a kind. You can see a small sample in the sneak peeks below. I hope they’re tempting enough to bring my Chicago fans out in the heat to enjoy some music and shopping (in air conditioning!).

I’ll be at RR#1 on Friday night from 7-10, and I hope to see you there! The shop is located at 814 North Ashland at Ashland and Chicago.

shop update at big cartel

This week's shop update is entirely blizzard-inspired. During my snow days last week, I made two enormous and sparkly bracelets, and one dainty pair of golden teardrop earrings. The bracelets are both one of a kind and cannot be repeated.

that was fun.

I spent the weekend holding metal over a flame and then dropping it into a cup of brightly colored liquid, where it sizzled and spat and hissed and clanked. Then I fished it out, and repeated the process over and over and over until I had a whole sheet full of vintage metal and chain covered in lustrous colors. These components still need to be sealed, but they'll start turning up in new designs in another week or so.

In other productivity news, here are a couple of things that will be posting in tomorrow's shop updates.

a new leaf

It's been a very long time since I've posted anything here. During the silent months, I've enjoyed a hilarious and productive summer vacation, gotten rid of what feels like half my stuff, rearranged my apartment, started a regular workout routine, redyed my hair three times (it's blue right now), read many books, designed lots and lots of new work, and made a perfect mulligatawny soup. And three failed batches of caramel.

A lot of this has been chronicled on Twitter. I find it easier to keep up with that, for some reason, although it obviously doesn't have the scope for reflection that blogging does. If you do the Twitter thing, please follow me - I promise hilarity and frequent hair updates, as well as immediate notification when I post new things and the occasional random sale, based on whimsy. I have renewed intentions for good blogging, of course - when do I not? - and a head full of half-written blog posts on everything from concert reviews to dyeing Lucite beads, and I hope to actually be able to write about them soon.

Anyone who already follows me on Twitter will know that I've been working on setting up a new shop over at Big Cartel. As of this week, I'll start posting my new designs for Leaves of Glass in that shop rather than my Etsy shop for Tuesday updates. (For now, urban legend will remain on Etsy only). I'll continue to sell existing listings and several of my best sellers on Etsy, but will be working on promoting the new site as much as I can. There are a number of reasons for this, but I'll just touch on my top 2 here:

1. It's more cost effective for me, and therefore I can make my jewelry a bit more affordable for you. You'll notice that prices are a little lower there than in my Etsy shop.

2. DISCOUNT CODES! Big Cartel allows me to program discount codes into my shop so that you can take advantage of sales, coupons and special offers without waiting for a revised invoice or refund.

This is a huge deal for me, and I'm excited to try it out; so to celebrate point #2, I'll be launching this week's brand new Leaves of Glass shop update with a discount code. Enter code NEWLEAF when you checkout at www.leaves-of-glass.com for a 10% discount on your order. (Fine Print: This code will be good through Tuesday, October 5, and may not be combined with other discounts.)

I'll also be sending out an email reminder with the new shop information. In the meantime, here are a few sneak peeks of tomorrow's update to whet your appetite.

leaves of glass flashback

I've been doing inventory while planning supply orders, and have come across a few of my early jewelry designs. I thought it might be fun to list these pieces in my shop at their original prices, as a sort of retro sale. So starting today, and continuing until they're gone, I'll be listing a couple of these oldies for your nostalgic shopping pleasure. Have fun!

20% off all weekend!

Leaves of Glass is having a 20% off sale all weekend - Friday, November 26 - Tuesday, December 1. Item listings in my shop have been edited to reflect the sale prices, and all orders will be shipped on Wednesday, December 2 to arrive in plenty of time for the holidays. Happy shopping!

destroying angel: dark gardens glossary con't.

For this week's episode of my Dark Gardens glossary, I chose the Destroying Angel mushroom, the inspiration for my earrings of the same name. It's a gloriously tempting name for a plant, but one that warns in no uncertain terms of the mushroom's deadly properties. This elegant mushroom was first brought to my attention through (surprise, surprise) a starring role as a murder weapon in a British mystery series.

From the Cornell Mushroom Blog: "The nightmare of inexperienced mushroom hunters everywhere, the Destroying Angel occupies the coveted position of one of the most deadly poisonous mushrooms known to mycologists. The mushroom gets its common name from its infamously pure white fruiting body. Fortunately, it is relatively easy to identify in its mature and button stages, with a little effort. It is equipped with most of the features that a mushroom can have, including a skirt on the stem (annulus) and round cup-like base (volva). It displays a beautiful white cap, stalk, and gills, and deposits a white spore print. These white spores can be the crucial factor between life and death for someone who is trying to distinguish a Destroying Angel in its button stage from an edible, brown-spored, white button mushroom (Agaricus campestris)....

[Destroying Angel] will cause gastrointestinal distress (diarrhea, nausea, abdominal pain) after five to twelve hours. However, symptoms typically remit after that, and one might assume that the worst has passed without going to the hospital. By the time the symptoms get worse again, after a day or two, it will probably be too late for the victim, who will likely suffer liver and kidney failure and enter a hepatic coma, ending in death. ...

The best way to avoid amatoxins is to learn to identify mushrooms like A. bisporigera, and not to rely on old wives’ tales. Don’t rely on single characteristics like color or shape in isolation. Instead, look for a combination of features including the white spore print, the skirt-like ring (annulus) around the stalk, the white gills that stop just shy of the stalk, and the cup-like volva at the bottom of the stalk (often underground). Fear of destroying angels should not prevent you from mushroom hunting, as any responsible mushroom hunter can learn to identify and avoid them. The destroying angels and their deadly sister the death cap (Amanita phalloides) are awfully good mushrooms to learn first." Mushrooms are seductive, but mind your P's & Q's, and know exactly what you're looking at before you eat it!

My Destroying Angel Earrings are harmless to the liver and digestive system, and their most severe side effect is a tendency to cause temporary swoons due to extreme sparkle. Vintage Swarovski emerald crystal beadballs hang from tiny bright sterling silver hoops, and a double length of delicate chain stands in as a symbolic mushroom stem. Lightweight, shiny and devastating on a dance floor.

the lighter side of dark gardens: the glossary continued

Most of my inspiration for my summer collection comes from actual plants, but for the sake of fun I took some liberties along the way. The names for the two pieces below were taken from Stella Gibbons' humorous Gothic novel, Cold Comfort Farm. The main character of the novel is Miss Flora Poste, who goes to stay with distant relatives at the slovenly and mysterious Cold Comfort Farm. Hilarity and enlightenment (for the relatives - Flora is already quite enlightened for a single woman in 1932) ensue. I named the little rosette studs Flora in Miss Poste's honor. The necklace is called Sukebind, after a fictional weed which blooms in spring on the farm, unleashing rampant sexual urges and inevitably resulting, year after year, in the maid's pregnancy. In 1995, there was an enchanting movie adaption of the novel, starring Kate Beckinsale as Flora. Well worth watching for the funny, the dresses, the hats and an unforgettably smoldering Rufus Sewell.

The Sukebind Necklace is a single, stunning Art Deco molded and faceted lavender glass circle, hung on a double length of vintage brass faceted ball chain. The Flora Posts are vintage pearlized plastic roses with tiny rhinestones in the center, securely attached to sterling silver posts.

a dark gardens glossary: deadly nightshade

Deadly Nightshade is an extremely lovely and dangerous plant. Belladonna and atropine are derived from Deadly Nightshade; both substances have medicinal uses, as well as being fatal in larger doses.

Illustration from Köhler's Medicinal Plants 1887

From wikipedia.org:

"The foliage and berries are extremely toxic, containing tropane alkaloids....It has a long history of use as a medicine, cosmetic, and poison. Before the Middle Ages, it was used as an anesthetic for surgery, and it was used as a poison by early men, and ancient Romans, including the wives of two Emperors, and by Macbeth of Scotland before he became a Scottish King.

The genus name "atropa" comes from Atropos, one of the three Fates in Green mythology, and the name "atropa bella donna" is derived from an admonition in Italian and Greek meaning "do not betray a beautiful lady.""


From botanical.com: "According to old legends, the plant belongs to the devil who goes about trimming and tending it in his leisure, and can only be diverted from its care on one night in the year, that is on Walpurgis, when he is preparing for the witches' sabbath. The apples of Sodom are held to be related to this plant, and the name Belladonna is said to record an old superstition that at certain times it takes the form of an enchantress of exceeding loveliness, whom it is dangerous to look upon, though a more generally accepted view is that the name was bestowed on it because its juice was used by the Italian ladies to give their eyes greater brilliancy, the smallest quantity having the effect of dilating the pupils of the eye."

My Nightshade Earrings are, I hope, equally seductive, but are not deadly. They feature vintage cobalt glass lampwork flowers, anchoring swinging chains of bright sterling silver, a bright brass link of oval chain, and a creamy vintage Lucite faux pearl.

a dark gardens glossary

I was so busy when I launched the new Dark Gardens collection that I didn't really have time to write about it the way I wanted to. To make up for that, I'm planning to do a series of short posts on the origins of specific pieces so that some of my favorites can have a little space to shine.

The Dark Gardens collection is inspired by poisonous and medicinal plants, with a healthy dose of fairy tale and child heroine thrown in for good measure. Most of my designs in this project feature unusual vintage beads in a dark palette - cobalt, plum, chartreuse, emerald and black. The dark tones are offset with bright metals - sterling silver, goldfilled chain and bright brasses - that give the designs some sparkle and represent the seductive allure of my deadly and entrancing inspirations. I'm very proud of this line (although I'm still arguing with myself about the new photographs - I'm not sure I'll ever be 100% comfortable with my product photographs), and I hope my customers find it as appealing as I do.

My short glossary series begins with an elegant little pair of earrings called Blue Pimpernel, pictured above. The pimpernel was once used medicinally for several purposes. Botanical.com offers a little background on the medicinal lore of the pimpernel:

"This blue variety (Anagallis cerulea) is described as growing in beautiful little tufts about the hills of Madeira.

The plant appears in the Herbals and Vocabularies of the sixteenth century as 'Bipinella,' a name originally applied to the Great and Salad Burnet. It was much used as a cosmetic herb. Howard, in The Old Commodore, 1837, says: 'If she'd only used my pimpernel water, for she has one monstrous freckle in her forehead.' The plant was also said to be a remedy for the bites of mad dogs and to dispel sadness.

This plant once had a great reputation in medicine, and was used as a universal panacea.

'No heart can think, no tongue can tell

The virtues of the Pimpernel.'

Pliny speaks of its value in liver complaints, and its generic name Anagallis (given it by Dioscorides) is derived from the Greek Anagelao, signifying 'to laugh,' because it removes the depression that follows liver troubles.

The Greeks used it for diseases of the eye, and Gerard and Culpepper affirm that 'it helpeth them that are dim-sighted,' the juice being mixed with honey and dropped into the eyes.

It is 'a gallant, Solar herb, of a cleansing attractive quality, whereby it draweth forth thorns and splinters gotten into the flesh.'

'Used inwardly and applied outwardly,' Culpepper tells us, 'it helpeth also all stinging and biting of venomous beasts or mad dogs.'

And again, 'the distilled water or juice is much celebrated by French dames to cleanse the skin from any roughness, deformity or discolourings thereof.'

Another old writer says 'the Herb Pimpernel is good to prevent witchcraft, as Mother Bumby doth affirm.'"

My version of the blue pimpernel doesn't boast of any medicinal properties, although I do hope it possesses the power to please and cheer. These earrings are made with vintage black plastic teardrops, a vintage cobalt glass flower, and a length of beautiful geometric vintage brass chain, and hang 2 1/4" long from oxidized sterling silver French hooks.