Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Forward Spring

 Teal beach glass pendant 'Ocean Flora'
 The Spring weather has been a little erratic here in Ireland of late. Last week an unexpected burst of sunshine saw us wiping the dust off our sunglasses and flinging on the sandals. Every Irish man and woman knows to grab those rays no matter how weak or fleeting as it might be the only look at the sun we get all year.  But it's back to cold reality this week with plummeting temperatures and even reported snowfalls on higher ground. Come back winter woollies, you're not done yet!





        'Susie'                                                   'Trudi'                      
 
                         
     'Jilly'
With the first hint of Spring, I was inspired to temporarily move away from gemstones and beach glass and create a new line of young, fun and affordable button pendants.  These cutsie pendants were first launched in my shop on the Irish site, Fondelifair and come in a range of bright, pretty colours and designs. As they are so girlie and feminine, I chose to give them all cute girls' names.

 
   'Maddy'                                               'Sally'                                                

This week I introduced the pendants to my more established shop on Etsy. The button pedants are fresh and feminine, perfect for your Spring and Summer wardrobe. But I won't tell if you wear yours in winter too!!


I've also been working on new earring designs in Connemara marble. Above is a sneak preview of what is to come very soon.  (Update 5th April; just listed, 'Irish Fairytale' earrings)

Below is work in progress:
One of the most frustrating things about rare Irish marble is the lack of variety in available beads. Luckily, once or twice a year I commission unique pendant shapes to be cut specially for me to work with but no mason is going to make up a small quantity of new bead shapes for me. It's not worth their while. Working on a custom order this past fortnight, I had to find ways to get around this inevitability and a result, ended up a with several new design ideas. As a bonus, I accidentally found tear drop beads that are already drilled the whole way through. Yay! I can't wait to make up some new designs and list them over the next few months.  Watch this space to see how I get on.








4 comments:

  1. I didn't know anything about Connemara marble, I thought that jewelry of yours was made out of tormaline or jade...Well, it's an astonishing material, which make your work even more significant :D

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    1. Hi.Connemara marble is a scarce, Irish stone that is over 600 million years old. I wrote up a post about it on my Fondelifair blog, which now I'm thinking I will re-post here soon. I must also do one on the other Irish marbles: Cork red, Kilkenny black and Ulster white. Thanks for the idea :-D

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    2. Great! I'll wait for them, to me it's a world opening...

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