A Find!

A friend of mine came across this, don't ask me how:

http://k-silent.livejournal.com/2909.html

It's a blog in Russian discussing three necklaces, the first one shows is a necklace I made in 2005 that won some awards and was published in a variety of adds and catalogs by the good folks at Fire Mountain Gems.  It was FUN to get this link from a friend and realize they were talking about my work.  Some friends and I tried a variety of online translating services and from those we were able to piece together the general idea of the text.  I don't speak Russian but the general idea of is some rather nice compliments about the work and then the comments responding to the blog are even more lovely compliments.  

The second necklace shown is one that bears a striking resemblance to mine, same materials and colors.  This work was made in 2009 by Natalia Walton.  I think it is lovely!  

Anna, a friend who speaks Russian (along with a couple other languages) said this about it:

Hi, Carmen, I read all that comments, in all of them, commenters just admires how beautiful they are, mostly pointing on the first one. One person was asking how she can get them, . The other person answered. You should ask Carmen Sh... M...  I like how they describe your designs. They are using very beautiful words describing them. There was one person who said , she has in her mind to make one like this for herself. The other answered It's OK if you do just for yourself. The first person replied "Anyway it will turn out differently"

Another friend checked with someone with a BA in Slavic Linguistics who summarized:

She's talking about how she often looks at the website firemountaingems.com and how she doesn't like to close the window and how she always wants to buy the jewelry because of the colors, etc.

Compliments are fun in any language!  I am very grateful!

What a lark!

Happy Creating,
-Carmen Rose

She is... a Jewel

I'm finally getting around to going through some photos here.  I spent some time working on my external hard drive, it had been impossible to find anything on there, now at least I hope things make a little more sense.  Sure seems like I'm missing a chunk of photographs but maybe they are here somewhere.

I wanted to show photos of Rachel, she's a lovely friend and a gifted soprano who specializes in Opera.  Her phrase is: "She is... a Jewel."  And it's absolutely true, she is!

She is wearing a necklace that I designed in two parts.  I think the one section is beautiful in her hair, but it can also be worn on the back like this:  This opens up the front of the piece to cascade all over her shoulders which looked really lovely on her.  It's loaded with all the exotic kinds of freshwater pearls and Swarovski crystals with tiny little teardrop earrings.  Each section works beautifully as a necklace in it's own right, I wore one to an event Friday and it was lovely. 

It was a pleasure to work with Rachel again!  She's a vibrant creature, a natural model, and a dear friend!

Happy Creating,
-Carmen Rose

Pearl Necklace

Good morning World! I am once more tickled pick to announce that a photograph of my jewelry design is on the back cover of Creative Jewelry, Volume 7, 2008. A few years ago I entered a contest for jewelry designers at Fire Mountain. People from all around the world enter this contest so I was SHOCKED to find that one of my designs had placed THIRD overall, and won the natural pearls category. They also chose a second necklace as a finalist. There was some prize money involved so I bought myself a kiln, which I haven’t really used. Hmmm… It is on my “to do list” though!

Anyway, they used photography of both pieces in back cover advertisements on national beading magazines and also in their catalogs to sell the products used in the designs. I got an email the other day from someone asking for a kit or instructions so they could copy it. I got those emails the first time this piece was featured so I went to the store to see if I could find a magazine with the ad in it. Sure ‘nuf – there it was grinning back at me. So I giggled and showed it to the check out girl and other folks in line (complete strangers) and they made the appropriate appreciative noises. My necklace! On the back of a magazine! So I called hubby. And then I called my Mama. Yep! I’m one happy camper!