January’s Elegant Birthstone - Garnet

Desiree Bracelet

Garnets come in a variety of colors including the beautiful pink/merlot rhodolite garnet.  Rhodolite garnet has a blue/pink undertone and a gorgeous sparkle and translucency that is very different from regular garnet with its brownish red undertones.  This Desiree Bracelet was just completed and photographed today and is a thoughtful gift idea for someone with a January birthday or perhaps saving it for someone special for Valentine’s Day! 

The generous step cut nuggets bring out the beautiful rich merlot color - especially in the daylight. The translucent characteristic of the rhodolite garnets  are married to creamy white freshwater briolette pearls to form a bracelet infused with elegance.  24k gold vermeil (gold plated silver) accent beads add to the richness of the design.  This bracelet extends from 7.5” to 9” long and culminates with a unique button pearl detail that gives the bracelet a slight Moorish influence.

Kelley Proxmire via Coco+Kelley

via How Joyful

via Cote de Texas

With today’s interior design trends influencing this bracelet of red & white, you can easily see that the balance of colors leans toward more white with just an touch of red providing a very dramatic accent.  Red in interior design is a concept that is very much based on emotion - love it or hate it!  Personally, I love the warmth and drama of a red infused room, but have found that it has more longevity when used merely as an accent.

Valentino

Although in interior design, red as an accent color is more comfortable for most - nothing can compare to the arresting beauty of a woman dressed in red!

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Will You Be my Valentine? A Sweet Valentine Give-Away!

I was recently in the process of negotiating with my hubby over some fabulous antique cherub lamps I found to add to our Family Room (really. . . that just involved a lot of whining on my part and trying to change his mind by creating some of his favorite dinners). His logic (and distain for pudgy little cherubs) won in the end - and the classic antique bisque lamps that had been sitting in our storage unit (originally bought for a client in Boston) turned out even better than I had envisioned (but not without a lot of elbow grease on my part!).

Fast forward a few weeks - and now we are getting even closer to Valentine’s Day. I still dream about those adorable little cherub lamps and what a perfect statement it would have made for the design of the Family Room. Just as I was about to resolve myself to no sweet little antique cherubs in the room – the fates flaunted yet another little angel for me to lust over – a wonderfully chippy white antique fountain cherub (and he is on sale!). I think I will print out this blog posting with a big red circle around this photo. Maybe Cupid will threaten him with arrows if he does not come through this time!

With Valentine’s Day in mind, my thoughts have turned to all things pink & red (both interior design and jewelry). Both colors are favorites of mine, but I tend to wear more pink than red. I just erased our red Family Room and Kitchen when we embarked on our renovation. Although I love the look of whites, ivory and gray – I suspect I will get bored such a neutral palette sooner rather than later. After all, I was raised in the colorful South.

Once criticized for creating a “Pink Palace” in Boston, I still have remnants of pink all over the house in Scottsdale. After so many years as a designer in Boston, I realized that people tend to like to decorate their homes similarly to the colors found in their closets – big surprise!

Pink in interior design, however, must be used judiciously. Too much and the effect can be sickeningly sweet! Used sparingly, it is a romantic, comforting and friendly color.

Bakeries frequently use pale pink boxes to package their delectable confections with the full knowledge that the soft pink color causes us to crave sugar!

Red is another color that you either love or hate in interior design. Psychologically, it evokes passion and intimacy while physiologically it increases our heart rate, blood pressure and appetite.

Casinos have historically used red to create a stimulating environment that has the added benefit of causing us to loose track of time!

For the past week or two, my jewelry workspace has been a cacophony of red, pink gemstones and creamy white pearls as I prepare for the most romantic holiday – Valentine’s Day.

If you have managed to make it to the end of this post – well, maybe you are the fortunate “Valentine”. I will be gifting a pair of “Bien-Aimé” earrings to one lucky reader on February 10th. Post a comment below and make certain I have info on how to reach you in case you win.

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Designing Jewelry in Chaos – Who Moved My Island?

Someone mentioned to me recently that they were reading my blog to see the progress of my kitchen renovation, but wanted to see what the project looked like in the “before” photos. Of course they also mentioned that it was a “unique” concept for a blog – interior designs as inspiration for jewelry design. Well, I am afraid to say. . . it is a strange combination - but it is my life. I was an interior designer for 25+ years until I moved to Arizona and decided to try my hand at jewelry design. This of course, is the Cliffs Notes version of what happened.

Kitchen Before All The Mayhem Started

As it turns out, I actually had taken some photos of the kitchen and family room before we began this little odyssey. The last two weeks have really been about moving plumbing & running electrical lines in addition to more demo.

Family Room Fireplace Before

We bought this home from the original owners who apparently thought “outside the box” on some of their ideas. Such was the case with the fireplace. When we moved into the house, much to my chagrin, we were dealing with an electric fake fireplace that was truly an eyesore. It was not until the painter was changing the color from a very unappealing flesh color to riotous red, when he discovered what appeared to be a wood burning fireplace unit that had been pushed back into the recesses of the corner with the electric fireplace taking center stage! The entire concept was unimaginable to me! Who in their right mind would prefer fake logs to the real deal? I had to go outside to check if we actually had a chimney. Eureka – we did!

Family Room Fireplace After "Mantle", "Crown" And Electric Fireplace Are Removed

Suffice to say the idea of hooking up the original fireplace and getting rid of the ridiculous “mantle” that was apparently installed by someone with a severe case of vertigo and also removing the equally absurd decorative “Santa Fe” crown – was like finding a stash of diamonds for me! This idea has been stewing around in my head for several years, but I had no idea what might be involved in correcting this little horror or how much it might cost. Since the kitchen and family room are visually one space and we were making a mess anyway – it seemed like a good idea to rip everything out. More demo – more dust!

Kitchen Island Moved 6" - A New Wall & Base Cabinets Installed

There was a light at the end of that dusty tunnel. When the house was built, I suspect the crew must have been working on a Monday after a hard week-end of partying. The lines for the plumbing in the island were much too far away from the rest of the kitchen – 57” to be exact. As a result, the island made for a space planning nightmare! I made the decision to move the island back 6” to give us a smidge more room around the table. This little folly is pretty much like fixing a gunshot wound with a ban-aid – but it’s the best we can do! In any event, the island was torn down, the plumbing moved, a wall constructed and base cabinet boxes installed. The jury is still out on this idea.

My Favorite - Calcutta Oro Marble

Today the crew will begin the process of making the templates for the marble and I am so thrilled. My hubby knows that I have a radar for choosing the most expensive items in the showroom and this marble was no exception. Once I got a look at the Calcutta marble slabs – nothing else would do. Of course, that means we are already very much over budget. The truth is that even though I will take the blame for this budgetary disaster, hubby really liked the Calcutta as well and it became the inspiration point for the kitchen.

Somehow (and I don’t really even understand this myself), I have been a very busy bee making up jewelry for custom orders in the midst of all this confusion. Beading must be much more therapeutic than even I realized!

Densely Embedded Tourmilated Straws Create A Very Dramatic Feature Bead

Merlot Colored Pearls And Softly Cupped Petal Pearls Create A Dramatic Cluster

Since red is the color for fall - I decided to make up some earrings with some intriguing tourmilated quartz beads falling from a cluster of merlot red pearls. I loved the way they turned out and will probably make up a necklace using the same colors to add to the “Flora Collection". These colors remind me of the velvety deep red found in Celosia or Cockscomb. So, here I am again, designing jewelry in the midst of chaos!

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