Hummingbirds (another Cuban post)

When I was in Cuba I saw two hummingbirds - one bright green/blue in flashes in front of a flower and one tiny black one sat in a tree. I've always loved hummingbirds, but since seeing them I love them even more!

For Christmas I was given some Cuban stamps with humming birds on and recently found a frame large enough to make them into a necklace:

I have one more of these frames... wonder what I'll do with it...
I also brought back a stamp myself, somewhat accidentally through buying too many at the postoffice for postcards home! it's much littler than the other stamps and I'm still hoping to find the right frame for it.




More hummingbird things, the ring I ordered before Christmas has finally arrived! Hooray!

And finally here is my very own little wooden hummingbird crafted in the mountains of Cuba, only found in that one little craft market. It hangs from my kitchen cabinet. The photo's don't really capture it properly. In fact there's a nice story that goes with it. We passed through  the craft market and thought the hummingbirds were beautiful, but as you know, you tend to get the same items as many markets and as we had to rush, we didn't stop. We then found out that you could only get them at that one particular market. We left our guide some money and asked her if she could get one and ask the next British family she took round to post them back in the UK (Cuban post is notoriously bad!). The hummingbirds are made to disassemble and have tiny pins to fit back together. Lo and behold, some months later a little package arrived!

A Cuban Tale

Hello. I just thought I'd share a little jewellery story with you. I posted off today 4 Cuban rings (the last of that size coin!) to a  girl called Elisa and she very kindly said I could pass on her story.

Turns out she had a particular wish for buying one of the rings (other than it being pretty!) because her grandparents are Cuban. She requested, and I made, 3 more rings: one for her mother, and one each for her two aunts in memory of her grandmother who recently passed away. She says she hopes to visit Cuba one day.

I polished each coin and set them on ring blanks using a hardening resin. Once dry I re-polished to remove any excess resin and made sure each piece was perfect.  I put them in their little organza bags and sent them off to America!

Previously I made one for a lady whose mother was Cuban and she said her mother would be so pleased to receive it as she hadn't been able to bring much with her to her new home.

I really love hearing about the new home my jewellery goes to.

And lastly I thought I'd just share with you soem pictures of a ring I bought from a market in Cuba. The ring is made from the handle of a spoon. I really like how it's chunky but also delicate and the idea of making something useful into an ornament - which sort of inspired me for the coin rings!

Also, this weekend Roses and Hello is going to its first festival. Wish us luck!

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...