My first Etsy Treasury!

I never expected to get a Treasury - I've been trying for a couple of nights now but it always eludes me. But tonight was my night and I grabbed my first Etsy Treasury!

A Garden of China Delights

For those of you not familiar with Etsy, it's a fabulous place to shop online for unique handcrafted and vintage items. I recently opened a shop there and have enjoyed meeting other Etsy sellers. One of the fun things to do over at Etsy is to try to grab a Treasury. They're in great demand and it's not easy to snag one. The purpose of the Treasury is to highlight items that you've found on Etsy that you particularly love. I've used my Treasury to spotlight broken china jewelry artists. Now I'm hoping that my Treasury will find its way to Etsy's Front Page! Wish me luck! :-)

Still lots of flowers in NJ

Since we had a very cold week with even frost a couple of nights, I was really surprised when I walked back to my garden last weekend. There were still lots of flowers out there. I know their days are numbered but it was nice to see that they had made it through the cold week.

I know one plant that loves the cold is the gerbera daisy. They always start blooming more this time of year. Here are a couple of mine. These are actually last year's gerbera daisies. They're considered an annual here in New Jersey but I brought them into the house last winter and they made it through. I'll probably dig a few of them up this weekend and bring them in.





























And a few weeks ago, I found a black eyed susan plant lying in someone's gutter. It was pretty dried up but I saw a little green on it so I brought it home and planted it. I cut it back really good and in a matter of days, it started sending off new shoots. And it's rewarded me by blooming again - and it's absolutely not the time for black eyed susans to blooms in NJ! I like to think it's saying thank you for rescuing me. :-)



And there, of course, are fall mums,












canna lilies,













cosmos,













and zinnias.















And here's the last rose of summer!



Goodbye sweet flowers - see you in the spring. :-)

I've been tagged - yes, again! :-)

This time I've been tagged by Lostmitten. Forgive me, Lostmitten, for taking so long to post about this. Here are the rules.

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Here are my facts:

1. I'm a vegetarian.
2. I'm a morning person and have just switched my work hours to 8 to 4 instead of 9 to 5.
3. I've lived in the same house since 1974 (did I use that one before?).
4. Here's an embarrassing one. You may have seen my AOL address of hubblegal - it's been a long held secret but hubble isn't for the telescope out there in space but it's for the character Robert Redford played in "The Way We Were" - only I couldn't even get it right - his name was actually spelled Hubbell! Oh, well.
5. When I say my name Marjorie on the phone, so many people say "Hi, Audrey". Marjorie, Audrey, whatever you'd like to call me is fine.
6. I have cereal with a banana cut up on it and orange juice every morning for breakfast. Nothing boring about me.
7. I'm reading "The Story of Edgar Sawtelle" by David Wroblewski. I know that's not really about me but you have to read this book - it's absolutely beautiful.

Now for the blogs I'm tagging. Don't blame me - blame Lostmitten! :-)

Lou's Addictions
Catwalk Creative
DeCor's Handmades
KaReNNStoNe
Pam's Jools & Gems
Auggie Queen Parker
Diane Bracy

P.S. The funniest thing happened. When I went over to tell Pam at Pam's Jools & Gems that she'd been tagged, I saw that she had just tagged me on her blog! So now I've been tagged twice this week - and so has Pam! LOL!

This week on Athena Magazine - ChezChani!

For this week's article on Athena Magazine, I've chosen to highlight the work of ChezChani, the jewelry designing team of mom and daughter Roz and Elayne. Roz does lovely glasswork and wire wrapped jewelry and Elayne creates peyote stitch jewelry.

So stop by the Athena Magazine Weblog to find out more about them and their work and please leave some comments while you're there!

Featured on Stylelist!

Stylelist, which is a very popular website for today's fashion trends, beauty tips, hair styles and shopping ideas, has very kindly featured my jewelry in their independent artists section. I'm very pleased to be part of such a cool site!

Stylelist Feature

Matching broken china bracelet

I've worked up a broken china bracelet to go with the fall jewelry I recently posted. This piece has a Czech goldstone bead with two shards of fall-colored broken china on each side. The wire chain is made with copper artist wire and measures 7-1/2". I love the way these wire chain bracelets hang lightly on your wrist. The bead looks a bit orange in the photo but is actually a chocolate brown with tiny gold specks - very striking. And the copper wire sets off the blues and browns in the china beautifully.



This bracelet is now available at Marjorie's Cracked Plate Jewelry Store.

Jewelry column for Athena Magazine Weblog

I'll be writing a weekly jewelry column for Athena Magazine Weblog starting this week. I'm very excited about it and looking forward to coming up with some new ideas for it. Here's this week's:

Bold Rings Necklaces and Bracelets Are Big This Year

I'll be including all the hot new trends in the jewelry world, highlighting some of my favorites and featuring independent jewelry designers. And I may throw in some of my own work too. I hope you'll stop by and leave some comments on the Athena Magazine Weblog. I'll post a link to each week's entry here so my faithful readers will know where to find it. If you have any ideas that you would like seen in the weekly column, I'd be delighted if you'd send them along.

And while you're at the Athena Magazine Weblog, check out their past entries. They have a fascinating combination of posts about jewelry, vintage fashion, trends, recipes, crafts and household tips. It's quite an all-encompassing blog and I know you'll enjoy it.

Cake Wrecks!

I found the funniest blog - all about cake wrecks. I'm sure we've all heard funny stories about ordering cakes that don't turn out quite as expected. But these are just hilarious!

I'm sure this isn't what the customer meant when he or she said "I want sprinkles"!



And I've seen "Congratulations" spelled wronged on cakes but never this badly!



And I think this one was quite tongue in cheek!



The Cake Wrecks blog can be found at http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com. Enjoy!

New fall jewelry!

I had found a beautiful Bavarian china plate from Germany that I had planned on as my next project. I did break it into pieces and I did file quite a few of the pieces down and was all ready to start on it when I found a really beautiful china bowl with great fall leaves and colors. As soon as I saw that bowl, I knew it was just the perfect time to create some jewelry from it.

Plus I found these beautiful Czech goldstone beads from The Bead Station on Etsy that went perfectly with the colors in the china. The Bead Station is a great place to buy beads, by the way.

I also recently learned that big, bold, chunky jewelry is all the rage right now. My first two fall creations are right in tune with that! They both can be found on Marjorie's Cracked Plate Jewelry Website.

The first one is a large colorful fall leaf pendant, wrapped with copper artist wire with three of the goldstone beads. The pendant measures 2" x 2".



This one's a more mod-looking design with beautiful fall colors, also wrapped with copper artist wire with three goldstone beads. The measurement of this pendant is 1-3/4" x 2".



I also designed a smaller pendant to go with a crocheted wire necklace which I created using both gold and copper artist wire. Included are five of the Czech beads. The necklace measures 19-1/2" and the pendant measures 1-1/4" x 1". This unique necklace is available here.



Of course I had to include some earrings so here they are, measuring 1-1/2" long not counting hoops. You can find them here.



If you have any questions about my jewelry, please let me know.

A few more mentions

It's always such a pleasure when other sites mention my jewelry and there are a few new ones today. Here are the links:

CraftGossip Blog Network

The Art Zoo

And how nice to find this one in a foreign language! I think it's Italian. I tried using a translating website but it only translated a few words. One section translated into "pure enchantment" which sounded good!

Re-Creazione

Thank you to each of these sites for giving my work a mention - it's very much appreciated.

Such a lovely blog article by Catwalk Creative. :-)

Louise Sleigh of Catwalk Creative has written such a lovely blog article about my jewelry. Louise runs a vintage clothing store and dress agency and she's a big fan of my jewelry. I'm very appreciative of all of the support she's shown me. Here's the link to the blog article:

Broken China for Christmas

Thanks again, Louise. It's people like you who make it all worthwhile. :-)

Jamee of Jonara Blu Maui has featured my jewelry!

What a very lovely surprise. Jamee Jones of Jonara Blu Maui has featured my jewelry on her blog. She does a wonderful job with her blog and I'm quite honored to be featured there. And she wrote such a fabulous piece about my jewelry. Check out the rest of her blog to see the beautiful jewelry she creates in Hawaii. She specializes in beach wedding jewelry and her designs are top notch.

Jonara Blu Maui Blog

Thank you, Jamee! I'm all smiles. :-)))

Beaded embroidered wedding necklace - WOW!

One of my jewelry friends just posted photos of some of her new work on Facebook and I'm just blown away by this one. It's a bead embroidered necklace and it's the first one she's ever done. Amazing, isn't it? She said there are Swarovski crystals, freshwater pearls and Japanese Delica beads in it. The center cab is a quartz and the ones on the sides of that are mother of pearl.

This was created by Pamela Britcliffe Davis and is available on her website at Looner Creations. While you're there, check out her other fabulous jewelry. She has a style all her own and it's a fabulous one. She also sells lots of wonderful bead patterns.

Feature on Greco Woodcrafting Weblog

John Greco of Greco Woodcrafting Weblog, a fellow Etsian from New Jersey, was kind enough to let me give a few words of advice to artists/crafters on his weblog. It was easy to do because I'm always giving myself those same words of advice! Thanks for the opportunity, John. :-)

Greco Woodcrafting Weblog