Some more cubic zirconia

Lovely handcrafted earrings with a lot of bling. Swarovski calls the color of this ctystal "Silk" and the rectangle cubic zirconia bead hanging in the middle of the 14k gold-filled hammered ring is almost identical. These are gorgeous and pictures truly do little justice to the sparkle these beauty reflect.

They are listed in my Etsy shop here.

Hope everyone has a great weekend. We're attending a wedding this afternoon so I'm off to handcraft both the card and the gift card holder.

Sunday's Feature

"To inspire & promote each other, we build, imagine, dream & we deliver a magnificent online zine. "

The mission of Skwigga-zine Magazine, an on-line magazine that encourages and supports the starving artists among us created by Missy, a talented illustrator and designer. I have blogged about Skwiggazine before, and I'll blog about it again because I believe in its message and mission. Please drop by and spend some time with us!

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My take on the red/turquoise color combination that was expected to be big this past spring, but I didn't see much of it in stores, only in the upscale fashion rags. But then again, that may mean we'll see it in our stores in the spring of 2009.

This handcrafted necklace is made of amazonite, red coral, and 14k gold-fill. It's a long piece which can be doubled, if desired. Feel free to click on the picture to get a larger, detailed version.

It's available here in my Etsy shop. If you decide to purchase, put "DHBlog" in your message to seller at checkout and I will give you a 10% discount. The discount will be refunded through PayPal. If you have any questions, feel free to convo me.

Fall 2008

I've been avoiding thinking of the fall season. When the temps stay around the three digit levels, even looking at the upcoming fall fashion lines makes me break out in a sweat! But as a designer of handcrafted jewelry, my head keeps telling me to stop delaying! So this morning I went to the Pantone Fashion Color Report Fall 2008 and printed page 2. The ink is still wet on the paper. Good thing I installed a new color cartridge earlier this week!

What a pleasant surprise! I love the colors and it will be a joy to start designing pieces to suit ... once the temps outside dip below 95F. It looks like I'll be using a lot of amethyst and lapis lazuli and smokey quartz. I need to replenish my lapis supply.

The Pantone color reports are important for the small-time designers to consider. Fortunately for us, we can wait until the freebie report is released on the Pantone website. If you're a designer catering to the retail and boutique market and sell at the accessories shows in the major market areas, you need a head start. Pantone offers "membership" to obtain reports well in advance, but it's expensive. Since I sell direct to the wearer, I can afford to wait.

Pantone is the leading manufacturer of dyes in the world so if they say Blue Iris, Royal Lilac, Shady Glade, etc are the colors for this upcoming fall, they will be the colors you see in the stores for fall. Withered Rose is my personal favorite. It looks like a Dusty Rose which was the best matched color for my eyes, hair color and skin tone when I had my colors done all those decades ago. (I wish I was very html-savvy so I could use colored text for the color names I just typed!)

How about these handcrafted earrings? I think they "read" Withered Rose. They are red aventurine and Golden Shadow Swarovski crystals made with 14k gold-fill. I have more red aventurine in my supply so I'm looking forward to putting out new pieces featuring that stone. Aventurine isn't an expensive stone, but it's beautiful. Colors range in green, peach, reddish, brown and blue. It's a quartz with inclusion of mica so there is a subtle shimmering effect called aventurescence.

I'll need to be heading over to Elle.com and check out the runway shows for Fall 2008 (which happened in February 2008) to see what all the trends are showing. Hopefully there will be some Withered Rose!