Tea Party Tags - printable and UK protests

Hello! These beautiful tags are free to print from this blog. Very cute!



Lovely, lovely. I saw a very sweet teapot with robin's on the other day, I love teapots.

Today in the UK there were nation wide protests to protest against student fees and I attended one in Exeter. You can see up to date info about all the UK wide protests by typing #solidarity or #dayx2 or #demo2010   into the twitter search box.

Some tweets from the protests:
 @JackStargatt: Finally out of the kettle. Only illegally contained for two hours. #bristol #dayx2 #solidarity #nocuts

cryurchin: Exeter anti-cuts protest. More pictures here - http://bit.ly/hiU1t9 - #solidarity #dayx2 #demo2010 http://twitpic.com/3bmmkq

RT @leelapaul: So proud that students all over the UK are taking a stand for their education with peaceful protest! @UCLOccupation #solidarity

1920s advert pendant

I completely love this design. It comes from an advert in a 1920s British magazine 'Picturegoer'. I love the silhouette simplicity of it.  

The advert is actually for throat sweets! But it's very pretty all the same, I like how the umbrella is white on the outside and black underneath. The ladies cloche hat is very much in fashion at the moment! I know I want one...

Had a request to make a pendant out of one of the Cuban coins. I had a bigger 25c coin which suited and so I made the lady a pendant. I have one more coin of that size, so I think I'll make another one soon.

Below is the one I sent to her:

I usually take my photographs in natural light, but this one was taken in the evening, just to show the piece as she already knew what she was buying. I like the dramatic look of it.

Treasures

The little ballet pendant has made it into a treasury thanks to this seller:

And the very first one, the lovely black and white 1920s lady is in a treasury by this seller whose item I recently featured and appears in the treasury above:

Both really beautiful collections with some lovely items. The stand out item for me though are these earrings. The photograph is also so beautiful and the styling is excellent. Anyone looking to buy me a Christmas present you know where to look!

Feeling very christmassy at the moment, I made some salt dough ornaments that are waiting to be painted. Maybe when they're done I'll put some photos up.

Also hooray I broke the 1000 views mark today! Thanks!

Ballerina

Time for some new jewellery! Slightly different from the 1920s cameos, I loved the pose and dress of this ballerina from the Graphics Fairy but there were some bits I wasn't sure about! So I had a think and a chat with L. Stead and she drew the ballerina into a beautiful form!  Now she's all lovely.

 She looks pretty as a picture swinging in her frame. Lets have a closer look at her pretty face.

So there we are! This is one of the earliest images I wanted to use and it's great to finally see it made! I have another design coming and some silver charm jewllery also.

Find her on Etsy

Facebook Fan Page

After dithering for ages I have finally set up a Facebook fan page and there's a link box on the right of the blog to 'like' it.

It has an in built Etsy shop.

Other news. My Cuban coin ring was featured in a Treasury:

The lady with a parasol pedant was featured on this blog by ZiBagz! And one of my treasuries with a link to the shop on Etsy was featured on this blog by Jenny Benny Bears!

Phew! What a week so far!

Featured in a Treasury

Well the blog has been made prettiful! And one the the 1920s pendants has been featured in a beautiful Treasury on Etsy thanks to Seams Victorian.

That makes for a good beginning of the week! And this treasury makes me feel very Christmassy!

Cuba and Espresso

Today, aside from research, I have been photographing the newest piece of jewellery - a ring made from a Cuban coin. I visted Cuba this summer and it's such a beautiful and friendly country that I wanted to make a memento project from it, so I brought back a few coins to make jewellery from. This is now listed: http://www.artfire.com/users/rosesandhello and http://www.zibbet.com/rosesandhello and the new European shop which I'll talk about more below

And some little thumbnails of photographs I took in Cuba just to give the ring some background, it's travelled half way around the world after all! Some rum from the rum museum, a beautifully restored square, one of the old buildings not yet restored and a tabacco leaf drying house.

I have also been drinking lots of espresso from my birthday espresso cups! Cute. Today I launched an EU based shop Same products, but I know some people are put off by using US online shops and this one focuses particularly on Europe, which I think is nice. It allows me a nice big banner and the whole system was really easy to use.

And the final thing I did today... make a little advert for the company to go on this blog which belongs to a very nice person who asked if I would like to advertise for free as I was just starting out! And here is my little advert:



I'm hoping to create a jewellery piece using the image of the people on the left.

Productive day! Now back to research...

Coco Chanel

Coco Chanel: Fashion

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In the throws of some 1920s research to contextualise the jewellery I've been making, I came often across the icon who is Coco Chanel. So I thought I would write a post about her, because a lot of the thing I came across surprised me.

What I associate with the brand 'Chanel' is elegance, luxury and expense. But that is only half the story. I should just add that I haven't seen the film 'Coco avant Chanel', but I'm guessing most people are familiar with the notion she is a rags to riches story. From orphanage taught to sew by nuns, to, arguably, one of the most recognisable fashion brands in the world. I was, however, her approach to fashion which surprised me.

She is credited with being one of the first to oppose the 19th century silhouette doing away with thing like corsets and creating garments that were practice and easy to wear... not exactly what I think of Chanel for! But that was her campaign – using boyish shapes (the flapper dropped waist) and free flowing garments, her first Little Black Dress was known as ‘Chanel’s Ford’ for it’s simple lines and easy wearability.  

She said that “Elegance is refusal” ie: simplicity is the best way and she carried this into her fashion design. She used embroidery and beads sewn on to create detail instead of the usual padding, lace and ruffles. She popularised costume jewellery and particularly the many strands of long pearls that are currently in fashion, apparently an odd number of strings was considered most elegant. And she counselled “Always take off the last accessory you put on” – less is more.

Her views on luxury are also in opposition to the hedonism we usually associate with the 1920s, particularly in France the Ballet Russe etc. She said: “Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity”.

And finally, of designing dresses she said: “look for the women in the dress, if there is no woman, there is no dress”. This is something for anyone designing things to keep in mind, if you can’t imagine a person wearing it then something has gone astray.