Jewel-de-jour: Georg Jensen artist's heart 2009

 

The Big Sissa and I have matching hearts.  I gave it to her for the Christmas before last.  Her heart was broken and mine was breaking.  

I love the Georg Jensen annual collections.  I'm slowly collecting a few heritage pendants and also starting on the artist hearts. This one is by artist Regitze Overgaard.

Jewel-de-jour: Black and White lazer cut brooch

Drove to country NSW for a funeral today.  Always sad - but particularly cute that the church was packed with oldies who've known each other for years and also the guard of honour formed outside the church by fellow golfing friends.

The brooch was a gift from the Boy's mum for my birthday, although he was not my boy at the time.  It was particularly touching that she was caring enough to buy me a little something to take on my travels so I didn't miss out.  I love it.

Jewel-de-jour: White resin rosettes

From my New Years travels to Lorne.  I loved them so much I bought them in three different colours.  Stay tuned for those babies.

Jewel-de-jour: Spanish floating garnet ring

The Mumma and I did a last minute dash to Europe in 2005 to surprise my french mumma for her 50th.  In the week afterwards, the Mumma and I ducked down to Granada to check out the Alhambra.  While exploring the cobblestone streets and squares of Granada, we stumbled across a very cute jewelery store.  I found this gem, so to speak, and fell in love. 

I love unusual silver jewelery, and I particularly love the way the garnet floats on the side of the ring.

Jewel-de-jour: Turquoise earrings from New Mexico

A closer look

Blue rectangles of turquoise goodness! 

In October last year (wow, feels weird to say last year so early on in the new year), the Big Sissa and I went on a jewelery-hunting mission to New Mexico, USA.  In Santa Fe we discovered heaven for silver jewelery lovers.

I found these turquoise rectangle earrings with black, mustard, forrest green and white stone inlay on the right hand side at the outdoor markets next to the Santa Fe Plaza.  Here, the local american indian artists (mostly Zuni or Navajo) come to sell their or their families artworks directly so you know that there is no middle man taking a commission on the amount you pay.  The artist's initials are NC,  where the N stands for Nancy.  I can't recall her surname but it was a husband and wife team who made and sold the american indian jewelery.

Jewel-de-jour: Turkish turquoise and red coral ring

I bought this ring in Goreme, Turkey.  We'd spent the previous few days hunting for silver jewels in Istanbul to no avail.  Don't get me wrong, there was plenty of amazing silver jewelery available it's just that nothing in particular caught my eye, and I was also too paranoid about being ripped off when buying 'genuine silver'. 

The store I bought it from was run by a little family.  The chief saleswoman was the daughter of the owner and had her winning sales techniques down pat, not to mention perfect english.  I finally succumbed to the claims of 'genuine silver' and let myself be trusting of the claims that the ring is genuine sterling silver, with antique turquoise (deeper blue) and red coral.  I had the ring resized as it was a little big and later in the week a few shards of 'silver' started peeling off the back.   Underneath looked like a dark 'fools gold' colour.  I was devo.  I was sure I had been ripped off on the first occasion that I decided to trust a turkish sales person. 

These days the back of the ring has smoothed out and the 'diggits' left behind by the peeling shards of silver now just look like dents from wear and tear.   My fears of being ripped off have been allayed and now I simply enjoy my beautiful ring from Turkey.

Goodbye old faithful

I made this ring when I was on a world trip with my sister at our first stop - Thailand.  I blogged about it here.

I vowed to wear it until 1 Jan 2011 as this was the date I gave myself for 'hypothetical' new beginnings. As that date approaches I am reluctant to part with the ring that has accompanied me on some amazing world adventures. But I've since come to realize that much of my much loved jewelry doesn't get a run and i'm keen to remedy that this year. So fond farewells to the ring, and overdue farewells to the epic and life changing year that was 2010. Happy New Year! x