Yet another happy customer. :)

I'm always so pleased when customers take the time to write to me to let me know what they think of my jewelry. Over the months, quite a bond was forged between me and Mary Hutchinson. Mary had contacted me for a custom order that she wanted designed from her beloved Aunt Nellie's Blue Willow china. When Aunt Nellie passed away, she left Mary a lovely Blue Willow platter which unfortunately fell and broke into many pieces. Mary tried to glue the platter back together but it was broken too badly. So she sent the pieces to me. Originally she had intended for the jewelry to be given to her relatives this Christmas. But she sent the china to me well ahead so I'd have plenty of time to work on it. I designed 12 pieces of jewelry for Mary, including pendants, earrings and men's tie tacks. And once it was completed, she didn't want to wait for Christmas for her surprise and decided to give the jewelry to her family when she saw them on the Fourth of July.



It was all quite a success and Mary said she'd be proud to let me share her story with you. I have posted about this china before but I would like to let you know how it all turned out. Here's one of the emails I received when Mary first received the china jewelry. Although she had seen photos that I sent her through email, this was the first time she actually saw the jewelry.

"Hello Marjorie! I am very happy to report that the jewelry has arrived! They are ALL BEAUTIFUL!! And I do like the way you have them in the little bags. Glad your business card is attached, too. Every piece is just perfect and I do so appreciate the obvious care that was put into each one. I feel a special bond and wish you much success as you continue in your creative endeavors. I will be sure to let you know how it goes when I present the gifts. Again, thank you, thank you."



And then I was very pleased to receive this email from Mary shortly after she met with her family on the fourth of July:

"Hello, Marjorie. Well, it was a huge success!! I presented everyone with their special piece of jewelry and there were many emotional tears and sounds of delight and excitement! They could not get over it!! And your workmanship was so appreciated by each person, especially with how individual all the pieces were. It could not have gone better. I felt so good and am so pleased --- again, thank you, thank you, thank you....Your ears must have been ringing - a good sound - for how happy you made everyone over the weekend!!"



Now Mary has ordered another pendant and a bracelet to be made from Aunt Nellie's china. I'd post photos of those, too, but I'm not sure if I'd be spoiling a surprise for another of Mary's friends or family member and I wouldn't want to do that!

All in all, it was a complete and total pleasure to be able to bring life back to Aunt Nellie's beautiful Blue Willow china. I'm going to be holding onto the rest of Aunt Nellie's china in case Mary or any other members of her family would like more jewelery designed from it.

P.S. Mary tells me that the bracelet I just made is a present for her so I can post a photo of it. Here it is:

Blue Willow custom order started

I had mentioned before about the custom order I've received to design china from a customer's Blue Willow china platter. This china belonged to her aunt whom she loved and admired greatly. Unfortunately, the platter fell off the top of the refrigerator and broke into far too many pieces to salvage. The customer has requested that I design jewelry from the china for her to give her relatives this Christmas. Since it is a Christmas order, I hadn't done anything with the china when it arrived. But I've now broken it into the desired pieces. I can't believe my luck that I was able to save the two birds and the boat which are such an integral part of the Blue Willow tale. To read the fascinating tale, please check out my prior blog posting.

Here are some of the pieces that I'll be using to make the pendants. In talking it over with my customer, we decided not to use the tree piece. Instead we may be using another one of the oval designs which is located in several places around the border of the platter. All of the pieces shown here are in very rough form and still need to be shaped and smoothed.



These pieces will be transformed in several pairs of earrings.
















And these will be used to make men's tie tacks. I'm very excited to be branching out into men's jewelry and will be adding more of this type of jewelry to my site in the very near future.
















So stayed tuned to see the final designs from this beautiful Blue Willow china platter.

Tale of Blue Willow China

One thing I love about working with broken china is finding out the history of the china piece that I'm working on. I recently received a request for information about a custom order and hopefully I'll soon be receiving this customer's broken Blue Willow platter. It's such a popular pattern but I've yet to have a chance to design anything from it so I'm looking forward to it. Plus this customer is also interested in men's jewelry which I also have wanted to do for some time now so I'm especially excited about getting started.

In talking about the china pattern, the customer sent along the story behind Blue Willow china. It's such a lovely story, I had to share it with you.

Once there lived a very wealthy mandarin who had a daughter named Hong Shee, who fell in love with her father's secretary, a man named Chang. To keep them apart, the father imprisoned his daughter in the palace. One day she escaped & the two lovers raced over the bridge to a waiting boat. They escaped, reached the boat & sailed away. A storm developed; the boat foundered; and the couple were lost at sea. It is said that two love birds appeared immediately thereafter - the spirits of Hong Shee & Chang, and live onto this day.

You can see the palace and the boat and the two love birds flying in the sky. I'll always think of this story now when I see this china pattern.

To see the final jewelry pieces designed from Blue Willow china, please click on this link.