Jewelery

Since I was a little girl, I have always loved jewelery. Colorful, traditional, weird, elaborate, simple, ethnic, silver or with stones...I love it all. And I have quite a collection to which I add, as often as possible, new pieces - handmade and not.

Today, I was going to show you a better picture of our wedding rings and when I was taking photos, it came to me that it might be a fun idea to share more of my collection with you.

Below are just a few sets that I have acquired recently and a few words about their history.

First of all, the wedding bands. Handmade to order by Titanium Knights from Etsy, they are made of jewelery quality titanium with thin, silver inlay line. The rings have sandblasted finish, which gives them porous texture. Read more about titanium rings and their qualities here.

Above are four sets/pieces of jewelery. All found their way to me very recently and all make me excited. The wide, wooden bangle and blue earrings are just pieces bought at whimsy because I like the color blue and have many outfits that they will fit nicely.

The amethyst and silver set has an interesting story. The ring was given to me by my mother-in-law on the day of my wedding. It's a family heirloom and I would really like to hear more about it, but so far there wasn't time. The bracelet, despite the fact that it looks as if it were a set with the ring, belonged to my godmother. She was wearing it at my wedding and when she saw the ring, she decided to give me the bracelet to make a match.

The last, "old gold" set I completed myself after browsing through the shops of Warsaw. I do not like real gold but at the same time, I am a big fan of "old looking" jewelery.

Mrs. P

From now on you can call me Mrs. P :D

Our wedding day was very special and almost everything went exactly how we wanted it. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and the bells were ringing (or at least they did in my head). Our friends and family enjoyed the ceremony and the dinner afterwards. We opted for a rather simple and relaxed celebration but chose a few very special elements:

The car that drove us to the wedding place was 1937 Buick Special.

I am in love with my cobalt (or persian) blue wedding dress from Tadashi Shoji. The form of the dress makes me think of origami folding and so to keep with the slightly oriental style of the outfit I chose white orchids for flower arrangement. The bouquet is large (thanks to white long stem grass) but because it's so simple in form and color it does not steal focus and is a perfect accessory.

We had our wedding rings specially made to order. It was Titanium Knights from Etsy that made them for us and we are super happy with the service and the product. I can't prise them enough! The rings were made exactly to our specifications and they look stunning. They are of course titanium and have thin silver inlay. My ring is thinner and more feminine, whereas Mr. P wanted his to be manly and thick. I promise a better photo on one of the coming days.

And last but not least, the wedding dinner and the cake.

The wedding cake's photo speaks for itself. I absolutely love the blue roses decoration. Very artful, don't you think?

The dinner took place in Sadhu Cafe in Warsaw and if you are ever in the city, you have to check it out! The food was eclectic, coming from Polish, Indian and Italian traditions and everything was delicious. The restaurant prides itself on preparing tasty treats for vegetarians and meat eaters alike, and they surely live up to their standards.

Now it is time to edit photos, order wedding books, and slowly but surely come back to real life.

A little treat for me!

, originally uploaded by Furya.

What do you think about my new blue earrings? I made them last month and from the moment I took them out of the oven, I knew they would be mine. I am in love with the hashed blue color and how it works with the white pattern.

I am still struggling with the whole cane business. In this piece I used kaleidoscopic/mosaic cane and it looks cool. However if you look closely you will see that the motives are not perfectly square and the pattern inside is also a bit twisted. Oh well, you can always say: I meant it that way!

And seriously: practice makes master so don't give up on your polymer clay.

Wedding's getting real

1950 Patan wedding, originally uploaded by dlisbona.

My wedding is approaching in huge steps now. It's only 2 weeks left now and it is getting real! Yey. I am very excited.
1. The dress is ready and waiting in the wardrobe
2. The shoes are bought
3. The cake with blue roses decoration is ordered
4. And the dinner place is booked
Of course there is something like 100 other details that are already arranged and probably 50 more still to lock down. But we are almost there and I honestly can't wait.
I promise there will be photos after the event but please forgive me if I am not very active here at the moment.

Polymer Clay Inspirations

Today, I would like to show you my polymer clay inspirations. There are great many gifted artists out there and below you can see only a small selection of work presented on flickr.

I hope they will inspire you as much as they inspire me to keep working and honing my skills.

1. Pastel Cat Sculpture, 2. Bangle, 3. ...Singing silk..., 4. Tropical flowers, 5. Ikat Necklace., 6. Cosmic Blossoms B-Side, 7. Black & White Ikat Shield - Aug 2009, 8. Polymer Clay Seabreeze Bracelet, 9. 'Gem (in hot pink)', 10. Filigree Bracelet bangles in many colors, 11. Robin Egg Beach Balls, 12. Green Retro Earrings, 13. Spaceballs, 14. Atardecer en el mar / Sunset on the Sea, 15. Blue Spiral, 16. Magic mushrooms, 17. Polymer Clay Star Flower Pendants, 18. Polymer Clay Necklace, 19. crumpled brooch, 20. Colgantes transferencia, 21. Leaf necklace, 22. Black Polymer Clay Heart with Pink Flowers, 23. Namtar , 24. ACEO Deep Forest polymer clay 1, 25. PS145c

Walkathon 2010

Did you hear about Walkathons? The first one took place in 1953 (sic!) in Puerto Rico and the idea is really a very simple one. You register as a participant, show up on the date and go for a lovely walk along the predetermined route. And the sponsor (in my case Ecco shoes company) gives money to a charity of your choice for every kilometer that you walked. It is a very nice and healthy way to spend a Sunday with your family or friends and you get to do something good for those less fortunate.

I walked today in the Aarhus Ecco Walkathon 2010 and did 10,5km (the route was only 10km long but we got lost a little bit along the way). We started by warming up in Tivoli Friheden (fun town).

The route was well chosen and took us through gardens, meadows, parks and the forest on the seaside. Many people took this occasion to spend some healthy time with their kids and the sponsor made sure to make it especially fun for the youngest. They could get small booklets and collect check points with funny cartoon characters on them.

The following Walkathons will take place in Aalborg (21.08), Odense (04.09), Kolding (16.10) and Copenhagen (29.08) and Hamburg (19.09) and Warsaw (11.09)

Thoughts on Creativity

Last week my friends, knowing how much I enjoy Ted Talks, pointed me in the direction of this clip. Ken Robinson, an expert on cultural education, talks about how schools kill creativity in children. I think he is making a lot of sense in that in many countries (especially European ones) we educate people to be academics. Primary schools prepare us for high schools and these in turn prepare us for universities. There is very little to no, practical skills taught.

But what I think is the best part of the talk, is when Sir Ken says that to be creative, you have to be ready to make mistakes. You have to be ready to be wrong. And isn't it your experience that at school, you were laughed at whenever you made a mistake? That when writing a paper, you stuck to the safe ground, because if you tried to use your imagination (or even longer words), the effort didn't matter and you got penalized for spelling mistakes? How terrible is it that in our culture "artist" is not a real job?