Busy Day, Lazy Day

This day has simply flown by! Whoosh and it was 6 in the evening. How did that happen? Tomorrow is becoming my regular Tangleweeds day off, re-juice the batteries with relaxation time, reading time, cat time, lazy time. And I picked up the newest issue of the Believer and I am looking forward to sitting around and reading it (possibly) cover to cover.

In the meantime, a sneak peak of some of the jewels to be added to my Etsy shop in two weeks. . .

horseshoe style pendant-necklace with semi-precious stones

Have a restful weekend everyone!

Jewels for Me

Now, just because I make jewelry, doesn't mean I don't lust after other's handmade or vintage baubles! Especially stones in lovely settings, which is a skill I have yet to acquire. 

This ring features a type of agate. Agate is one of those mercurial stones that comes in so many beautiful varieties. This one is a Botryoidal Agate.

Botryoidal Agate in Sterling Silver

And these. Oh wowzers! You wear these with just about anything!

Vintage Marjorie Baer Earrings 

And this gorgeous pendant. Moonstone and larvikite. I love these settings. Christmas present please!

Moonstone and Larvisite Pendant

Alright, well you and me both know these jewels weren't meant for just me! Take a look in these three lovely shops and I'm sure you'll find something perfect for one of the ladies on your Christmas list. I won't mind if you snatch up one of these beauties before I can =)

One Woman Jewelry Factory

If you need to find me I'll be in my studio. Craft fair season has begun!!!!

Noise Pop Holiday Shop

After a restful Thanksgiving weekend spent with Jeff's family in southern California, it's time to get back into the swing of things for the rest of the winter holiday season. And that means more craft shows! Coming up this Saturday, a fun little Noise Pop Holiday Shop, noon to 5pm, at the Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa Street in San Francisco. I'm doing this one with Jeff, so really, you could kill two birds with one stone and buy a poster for your boyfriend and a pair of earrings for your sister. Hope to see you there!

Pretty Penny Trunk Show

This coming Friday I have the good fortune to be part of a local jewelry trunk show and sale at the Oakland vintage shop Pretty Penny.

Details below:

The Craft
Four East Bay designers are bringing you their best pieces, exclusively, one night only.

6-9pm
Friday, November 19 at
The Pretty Penny
vintage clothing

Original designs from:
ANGELCAKE-heavenly jewelry and hair accessories
REALIA-jewelry made with materials from everyday life
ALANA DOUVROS-jewelry with an edgy take on classic
TANGLEWEEDS-handcrafted metal jewelry from Oakland, California

Come join us and shop local and feel great about it! There will be free wine and healthy (yay!) snacks. Bring a friend and get an early start on your Holiday shopping.

Clickity-click here to be taken to the Facebook page for this event. Hope to see you there!

Weathered Silver

Wednesday item of the week in my Etsy Shop!

~hand-forged steel, copper, silver pendant~

inspiration: stormy, blustery, "almost-feels-like-fall-for-real" days

I love this piece because of it's aged appearance (achieved by much hammering and sanding and a bit of oxidizing) and it's simplicity. It's a great piece layered with other pieces or worn as a subtle statement by itself.


Enter the code "tangleweeds blog" in the message section of your Etsy receipt to receive 30% off this rustic silver-platted copper, circle necklace. Discount applies to this item only, from now until October 19th, 2010.

Prett Penny

You can now find my jewelry at Sarah Dunbar's fantastic vintage shop, Pretty Penny. Her store is on College Avenue in the Rockridge district of Oakland. Hours are 11am to 7pm seven days a week! And I must say, she carries a lovely selection of vintage clothes, shoes, accessories, as well as jewelry made by local artists. Check out her website or drop by her store for more info!

Rusty Autumn

Wednesday item of the week in my Etsy Shop!

~hand-forged brass necklace~

For this week I thought I'd pick an old piece, from my "summer sale" section. . . so not only are you getting a great price on this piece already, but I'll also be giving you an additional 30% off! This is the last one of this design as well.

Enter the code "tangleweeds blog" in the message section of your Etsy receipt to receive 30% off this rustic, hand-forged brass and semi-precious stones necklace. Discount applies to this item only, from now until October 5th, 2010.

A day in the Sun

The Rockridge Street Fair ended up being a huge success! Lots of friends stopped by and hung out for a while as well as customers from the local coffee shop I work at. It was great feeling supported and complimented in so many ways!

I spent a lot of time prepping for this fair. Usually I do shows where all I need to set up is one or two tables, but at this fair I was going to have a whole 10x10 foot booth. I wanted to create a certain feeling, I wanted people to feel like they were stepping into a little world full of delightful things to look at and buy. . .

One of my tables. Old frames, a small shelf that was a hideous shade of yellow that I repainted and a re-fashioned medicine cabinet (on the right).

Me!

The feather earrings on the far left and the necklace on the right both sold.

Here, I took old frames and removed the glass and cardboard. Then I stretched black fabric along the back and simply used push pins to secure it. These make a great display for my circle necklaces.

Another view of the medicine cabinet I re-purposed. For those of you who live in the San Francisco East Bay, I purchased this old medicine cabinet at Urban Ore, in Berkeley. It's a great place for finding old furniture, frames, electrical stuff, and so much more. It's a scavengers/foragers delight!

Taking pictures of my booth at the fair really helps me to look back and see how I might like to do things differently next time, small changes I want to make. Overall though, I'm very happy with how my booth came together!

Thanks to all who stopped by and showed their support for local, hand-crafted work. I hope to see many more at the next fair!

My jewelry is off to Portland!

For all of you fine customers residing in the Portland area, you can now find my jewelry at Paseo Artisans in the Nob Hill neighborhood. Available are lots of turquoise and mixed metals: copper and brass and a few sterling silver pieces as well. The owner, Sarah Bistue, offers a lovely selection of handmade jewelry and textiles from both South America, and the states.

Below is an excerpt taken from the Paseo Artisans website. I thought it pretty eloquently told the story of the beginnings of Sarah's shop:

"Paseo is the product of a chance meeting and a trip to South America. In 2004, Sarah, the owner of Paseo, met her husband, Germán, who is originally from Argentina. After getting to know his family and learning about his culture, they made a trip to Argentina. After meeting his extended family and friends, being embraced by the warm and welcoming Argentine culture and discovering a bounty of beautiful, artisan-made crafts, Sarah set out to bring a bit of that magic to the residents of her hometown of Portland, Oregon.

. . . Paseo offers handmade, natural-fiber, artisan-crafted clothing, jewelry, art and textiles from South America. We work both directly with artisans and with organizations whose mission it is to assist artisans in the growth of their businesses. From soft, warm, hypoallergenic alpaca fiber clothing to jewelry crafted with copper, stone and silver, Paseo offers a variety of goods that are all at once chic, unique, comfortable and supporting individual artisans."

Lastly, I've included a few of the lovely items you can find in her shop or on her shop's website.

Pine Needle Basket from Nicaragua

Hand-Embroidered Cotton Blouse from Mexico

Basket Weave Sterling Cuff


Thanks for taking an interest in my work, Sarah!

Giving Back

Because I had to do something. . .

The oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has shaken me to the core, and in response I have decided to donate a portion of my sales to three different charities. I started collecting for doantions on July 1st and will continue to until the end of this year. Six percent of all of my Etsy sales will go to the following charities:

~2% to The American Bird Conservancy
~2% to The Nature Conservancy
~2% to Oceana

A big heartfelt thanks to all of my Etsy customers!

Oakland's Art and Soul Festival

This weekend: Oakland's Art and Soul Festival. Two days of live music, lots of arts and crafts, and yummy food. I'll be there selling my handmade jewelry AND sharing my booth with my boyfriend, Jeffrey Boozer, creator of the artful band posters for his company Crumble Diamonds. Drop by, buy a poster for your living room (or maybe your bathroom) and a pair of feather earrings for your ears and feel good about supporting LOCAL handmade goods!



Hope to see you there!

Renegade Craft Fair

Oh, how busy life has been lately!

I'll be selling, this weekend, at Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco. Hope to see you there!

Indie Mart

Coming up this Sunday is the San Francisco Indie Mart! I'll be there selling my handmade jewelry, enjoying the tunes, and hanging out with friends. I'm also going to have some "do-it-yourself" necklaces available for your own personal style touches!



I hope to see you there!

Shobha Ohal Designs

This week's Thursday Feature is a shop I just discovered today! I saw her ring on the front page of Etsy this morning and just knew that I had to feature her shop.

sketch ring $68.00
This first ring features an original sketch of hers from a photograph she took at the Tuillerie Gardens in Paris.

sterling silver flower ring$68.00


another camel ring$68.00

I think her rings would make great gifts. They'd be the perfect accent to just about any outfit. . . But I'm a sucker for BIG rings! Stop by her shop today!

Oh the recession. . .

I'm sure most of those of you who read this have been feeling the economic pinch lately. And if you yourself are doing pretty well, all things considered, you probably know a slew of people who have been hit hard by these tight times.

I have definitely been feeling the money pinch myself. In order to make ends meet I have had to really watch all of my "non-necessary" spending, relying on all of my frugal ways from the past, when I went to school full time, worked part time and never had that much money but was grateful for the free-time I had instead.

And, while it can be fun to find new ways to be frugal (I sometimes like to look at it as a game, a challenge to myself to save more money, spend less money) it can grow tiresome and bleak if you don't stop and treat yourself, albeit reasonably, once in a while. With that in mind, I've decided to add a few new goodies to my shop, sort of based around this idea: that while we all need to be watching our pennies right now it's nice to once in a while splurge (in a small way) on yourself and those you care about.

African Turquoise Sterling Silver Earrings

I've added these tiny, sterling silver earrings to my shop. They all feature gorgeous stones in beautiful, saturated hues. And right now with the earring sale I'm having in my shop, they're only $12.75 per pair.

Carnelian Sterling Silver Earrings

Grey Moonstone Sterling Silver Earrings

Here's to small pleasures even when times are tough!

Edit: There will be more of these earrings, in copper, going up in the shop tomorrow!

Storewide Tangleweeds Sale

In lieu of my usual "wednesday item of the week" post, I thought I'd let all of you know about the Storewide Sale I'm having in my Etsy shop from now until March 21st. I'm discounting everything 30%*. It's a pre-season spring sale! And I've got lots of suitably spring-like jewelry available.

*Discount will be given as a refund through Paypal, within 24 hours of receipt of payment*

Magical Trains

like this. . .


These train pendants are designed and created by DMDmetal. The best part about this pendant is you can get it personalized with the graffiti of your choosing! Brilliant!

I've always had a love for trains. . . A lot of it has to do with the culture associated with them. Train-hoppers, graffiti art on the sides of trains, the idea of just going somewhere, where ever the train was headed, spontaneity sprung (sometimes) out of necessity.


There is an utilitarian neccessity about them, wrapped in an air of mystery. . .

photo by cindy47452

(all jewelry photos from DMDmetal's Etsy shop.)

Red and Copper Autumn

Wednesday item of the week in my Etsy Shop!

Red and Copper Autumn
~hand-forged lariat-style necklace~

inspiration: how summer slowly changes to fall. . . the colors turning, the way the air smells changing. . .




Enter the code "tangleweeds" in the message section of your Etsy receipt to receive 30% off this rustic, autumn-inspired lariat. (oh, and did I mention there's free shipping on all domestic orders placed in my shop for the rest of the month of September? shhhh!)