Attention those near Oakville Ontario

One last show this season. I met a guy at the CB show and he is hosting a show for his own products (amazing hand milled soaps... I bought one and adore it!) next Thursday night about 2/3 of the way between here and Hamilton. Both of our product lines will be available for sale. He is offering a whopping 20% off his stuff.

I would love if those nearby would come out and join us. I will email out directions to anyone available.

His stuff is all natural and smells amazing!

Pay It Forward

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF (Pay it forward) exchange. I'm not sure what that gift will be. It will be a surprise! The only thing you have to do in return is to pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog. So basically, if you’re one of the first 3 comments, I’ll send you something that I’ll make! Once you sign up, I'll email you to let you know that you are one of the three. Then copy and paste the above paragraph on your blog, and three other lucky people will be recipients of your handmade work.

Make sure to meail me a mailling address at pif(@)phony-art.com!

Maybe Winter clothing show

Can this get any more nerve wracking? I am on the edge of my seat!

No Winter Clothing Show

Well, I tried. I just could not find someone who could work the Friday night and Saturday so I will not be doing the Toronto Winter Clothing show. MAybe the Spring show will work out better.

CBC Christmas Boutique

Hi everyone,

Phony Art will be participating in this years CBC Christmas Boutique to raise funds for breast cancer research. The sale is this Thursday, November 29th 2007 from 10am until 5 pm in lobby of the the CBC building at the corner of Front and John street in beautiful downtown Toronto in the heart of the Entertainment district.

With jewelery and gift items for women, men, children, teens, and hostess gifts we have something for everyone on your holiday shopping list! Leave with your list complete and PhonyArt will even take care of the wrapping! Free gift with every purchase.

Don't forget PhonyArt is also available for home shows, appointments and online orders right up until December 20th for in stock items. Custom items are guaranteed for Christmas when ordered by December 5th 2007. Please stop by the new online shop at http://www.phonyart.etsy.com to see a sample of the new collections.

Happy Holidays to you and your families.

Oh my gosh, guy stuff on etsy!

Yes laddies and gents, it is true! There is now another listing geared towards men on Etsy! Not only that, but it is a listing for something that really can be given as a gift, looks great on men of all shapes and sizes, can be customized to suit any, well, suit, and is not overly difficult on the wallet.

Ok blogreaderes

If there is anyone actually reading this, show me :) If you comment you can take 15% of any ready made itemsover $15 currently listed at my shop. Great time to stock up on holiday gifts! Just put "blogg" under comments when you check out!

Happy Halloween

I just wanted to wish any readers who are celebrating a happy and safe Halloween! I don't really do the Halloween thing myself, but suspect that if I did I would be more into the wiccan/hallowed ever sort of practice than the dressing up. Then again, I love costumes, so it is a pretty tough call.

On the left you have a great little creepy crawly who can keep you company right through the holiday season.

I remember the last time I dressed up for Halloween I went as a Goth (what my sister tells me are now called Emos"). I wore all black and a bunch of dangly, victorian-esque jewelery. Made it a point to talk about death and destruction a lot. (Think Lydia in Beetlejuice). The thing is, I am not sure anyone noticed a difference.

It's official, CBC SHOW

PhonyArt will be on the new vendors at this years CBC gift show. Now in it's 10th year the CBC craft show is an annual fundraiser for Breast Cancer research. If you are in Toronto please come by and check us out!

Thursday November 29th, 2007
10am-5pm

Christmas in the Heart of the Entertainment District

Canadian Broadcasting Centre (Front & John Streets)

Also, I have another show tentatively booked that night (crazy day!) for the Children's Wish Foundation at a night club but I am not sure I have the stock (or energy) for two shows in one day.

Toronto Winter Clothing show part 2 (a triligoy in an, as of yet, unknown number of parts)

Ok, so,

IF I can get the money together for the booth, and
IF I can figure out how to make the whole Saturday thing work (not being able to run or profit from a booth on a Saturday for religious reasons, and
IF I can figure out that even with the above little problem it is still worth doing, and
IF I can get childcare for those days and maybe the day before, and
IF I can get someone to work a booth with me

THEN I think I am going to do this.

Clearly I am channeling high school science teachers and various computer programming class instructors. Only back then I was only allowed to have one "IF: per each 'THEN" in a science hypothesis? Clearly I was not paying attention so well.

Toronto Winter Clothing Show

So I think i am stuck in a little bit of a catch 22.

I am thinking of participating in the Winter clothing show. It is notoriously non-fat-friendly. To the best of my knowledge there is only one vendor who even carries any plus sized clothes.

Great right, go in, sell my stuff, have a bit of a captive audience.

The thing is, I think most of us plussies know that, and so we do not even bother going to the show.

So I might get there, hoping for a captive audience, only to find that there is no one there to whom I can sell anything!

I am curious. To those who are reading this. Do you bother going to this sort of thing? should I take that leap and be the big fish in the small pond?

Blog Action day

Today is Blog Action Day. Bloggers around the web are uniting to put a single important issue on everyone’s mind - the environment. Those of us participating will each post about the environment in our own way and relating to their own topic. Our aim is to get everyone talking towards a better future.

So bearing that in mind I present to you (dum da da dum)

Mr. Holly-Go-Lightly

Mr. Holley-Go-Lightly is made up entirely from parts taken from an energy efficient lightbulb that had previously been lighting my workspace for the last 2 years. It finally died on me and broke when I was taking it out of the lamp. When the base opened I saw all these fun colours! I took them and put them aside as at the time I had no idea what to do with them.

Every so often I would fiddle with them, but just nothing came to me. Last week, during my usual 3AM fiddle, there he was!

I really need to start taking apart more broken stuff rather than just throwing it out!

Look around, you will be amazed what you can find.

This bracelet is one of my favourites. I made it to see at one of my first craft shows, and never actually managed to put it on sale. I fell in love with it and decided that I deserved a treat once in a while as well!

I wear it at least a couple of times a week with everything from jeans and a sweater to black tie formal wear and it never fails to be a perfect accent and look right at home on my wrist. I am constantly getting comments on how crisp and clean and modern it looks.

Now the secret. This was a chain belt I found in a charity rummage sale a couple of years ago. I bought it thinking that I would use it as a belt. The trouble with that was whenever I put it on I looked like I was dressed for a great party... in 1986!

I had it kicking around for a while and one day got the idea to break it up and see what I could do with it. I added a clasp and voila! I ended up with a wonderful addition to any outfit, and because it had started life as a belt it had a bit of a larger scale that was just perfect for my look.

So look around. Chances are there is loads of stuff around you that can be updated into great accent pieces for your wardrobe.

Help please!

I have come up with a new design playing on some of my own medieval thoughts of thoughts as of late. Ok, that and I just finished reading "The Queen's Fool" (Philippa Gregory) and this design came from a doodle in my sketchbook while I was reading. Now, I have a touch of a problem. I have to completely different sets of livery for this fool, but as I only plan to make one I am not sure which one to go with! I will open a poll in the sidebar, please let me know which set of colours you prefer.

Oh, I should get add that it will be silver and the colour will be resin.

Good score :)

I just got a nice deal on some onyx, some lovely small amethysts, a couple of carnelian, and best of all, some beautiful nuggets of furnace glass that will look simply incredible when I get them set into silver as pendants or maybe a bracelet. B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!!!

I will be honest. When it comes to glass I am a total noob. I know nothing. I have taken a class or two, made a couple of pieces in the classes, and hated it. I love the time you get to play with softened metal. I love the time you can put into getting your curves or your corners "just so". I found with glass you need to work FAST. You need to know exactly what you are doing or don't bother trying to make something presentable. On the other hand, I do know that to do really nice work takes a skilled hand and patience that I admire. Those people who do beautiful lampwork beads are real artisans, and the speed at which they need to work is incredible.

These are not lampwork. They are nothing even particularly impressive,

but All I can tell you is that I like them. I like them a lot. I am already thinking of things to do with them.

These are going to look amazing in my new high colour series :)

Advice always welcome

A would like to take a fellow (fellow-ette?) etsymom for taking the time to check out my new shop and give me some feedback on some of my information. I am now going through and updating every item in the shop with the information you suggested. Thank you very much!

If anyone ever has any advice they would like to share I am always greatfull for the help. The creative part I can do on my own. The business and marketing, well that I can always use the assistance!

Thanks :)

Can't join the fad?

Do you have trouble wearing most pieces of fashion jewelery because it turns your skin green, bothers your ears, or otherwise makes you look like an alien? Feel like you can never have fun with your jewelery because you can only buy the really expensive stuff?

There are options!

there are coatings available that brush on like nail polish and create an invisible barrier between your skin and your jewelery. Some are made from medical grade silicone and have an almost zero reaction rate amongst anyone. This is the same stuff that is used in breast implants, plastic surgery, skin grafts, etc. Although I am not 100% sure I would want to have it inserted permanently into my body, I would not hesitate to wear it against my skin (and even in piercings) for long periods of time.

Metal can react with skin to turn both the metal and your skin green, black, purple or a variety of other colours that are pretty on My Little Ponies (if not necessarily on you). This does not mean that there is something wrong with your jewelery. Some metals just react that way with some people, and the acidity, oils, bacteria, etc. on your skin can make that chemical reaction happen faster or slower than if someone else were to wear the exact same piece.

If your skin reacts to metal by changing colour, a coat of hardware store spray paint (I like high gloss Tremclad at $3.49 a bottle and I am still on my first bottle) that will just coat the metal and keep the air, which is what causes the reactions, out. (I do not think I would use the spray pain on earring posts. Something about spray paint just screams "For external use only").

So go! A whole new world is opened to you for only the cost of a can of spray paint!

Tagged!

Ok, so I have been tagged by Donna of Donna Says to tell you 8 things about myself. Now the question is, what should they be.

1. I am a mother and would not trade anything in the world for my little girl. She is the centre of my world. I orriginally went back to school to learn to do jewelery so I could have an excuse to stay home and be with her rather than going back to office work.

2. I am Jewish, and this plays a really big part in every aspect of my life. As tough as it can be to lead a Modern Orthodox life, I would not give it up for anything in the world. It adds to my sense of self, and gives me a direction to work towards... even if I know I am not there yet.

3. I am a grade school teacher by training, and taught for only a year before realizing I had made an enormous mistake.

4. As funny and talkative as most people think I am, I rarely make new friends in real life. Crowds scare me a little.

5. I have a cheap IKEA couch that is the most comfortable thing in the world. I had it recovered in brown Ultrasuede and now people think it is a very expensive piece of furniture. I crack up every time someone tells me where they think I got it.

6. I have a total black thumb. I can not grow ANYTHING. My husband will not even let me dress my daughter in green because he is worried I might forget to feed her.

7. My work bench is made from the same desk I did my homework on as a kid. Before that it was my mother's desk as a kid. Before that my great aunt used it for the same thing. It never saw this coming.

8. I am an insomniac. I regularly work until 3 in the morning, then complain that I do not get enough sleep if someoen calls and wakes me up at 10am.

Ok, now I need to tag some people. Not sure how I know who will read this, but I figure I can try :)

Fat Chick
The Tale of a Canadian in Israel and Other Stories
The Rotund

That is all I have for now. I will try to add more shortly.

Sentimental and Practical

What makes and estate piece of jewelery valuable? Certainly it is not the cost of the materials or the effort involved as often these piece go for a price high above what would appear to be their value. Often an estate piece may have no intrinsic value at all... a pretty piece of glass handed down through the generations. A small brass locket holding a piece of an ancestors hair. It is the historical significance and tradition behind the piece that elevates it to a whole new level and brings out that "special" quality.

So why not create a historical estate piece from something you might have hiding in a musty box in your basement?

Do you love rings but have trouble finding ones that suit you? How about something filled with family history and tradition, while also being bulky and funky enough to look like a piece of sculpture on your finger?

This ring, made for my own collection, is created from an heirloom piece of my great grandmother's silverware! Almost any piece of metal can be made into jewelery.

What a wonderful gift this would make to children or grandchildren, or even a new bride. A lovely way to carry on the tradition of "family silver" while allowing the bride to choose her own pieces for use on her table.

Each ring can be made to size, but there is another option. Each ring can also be created so that it is adjustable to within 4 sizes. This means that it can be moved from finger to finger with only a minimum of pressure. No tools needed. 1 ring, many sizes!

I can use a spoon with your family history behind it, or pick one up at a pawn shop and we can create a history together. Please feel free to contact me for more information.

Nameless pendant

I finished a neat little sterling silver and resin pendant tonight. Unfortunately I am at a total loss as to what to call it! I figure as I am trying to get this blog off the ground I will try a bit of a contest.

Between now and Sunday please feel free to suggests names in the comments of this post. If I pick your name you can have 10% of any item in the PhonyArt etsy shop.

Caring for sterling silver jewelery

One of the questions I get asked most often is "How do I keep my sterling silver jewelery as shiny as when I buy it? Believe it or not the answer is pretty simple. Wear it and enjoy it; the more you wear it the cleaner it will stay.

Pure silver is too soft a material to use in most applications, so copper is mixed with fine silver to create sterling silver (7.5% copper 92.5%silver, by weight). It is the copper in sterling silver that oxidizes when it comes into contact with air, and that is what causes shiny silver jewelery to begin to blacken almost immediatly. The oils on your skin create a natural barrier between the silver and the air around it, allowing it to tarnish and a much slower rate than it would otherwise. This principle of "keep the air out" applies to your sterling silver jewelery at all times. When you are not wearing you silver, keep it in an airless location if at all possible.

This is easier to do then you think. Wipe your jewelery with a soft, lint free cloth to remove any fingerprints. Wrap your sterling silver in any acid free piece of tissue, then slip it into a plastic bag. All of my sterling silver pieces come complete with anti-tarnish strips/pouches work by subtly altering the air within them and slowing the oxidation considerably, and thus are another great solution.

Other than that sterling silver needs very little care. Tarnish build up can be removed with a store brand silver polish or polishing cloth.

Earrings to suit your gorgeous face!

Trying to figure out how to bring out your best features? Did you know that right shaped earrings can frame your face and help complete that stunning work of art you were born with?

A round chin can be complemented beautifully by long, tappered earrings, however, for those of us blessed with cheeks and chins to spare this is not always enough. The balance often looks a little off.

One of the solutions is an earing that only appears to taper, but actually has a little substance at the bottom. While the earrings posted look like they taper, they actually come to frame your face and pull emphasis from your chin and place it around your eyes.

Be the talk of the party with these beautiful 3 inch dangling earrings. The slight tinkle as you move will call all attention to exactly where you want it. The gorgeous op-art design will keep it there!

So what are Swarovski Pearls?

In order to produce stunning results at a fraction of the normal cost I often use Swaorvski Pearls instead of their cultured or freshwater swankier relatives. I will ALWAYS detail this information in an item's description. All items made with Swarovski Pearls can be ordered by commission with cultured or freshwater pearls.

So what are Swarovski Pearls?

Swarovski's crystal faux pearls have a leaded crystal centre that gives them the weight of natural pearls. This means that they hang and drape just like their underwater cousins, and do not look cheap and plastiky like many of the faux pearls available in trendy stores. The core is then covered by layers of a man made nacre for a shell that is nearly identical natural pearls.

Because they are man-made and laboratory controlled, Swarovki pearls have a beautiful and consistent natural colour and luster. they are also available at a reasonable price in a variety of colours and sizes not easily available in cultured and freshwater pearls.

Swarovski pearls warm to the skin just like their more expensive cousins, however that is where the similarities end. Unlike cultured pearls they are also resistant to perspiration, UV rays, perfumes, scratches and gentle washing. This makes them an excellent choice for fashion jewelery, people with sensitive skin, and people who are particularly hard on their jewelery. They can be worn while swimming (for that oh so chic swimsuit and pearls look), and can be stored in a glove box for those "pearls and a ponytail" moments.

Swarovski Crystal Pearls are available in 4 shapes, numerous sizes, and over 20 different colours.

So what are my sizes?

First off I am more than willing to make any item to spec so long as I have the materials in stock. This means that if you see a ring in a size 9 and need it in an 11 I am more than happy to alter/recreate it for the same price. Many of the pieces can be shortened/lengthened with no problem at all. Below are just my standard sizes for "one size fits me" jewelery.

Bangles - 7.6 cm / 3" across
Chokers - 53.3 cm / 21"
Necklaces - 61 cm / 24"
Long necklaces/Lariats - 91.4 cm - 101.6 cm / 36" - 40" (longer lengths available upon request)
Bracelets - 20.3 cm / 8"
Brooches - a minimum of 5.1 cm / 2"
Rings - generally available to a size 15

Bangles for the rest of us? You Bet!

Love the look of those funky bangles that are everywhere this season? Me too!

Unfortunately I could not find any to find over my hand nicely without causing serious pain and cutting off blood to my fingers. So I did what I like to do. I went back to my drawing board!

All my bangles are sized to a generous 3 inches diameter and are perfectly round for a great shake rattle and role up and down your arm.

With simple finishes ranging from mirror smooth to caveman chic to detailed filigree work I have something to please everyone. And if I don't, please let me know! If you think it is missing, chances are there are lots of people who would agree with you.

Mermaids delight

This is one of the first pieces I made way back before I started playing with metalsmithing and was only able to work with what I find, but it is still one of my favourite pieces.

This was when I first started to play with transforming jewelery. This piece goes from long to short and day to night without ever losing it drama. Perfect as a choker or as a long pendant these Swarovski Crystal pearls and Venetian glass pair with sterling silver to create a beautiful accent that draws attention to exactly where you want it!

Hello

Hi there,

I thought I would start a blog totally separate from my personal life about my work and how it is progressing. Hence, this new endeavor.

Please stay with me as I am only just getting this started.

Thanks, and hope to see you around often!