Works in progress

Working on designs for my friend Camille's custom order for her bridesmaids. Her colors are in the gold and brown families, since her wedding is going to be an autumn one.


A prototype of the bridesmaid earring. The one for the maid-of-honor will be more intricate. These are made of smoky quartz brios and vermeil chain.

New in the shop

I have a few new things finished, starting with these tourmaline earrings. She's "Eve," named after the awesome girl robot in "WALL-E."

Eve is now up at the shop!

Wishing all my American friends a happy 4th!

Because I'm a nerd

I bought this.

I plan on putting him on my desk at work and proclaiming my robot love. He will join Yoda, Luke Skywalker, and a stormtrooper.

I love action figures. And yes, I am aware - apparently I am a 12 year old boy.

Also, I unexpectedly found myself with a four-day holiday weekend. I'm going to use my windfall to rest, since I feel like I've been going non-stop for weeks, as well as catch up on jewelry production and all that goes with it (including working on custom orders). I also hope to take care of business-related stuff such as taxes, relax with some new books, and hang out by my sister's pool. It will be a relaxed kind of busy, I hope.

I also have homework for Sunday's metalsmithing class: I have to come up with sketches of design ideas.

Metal madness

My quest to take my craft to the next level has hit a bit of a road bump. This past Sunday I went to my first of five metalsmithing classes. I've been looking forward to them since early spring and when I finally got there, I'm sorry to say it was a bit disappointing.

There are a few things about the class that I wasn't happy with, compounded by my difficulties with the technical stuff, including the stupid jeweler's saw. The jeweler's saw and I are not friends. I'm afraid we may never be friends. What's more, I believe the jeweler's saw hated me as much as I hated it. It was a mutual fountain of hate between the jeweler's saw and me. Not only did I keep breaking the blade while attempting to cut a piece of silver sheet metal, I also hurt my hand badly from trying to hold the sheet metal at an awkward position. And it's all the fault of the jeweler's saw.

To add insult to injury, the studio uses these hard core acetylene torches in giant industrial-sized tanks with a monstrous nozzle for soldering work. Now, I first learned how to solder on the smaller butane torches. And it worked beautifully. The acetylene torch, on the other hand, was so huge and so unwieldy that I ended up melting the ring I was making. Because of its weakened state, the ring broke apart while I attempted to hammer it in shape.

What makes things doubly frustrating is that I thoroughly enjoyed the soldering class I took a few months ago. I was on such an artistic and technical high when I got home from it. I loved the whole experience; I picked up on the technique immediately.

This, however, is a slightly different story. I attribute some of my difficulties to my unfamiliarity with working with sheet metal. I think I much prefer wire.

So it has not been a very auspicious beginning, but I'm hoping these are just growing pains and that things will improve as the weeks go by.

Sold!

These are the latest pieces that have sold. My sales are still pretty far between that I get really excited when I make a sale - and I mean really excited.

So thank you, ladies!

This also means that to-date, $15 will be going toward AmeriCares, plus another $15 in matching funds from Hazel Designs.

Robot love

We just saw "WALL-E", and it was wonderful. The sweetness of it made me cry. I loved how the girl robot, WALL-E's love interest, was totally kickass. Capable and competent. And she had an equally kickass weapons system that the audience kept cheering over.

I must say WALL-E is quite possibly the sweetest robot ever, sweeter even than R2D2.

In addition, the special effects were amazing, the plot highly clever, and the animation sheer genius.

It was a breathtakingly lovely film.

Third and final installment

Here are the last of my pictures that I wanted to share!

This display was right outside a restaurant in Chelsea. It was so pretty that I couldn't resist.


The exterior of 202, the Nicole Farhi boutique/cafe in the Meatpacking District.


'Nuff said.


We ran into a street fair in midtown next to our second hotel of the weekend (the Park Central - highly, highly not recommended. Please do yourselves a huge favor and avoid this hotel like the plague).

However, the street fair was great. We found a crepe stand. I also found the keffiyehs that my sister asked me to find for her. Apparently they are the latest hip hop accessory and she can't find them anywhere, but we saw them at the fair and I bought her a whole bunch in different colors.



I bought a crepe with strawberries, bananas, and nutella. I was in heaven.


We had dinner at Docks in the Upper West Side one night and got this great banana bread pudding for dessert.


Carnegie Deli, Mr Hazel's favorite place in New York after Yankee Stadium. If he could, he would eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner here.


I've had a busy week. It's especially crazy whenever I go away for the weekend, but the rest of the week was jam packed with things so it added to the craziness. On Monday we went to the baseball game and had the privilege of hearing the Gay Men's Chorus sing the national anthem. They were incredible, and I was so proud of my baseball team for inviting them. We also saw Rob Reiner there!

I am obsessed with the new Angels & Airwaves album, "I-Empire". And by obsessed, I mean obsessed. It is incredibly good and I can't stop listening to it. Some of the songs give me goosebumps. They are currently my #2 favorite band after U2, and that's saying a lot, considering how much I love my Bono.