Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Loss

Oh my.

If I had known when I put my shop on sale yesterday that it would be odd foreshadowing I would have wondered at it all....

My dearest soon-to-be-hubby is being let go ( albeit with a few leads to go on ) from his company.

My heart aches.


xo,
A

Monday, September 29, 2008

25% OFF!!!!!!!!!!




My entire leather shop is 25% off. If you've loved something from afar now is the tim to grab it up and cradle it for years to come.
Pass the word on to those you know!!!

You will notice nothing in the shop is customizeble or made to order: in preparation for the wedding I can not take any more custom orders: when I return from the honeymoon those items will magically reappear!

I had an amazing time at the fair and it inspired this fresh wind through my little tree. Enjoy the sale: may it be as gratifying and lovely for you as it is for me :)

( All prices marked in the shop are the regular prices - break out your calculators to tabulate what you will pay - CONVO me beforehand so I can adjust the price and reserve the item for you or I will just send you a refund via Paypal after you make your purchase )

Saturday, September 27, 2008

In a few Hours

I'll be taking my shops to vacation mode to go to the Abbott Kinney Festival tomorrow: everything I have made will be going with me and there's no guarantee that it's coming back with me, which is exciting!
If there's something you love, make note of it in case it gets sold: I can usually reproduce something give or take a different chain or stone.
I made this for myself today:

from a bracelet whose back got discolored: I love it and it fits like a dream!

Friday, September 26, 2008

Something For Everyone



I have to share something I have been doing with you, as it is making a rather massive difference in my life: I have been meditating. 15 minutes in the morning and 15 in the late evening, preferably right before bedtime.
It's not easy to quiet my mind, but in those moments when I can it is just so still and silent that even breathing feels magical.
I was having a really hard time with the stresses of running a business and working on the wedding in an administrative capacity, aside from the everyday challenges of learning and growing.
My reserves were empty, I was grinding my teeth at night and waking up with neck stiffness: my emotions were so close to the surface and fragile that I couldn't even watch Ratatouille, that Pixar film about a Rat who longs to cook - the chase scenes were jarring, the stress of his potential discovery under that guy's hat too taxing on my poor little overblown senses....
So I decided to start meditating, remembering how good it felt on my senior year of college when I became similarly overwhelmed.
Here are the pros:
I am more objective about difficult situations.
Patience is HUGE now - with downed computers at the USPS yesterday I stood in line with an honestly serene heart while a few others did that loud sighing thing that signifies grrrreat displeasure.
When I cry it feels like a rainstorm: like something is getting cleared out that needed to be, and like what's left behind has been given a chance to grow stronger FOR having cried.
I feel grateful a whole lot.
My heart palpitations are lessened greatly ( I get that monitor thingee next Thursday: cannot wait to post pictures! )
Overall quality of life is improved.
Serendipitous little things keep happening over and over again, I am much more psychic, testing myself even to see what lanes cars will go to, when they will turn left or right and being correct so much of the time it's almost scary.


Cons:












So there you have it. Meditating for non-mystical purposes has changed my life. I sincerely hope I can keep this up regularly as a habit for life: given what I listed for you above it seems like it would be a tragedy to lose those benefits by lack of stck-to-it-ness.

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

The Booty




A King's Ransom of turquoise and dyed Jade, but mostly turquoise - I have the need to make so many things out of it, but I hesitate because I don't want to see the size and scope of this gorgeousness reduced.
I have always had a terrible dread of using the last of the shampoo and conditioner in a bottle: something in my heart sinks a little when they're gone - it's really actually very silly, because I always have more waiting: flavors and colors that I couldn't wait to use when they were purchased...
It's just a quirk - ironically I am not a keeper of things: sentimental scraps of paper and such with some great exceptions: I look at it as this: I cannot take anything with me when I pass on, so why bother trying to fill my drawers with things I don't use or see as a thing of beauty?
And yet I will sit staring at a pile of stones as though heaven had descended into my workshop, unsure of how to let them become the pieces they came to me to be.

Oh my...


In the leather shop: hurry before I change my mind and keep it :)

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Custom Emotion



I don't know about my other creative ladies out there, but every once in a while I get a custom order that makes me very emotional: like this one - I cried when I finished the moon. Sometimes I feel like inside of each koi is something dying to be partnered, a little loneliness that the central stone or silver charm helps allay with its presence: and here is the moon, the loneliest thing in the sky, so solitary and serene - that they are together entwined in sterling chain just made me misty.
Like something was made right.
Hm.

Not a Mall Girl

Anthony saw some things he wanted to wear in the wedding at Macy's in The Beverly Center.
If left to his own devices, I know he'd do just fine, but I wanted to give him moral support: we are not lovers of mall culture and the Beverly Center is especially painful because of the carefully studied nonchalance and sunglasses-indoors-wearing-cell-phone-affixed-to-ear-through-transaction Beverly Hills-ness of it all.
It just feels so foreign to me in so many ways, that mall - and trust me when I tell you I was glued to my local mall growing up: it's where I had my first covetous feeling ( an off-the shoulder pink sweater at Express ) and the first place I desperately hoped boys would notice me: it was a mecca of sorts to a suburban teenage girl.
She who was once a teenager is a full-blown woman who prefers to shop online, prefers handmade to machine and cannot get her head out of the numbers when looking at tags, "How much is this made for? Marked up percentage-wise?" and the mall was so painful for me I felt RIdiculous -- in and out of technoflourescent stores with salespeople who so obviously see you as potential and seem to have no interest real kindness....
Oh, my.
What a difference a decade makes ( and some serious change ).

Tropical


An ode to the tropical amazingness I will see in Hawaii!!! in the leather shop now.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Birds of A



Peacock Feather stick together :) I missed the large feather necklaces so much, and since I am going to be selling at the Abbott Kinney Street Fair this coming Sunday I had to make a few more!!

I suggest that if you really, reall love something in my shop, this is the week to get it.
Everything will be on hold and my shop will be empty on Sunday with everything I've made coming with me.
I have no misgivings that I will sell everything I come with, but it's best to be on the safe side if it's a one of a kind item.

I am so excited to be a part of something so big and fun as this festival: so many good things have happened to me on Abbott Kinney. It's where the voiceover studio is, it's where I can get the best macaroons in town, it's down the street from the first boutique to ever host my items....

Life is sweet on Abbott Kinney! If you're in Los Angeles, come down and see me, this Sunday the 28th of September from 10:00 AM to 6:30 PM :)

Saturday, September 20, 2008

A Man Like You

Exuberant!



Oh, this color is so divine!!!

The little brass ovals hanging from the bottom of the earrings say, "Real Love", as one oval shuffled behind the other one. They are reminder earrings. On a date with a young man who speaks and never listens? In the throes of terrible self doubt? Alone in the woods? Meditating by an open city window?
There you have a little reminder in the whisper of brass under a flower as lively and lovely as you. 'real love', 'real love', 'real love' says the breeze.
Wait for it: I promise it's worth every 'wasted' minute :)

Friday, September 19, 2008

Here it is


I think I left some of my heart in this necklace: it appears to have been stolen away by the stones and the way this takes me somewhere else: I am in a car with the windows open and it is setting in Santa Fe.
In the leather shop now.

Dust those Beautiful Shoulders



With these beautiful earrings:


I have been momentarily revived by taking a trip to my favorite bead store where I found this strand of turquoise that glowed from within with its very own sun. Sometimes on Fridays I have to force myself out into the world ( it's my day off from most everything else ) and get some sun and smile at strangers.
To come home with a handful of beads and some of the most sumptuous gold-filled chain lit a small fire under my seat and I hear the studio calling my name. There is a feather necklace I hope to complete and photograph before the sun gets too dim tonight: I'll show you soon :)

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Janey

We got Jane in March of last year after seeing a picture of her sent in an email: small, scared, blank and brown. Tabby. Eyes of green that were not a window to anything in particular, but perhaps her fear.
We took her out of her carrier and Jones hissed and hissed around her while she sat blinking as if into the midday sun, disoriented and afraid.
Weeks were spent under furniture where we couldn't reach her. Sometimes we'd catch her sitting on the sofa and we'd pull her onto our lap where she would sit, unmoving, unresponsive for long periods of time.
Jane had spent the first five months of her life in a parking garage at USC, which is near downtown Los Angeles. People left food for her and that is the only way she survived. How she managed NOT to get hit by a moving car is a mystery to me, but when I think of her there in the cold and dark my heart breaks even now.
You see, she has become a dynamo of sweetness and even when she's playing she acts as an angel at all times. Janey pibbers in a kind of bird language and only meows when she sees a bug or if Anthony and I are in the creative room, to which the door is always closed. If you visit and you hear a thin, high strangled sound as though an injured baby pteradactyl has landed in our home, that is Janey complaining that we've been away too long behind closed doors.
As the months pass she becomes more playful, more curious about our visitors and apt to offer them her cheek in record time.
She makes me ache with love. When Anthony goes to put on his shoes in the morning, she knows it's time to get petted and jumps up on his lap, purring like a rusty motorboat, jumping up and down to mush his feet with her cheek and forehead over and over again, each time more awkward and loving than the last. This is our Janey, the brave and cautious love of our lives.


Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Thoughts on Creativity

This has been quite a year for me: getting married, learning how to help my own self-created business thrive, reaching out to those I admire online in moments of bravery, getting into Pilates and transforming my muscles, falling in and out of rather formidable sadness and then being caught while falling by what feels like the palm of the Creator...
Yes, it's been quite a year.
Last night I had a night.
One of those nights.
And I prayed and it was answered in the most unquestionable way. Here is my giant realization that has made this day feel full of wonderment:

When I am grateful to a friend or family member I find myself making them something: I cannot help it, I feel compelled!
When I am grateful to The Powers That Be I say my thanks and leave it at that.
What if instead all of my creativity was my gift of gratitude? What if my conscious and joyful breathing was a kiss on the Divine cheek for answered prayers or simply the blessing of being allowed to experience the ache and bliss of this earthly life?
I feel strongly about this: I have had my creative bursts where I can conquer the world and create anything, but with the business side of running a business, sometimes that gets lost.

Since I am creatively a little slow right now I am going to simply let it rest and stop trying desperately to think of new and exciting things to try.
Instead I am going to make that Koi Pond Painting that's been in my mind for some months.
I am going to kiss my fiance artfully.
I am going to use the stones I have purchased to make luscious things for the shop AND something wonderful for myself because I must thank myself, too.
For being brave.
For trying.
For showing up every day as we all do.
Don't you deserve something amazing today? Try breathing as an exercise in grateful love to whomever or whatever: I think you'll find your bounty ever-increasing with every cleansing and refreshing inhalation.

Monday, September 15, 2008

Delicate and Strong



This is a bracelet for a friend ( unfinished colorwise ), who will receive it this week -- when you see the detail of the design keep in mind the bracelet is half an inch wide.
Teeny weeny!

One More Reason to love my Pop

My Poppy ( my Dad, we always called him Poppy ) is a quiet, blindingly intelligent man of tremendous dignity and gentle intensity. That he would so adorably pose while drinking from the cup I had laid out for my Mom to use ( she has a wicked sense of humor, but he sat in the place I had set for her and hence, drank from her intended mug ) is just too cute.


It reminds me of the time we bought him mugs for Christmas from our school-sponsored gift shop ( Moms gave their kids money to shop with a verrry limited supply of products to choose from ) and my sister and I bought him mugs that said, " World's best Fisherman" ( my father doesn't fish ) and various other things that couldn't have been further from who he was.

My parents left for China today after staying overnight with us, and for some reason I feel worried. Quietly worried.
I will keep myself very busy in the shop to still my mind: I have discovered engraving, and it feels so lovely.

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Sunshine Blossom Reminder Bag






Omigoodness. Omigoddess.

My Love Affair

It began two days ago when I spied this listing on eBay, having been realizing of late that some of my purses and lighter leather products are so painful to punch and stitch -- the leather sewing machine on the Tandy website is thousands of dollars -- and my left thumb is really really angry at me for using it as a stitching pony half the time------
I am rambling.
I am so excited.
This is going to be my new sewing machine, made in the 1930s, with a brand new motor, able to stitch through 4 layers of garment leather and leap tall buildings in a single bound --



My ( or soon to be ) Singer 201-2, well thought of and rather coveted among the sewing set. I cannot imagine what I will make with this machine, after I practice: thank goodness I save my scrap leather as I will certainly need it!

Later today ( I would say tomorrow but it's 12:30 AM ) I will be listing the bag to end all bags. Convertible. Sunshine-y. Holy moley!!!!!

Friday, September 12, 2008

Perfect

Receiving my package from Sue yesterday was a miracle. Receiving this amazing pencil holder that I ordered from
http://www.jessicajane.etsy.com --




amazing! What's in the mail tomorrow, a cloud complete with a real live singing angel perched on it?
Yikes, I feel lucky.
It is overcast here in Los Angeles today. I bought cupcakes for Anthony and I (dessert!) and hand-washed my car ( my favorite way of doing it ) and I am about to make an amazing-sounding sweet potato and chicken stew in the slow cooker while I make my bee necklaces and begin the final phase of a luscious bag that will be in the leather shop tomorrow or Sunday. I am also brushing up on my reading.

I have much to learn ;)
I am wishing you all the coziest Friday.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

You Couldn't Have Come at a Better Time

A Luka Bloom song is the title for this post, and it pertains to the package from my Queen of Scotland and her royal family, whose arrival beats back the bleakness of this day and the hazy memories it brings back.
Have you any idea, my dearest friend, that the gifts you give are far bigger than you could ever imagine? As Anthony and I were going over our books of 'Don'ts' for Husbands and Wives he looked at me, paused and said, "If we ever go to Scotland, these are the people we would need to see". Indeed. I truly love you.

On this day I am looking back over my time in NYC ( I moved here from there! ) reverently, remembering the opportunities I had to swing dance madly at Windows on the World and my many trips through the concourse under the towers, spraying Crabtree & Evelyn's Sandalwood cologne on my wrist for the journey back on the Path Train to New Jersey where I was staying that August... I was too poor to buy it, but I wore it every day.
On September 9th on my way into Manhattan in the evening I came above ground on the last Jersey stop and looked at the south tip of the island and watched the colorful sky reflecting in the mirror of the Towers and thought, "How lucky am I to live here?." It was a massive struggle: I temped and auditioned for plays and made tremendous memories of early hungry twenties with my friends in diners over breakfast specials because we couldn't afford the dinner plates -- but I DID IT. Life in New York for me was a circus of victories and defeats.
My mother called at 8:45 that morning, a time when I should have been on the Path train to transfer at WTC to the 1/9 to the Upper West Side: I had found out that I won a role in Florida the night before and I was to move my things in to our new Midtown (!) apartment on the morning of the 11th so I called my friend Emily with whom I was working briefly to say, "Can I be late tomorrow?" Nothing seemed as luxurious as the idea of sleeping in a little and moving to Times Square!
I turned on the TV at my mother's words. My stomach fell into my feet.
My boyfriend and I watched it all. We drive into Manhattan that evening with our rental car full of our things past guard posts and people wearing gas masks and the heavy smell of chemical burn, the air around the south tip still a veil of smoke.
We unpacked. We all looked at each other in the streets those next few weeks, with the candles and pictures resting undisturbed in doorways and shop entrances. There was a reverence to the city I had never known: a gentleness, a grieving.
Everyone lost someone: people gathered around listening to stories of miraculous survivors and people who just happened to sleep in or miss their train... Grand Central with its walls of the missing, a sudden hush under everything noisy....
There is no more sting for me about it all, just a heap of memories that will become antiquated stories when I am old - that I 'should' have been there is what haunts my mother - that I saw New York brought to its knees for months to come is what haunts me still and makes me miss it with all my heart.
In my mind today I will live in Astoria as I did for my last year there.
I will walk past my aging neighbors on their milk crate chairs and nod and smile. I will buy fruits and veggies on that market down 31st and then I will cook something delicious in my kitchen with the window open to hear the pigeons cooing and flapping their wings. Come evening I'll sit out on my stoop and read since these are the last days of warm evenings.
That is the place that makes my heart ache with love -- even if it's only one day out of the year that I must remember.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Peacock Feather Eye Necklace





In the Leather Shop now!

Things once Useful

Are Useful again.

When we first moved into our condo on the busy busy boulevard I thought surely nothing ever lives here that is wild, surely everything has been beaten back by the noise of the cars and people and the crisp thromming R&B that whistles from passing SUVs, but there was a tiny bird building a nest in the tree outside our front door, and hummingbirds feeding in the giant sappy birds of paradise that we look out on, as though in a dense tropical forest and not an urban thoroughfare.

Every day I went out and saw the nest and the vigilant bird sitting on her three blue eggs, looking so close to being hatched... days passed without event and one morning I went down to find the nest barren and ripped on one side.



Eggless. Motherless.
Knowing that something sad had transpired I saved the nest I had watched with such happy expectation and tucked it into a lightless corner of my shelf.

Today I took it out and placed in it my newest reminder necklace and it fit, delicate and so strong, just like the message, "Be Still". What once housed the promise of life now held the fruits of my labor and I felt somehow less lonely knowing that what was built to protect is still with me, wrapping around something still tender as I fumble through the creative life.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

Bit of Heaven


In the Metal Shop!

Peacock Feather Bag on Sale!!!




There is something about putting an item on sale that makes my heart swell in a really happy way, probably because I am constantly trolling websites for sales and when an item I adore goes down I get crazy excited!!!!
The peacock bag is 20% off now in the leather shop!!

Monday, September 8, 2008

Better and excited

Dearest Readers,
I missed posting this weekend: my in-laws are in town and we have spent several days traveling around Los Angeles, and I even got some lovely pictures of what our wedding location looks like: it's lovely :) Did I mention loveliness?


I even had time to make a custom order for my Auntie ' Raine on behalf of my mother: a lovely boulder opal whose blue is so undeniable and deep.

I got beautiful stationery and intend to do a bit of letter writing this week, so I'll surprise my intended recipients just in case they happen to read this bog :)
I have a new bag design that's on its way this week along with some bee necklaces and peacock feathers. I'll be a very busy bee myself!

So much love,
Allison