jocelynbroyles original designs and jewelry: Saturday in the beginning of the wet

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Saturday in the beginning of the wet

the sunset looks promising this evening, pale creamy peach, light lavender and pale pale pink, which might all turn into darker, fuller, more passionate forms of themselves. the fountain is going, a nice coincidence at this time of night. my visiting friends are napping, tired from an all-night dancing session. it's quiet and still and my favorite time of day. after i'm done here, i'm going to, "go make something pretty", which to me, means i get to go into the studio and make something without purpose, without saleability, without ties and constraints to my job. this also usually means i get to make something for me. which is always a nice fringe benefit to being a designer. on this note, i realized that i actually wear very few of my own designs as they are sold. i tend to modify or alter, add or change a stone, and i layer. i hardly walk out of the house (or sleep, for that matter) with less than two necklaces on, and usually three.

well, the previous paragraph was written last night, and i didn't quite get the change to finish it. so we'll just continue with today. and since today is sunday, i'm mostly going to enjoy my house, my dog, my pool and my husband, not necessarily in that order (i may also enjoy an episode of pushing daisies, which is my new favorite show and which i like to call pulling poppies.)

i'm also working on the fall collection, which normally would not be a sunday thing (i really try to take saturday and sunday off) but since i live in costa rica and since that means if i want to get jewelry out of the country, i send it with a "personal courier" (this tends to be a friend or friend of a friend, strangers don't usually get saddled with this job), so i need to finish firing some original PMC clay pieces, so i can send them off on tuesday with a friend leaving out of san jose, who upon her return to san francisco will drop it in a fedex box on wednesday where it will go out to get plated in new york. (i do live in paradise, but things that are often simple in the first world take on epically difficult proportions from here.) i will then get these pieces back in atlanta where i'll turn them into sample necklaces for my upcoming trunk shows in atlanta and north carolina and my tradeshow in vegas.

which brings me nicely around to what my general plans are in the coming month. i'll be taking off for atlanta (my US base of operations) on july 15, where i'll spend a few days prepping for and hosting a private jewelry party, followed the next night by a trunk show at Market Boutique in Buckhead; followed by a six-day road trip doing sales and another trunk show at Cozy Boutique in Durham; on the heels of which will be the The Collections at WSA show at the Venetian in Vegas. anyone of you out there who'll be at the show (or just in vegas), please come by and say hello! i'm in suite #6136

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How to Clean and Polish Sterling Silver

i get asked all the time about the best way to clean and polish sterling silver. i've got a few answers for you:

1. If you live here in Tamarindo and your jewelry is plain silver or gold with few or no stones, I will happily tumble-polish your pieces for you for a very nominal charge. They come out super shiny and brand-new looking!

2. Recommended for flatware and hollowware - I'll try it on jewelry and let you all know how it works: "In an aluminum pot (or a pot lines with aluminum foil) mix a dilute solution of equal parts of bakin soda, salt and liquid soap. A quarter cup of each to a gallon of water would be a typical mixture. Set the sterling into the pot, bring the mix to a boil and allow to stand for a few minutes. Oxides are transferred to the aluminum. Rinse in water and wash before using." From Tim McCreight's,"The Complete Metalsmith"

3. I use this method all the time on my jewelry: Boil 2-3 Cups water. While the water is boiling, line a glass or plastic container (i use a tupperware container) with aluminum foil. Lay out your jewelry on top of the foil, sprinkle in a generous amount of baking soda (you don't have to burry the jewelry, but give it a light dusting). Pour on the boiling water to cover the jewelry. Let sit for a few mintues to a few hours, depending on how tarnished your pieces were. Rinse in water.

4. You can buy a commercial cream tarnish remover. My favorite is Wright's Silver Cream. You can find this in most hardware and grocery stores in the US.

5. You can also buy a polishing cloth from your local jeweler. They work well and are probably the easiest way to polish jewelry, though the results are not usually as shiny as the other methods.

Today's Favorite Thing

after three weeks of city, i find my treehouse-like view of forest and ocean with narry a buidling, road or person in sight to be utterly calming and utterly beautiful.
the lightening tonight is fabulous, lots of long streaks and few overhead clouds, so you can really see each strike. we get lots of lightening during the wet and it (and it's accompanying thunder) are some of my very favorite things
we discovered the bird's nest seen from out kitchen window is a type of oriole, but not the Baltimore variety

Today's Quote (or quotes if it's a busy day)

"be happy and make choices that allow you to be.. everything is a choice, you just need to accept the choices you make and savor the positves about that choice." -Dan Caplin
"I am old enough to know only too well my good and bad qualities, which were often one and the same." - Lisa See's Herione, from Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
"Your are getting a woman who somewhere along the line misplaced whatever slight faith she ever had in the social contract, in the meliorative principle, in the whole grand pattern of human endeavor." - Joan Didion, from The White Album
"There was always more in the world than men could see, walked they ever so slowly; they will see it no better for going fast. The really precious things are thought and sight, not pace. It does a bullet no good to go fast; and a man, if he be truly a man, no harm to go slow; for his glory is not at all in going, but in being." - John Ruskin, 19th Century artist. From Alain de Botton's, "The Art of Travel"