Ribbit!

Finding things and turning them into jewelry, is one of my favorite things, it’s really eye catching and gives a little back story to the piece..

For example, this little piece of wood, was picked in a beach in Costa Rica, and then turned into the home of this little frog..

 

I apologize for the dirty,messy fingers in the photos, if you know me, you know sadly that’s their natural status

As for the pendant, all made with sterling silver, the frog, some little leafs, a wonderful Ocean Jasper cabochon in one of my favorite colors..

Making her way to the shop this coming Sunday

A day like today

 

 

 

But many years ago, was my first birthday and to be honest I haven’t changed a bit..

Custom order…Dragonflies.

Finally got a photo I like..

 

They say the 167th time is a charm!

Sunday Morning.

I live for these pastries, where I live there is not much around, but about 20mins later down the hill  there are all these commercial centers, which I normally ignore and must walk by every morning to get to the workshop, until one day  I found a Persian Bakery, since then I go past there whenever I can, and always try something new, the flavors are to die for..

This is a photo of this morning where I live, here you can see where I usually sit down and eat,read or list from, and Luna coming over to see what I’m doing.

 

Have a nice Sunday! today I have a french movie that I’ve been trying to watch since Thursday called “Cache” with Juliette Binoche, supposed to be a really good and I will list here and there some new items in the shop..taking it easy have a long week ahead of me..

-Nat

Month of April

Been working so much this month, which really makes me happy but at the same time I miss  my online time…..

I have all my focus on one single thing, move to Spain and that will require a big effort on my side , which means now days I am waking up ar 6;30 am every day, believe me there is always something to do whether you sell or not, sketching ideas, making new items, listing,packing,taking,photos, writing emails, uploading photos to Flickr,keeping up with the  facebook page, etc

I think I’m slowly becoming into the person I want to be work wise, I am keeping an order for everything, I have a savings plan, and I am absolutely decided to charge what my work is worth and hopefully make my little business grow some more..

May promises learning a new technique and the making of a whole jewelry line which I hope to share with you here..

April has been a wonderful month and I am so happy to feel that things are back to normal after the first stormy months of the year after the surgery..

Now I am here on May first writing this extremely excited to see what this new month has to offer..

The story I almost didn’t tell you…

I’ve been meaning to write this for a whole month now, first I didn’t want to blog about it because it was a bit personal and there are certain topics that are best to keep private but then I started getting emails on Etsy, on my personal mail and comments and messages on Facebook

And I realized I’ve been gone for too long and the least I can do is explain what happened, just a note in my shop is not enough.

I was packing my workshop and getting ready to move back to Costa Rica, then all of a sudden something showed up, I had to go to the doctor and he said I needed surgery straight away, after freaking out a little, before it started it was done and I was recovering for just  a week,saying bye to my friends and enjoying Antigua for my last days..

Things got a bit complicated after I got to Costa Rica and to make a long long looooong story short that week turned into a month, and I still don’t have an exact date when I can work again and run around like I do, there is a bunch of things I am not allowed to do and this last month has been very boring , I really have never stopped for so long, even my nails are long!, I’ve watched all the movies I had pending and done a lot of reading…until the doctors said I could go to the farm to see my family..

Now I’m home..

And I live in this hammock..

The first day I fell asleep for a nap and I felt something poking my toes …

Ermm… her..

She and I now live  in harmony..

Here I’m more entertained, spending time with my mom and brothers in the farm, all my family gets together and we cook and eat, which is always so nice and I really missed all this.

I’m learning how to bake and new recipes  from the best…

(This one is a sweet cinnamon bread)

I play fetch with her…

 

Or at least try to because she likes playing with the stick more than fetching it 

It’s nice to be back home, and I can’t wait to get back to work and catch up with everyone, I was basically from the plane to the doctor and I still need to see my friends and to unpack, oh my stonesssssss how I miss them, I want to do so many things, so many pieces that  I think I am going to blow up of joy when I finally can use a hammer again..

I had things planned out differently, never thought about stopping for a whole month.. but sometimes life is like this and all we have to do is go with the flow and accept it and get healthy,then keep going.

For now I’m just going to be patient and wait as much as they tell me to, and enjoy this place as much as I can..

I’m not afraid to say, that I want everything

Don’t you wish you had the time to just try different things, to experiment with new materials, to spend days in a single project without feeling guilty about not working?

I have a small list of things I want to learn, starting with baking, I wish I could be really good at it and also I want to learn to sew and learn to make specifically 2 things, long dresses and loose straight pants , the list goes on but each craft,  really is a small world with techniques l,tips, secrets, takes practice, patience, money for materials etc

And then try juggling that with real life, work, house work, family time,that thing people talk about mmm yeeee sleeping! and those of you who have children and still have Etsy shops and work from home, I tip my hat to you and admire you so much.

I want to learn about jewelry because is what I do, and when I see other things such as textiles I just think of how to incorporate it in jewelry, and my brain functions toward how to wear something.

And since I got to Antigua like a year and a half ago, for the every first time i traveled here,  I met  him, he is from Japan and who I bought the stones from, and from then and my travels here to today of me living here he has been my stone supplier, then one day I stop by and see him pulling out of some boxes the most beautiful leather bags

- I lost it-

Specially when I found out the whole thing was hand stiched all the little pockets, all by hand because is too thick for a sewing machine.

He  is so kind, and sweet and told me he can teach me a little bit, and I gave him ideas for belts and jewelry and we both have been collaborating this past week making some bags for my shop, using stones I love and that I would have used for jewelry. He makes the structures this while I learn to set stones with leather and make the right stitching so if over time one stitch got loose all the rest would still be there perfectly not like it would with a machine (you know when you pull it and the whole thread comes out   )

It’s so hard because it’s new, is really cool the new tools, the stitching, the leather itself, it’s so beautiful and like he said, in the begining it was made this way, in an artisan way with a few tools and a lot of love and creativity

You know what I learned this week?

I learned that people are ok with teaching about what they do, if they know you will give it your own twist and you will respect the craft, because it’s true I could teach someone how to do the basics in jewelry but if I felt that person is going to make the exact same thing as I , changes everything, so this harmony of collaborating, sharing ideas, it’s so so so beautiful.

Well let me show you the first 2 bags :

 

This one made with ocean jasper, I am obsessed with mustard/yellow tones, and this stone has them all , and along the leather it looks so nice.

And this one with a faceted agate with a little pocket druzy , a belt with a pocket perfect for jeans and a tank or with a long dress like this…

As for mine I did a little stiching of it and is not done but is also one with a belt , I’ll post photos when it’s done..

I’m leaving in 15 days and well I’m a bit sad because I won’t learn as much, but back home I’ll experiment by myself and see what comes out, also I can’t wait to see my family it’s been way too long.

And now I’m off to list these 2 bags on my shop and I leave you with this song where the title of this post comes from and that I can’t get it out of my head..

 

I’m late

I’m late, I’m late for
A very important date.
No time to say hello, good-bye,
I’m late, I’m late, I’m late

 

I’m late and when I wave,
…I lose the time I save.
My fuzzy ears and whiskers
Took me too much time to shave.

I run and then I hop, hop, hop,
I wish that I could fly.
There’s danger if I dare to
Stop and here’s a reason why:
I’m over-due, I’m in a rabbit stew.

Can’t even say good-bye,
hello, I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.

I started carving this ring in 2009 when I heard Tim Burton was making the Alice in wonderland movie I couldn’t sleep…. I have drawings of a line of characters and the rabbit is one of my favorites and the first.

Time passed and I watched the movie and didn’t like it but that’s another topic  and well that and I got entertained in 100 other things and he was just there in my bench.

This week he was born, I made him a hat and a watch from scratch and gave color to his suit

And it’s nice because it reminded me how excited I was about making him once, about how I do like working with wax, and how I will be able to do it soon, (can’t wait to try to do some more characters) and I remember when they told me I had to carve stuff, me thinking ” I can’t do that, I’ve never carved anything in my life”  and you know what, the first wax ring I made is still halfway done in my bench, I didn’t finish it, and ran away from carving wax for a long,long time, while everyone was loving it, I was there thinking I wasn’t good at it and here I sit exactly 3 years and 1month and 12 days later of my first jewelry class saying how in jewelry making everything you can think is possible if you just go ahead and try it and don’t block yourself or think you can’t.

Oh and one more thing before I go! because It’s almost 4pm here and I have 6 pieces to make…

Even though I didn’t like the movie  I still love Johnny Deep as a madhatter,pirate, anything he wants, I don’t hold it against him

Ciao!

All last month, and a whole new year.

The last month of the year has been really,really special, I’ve been doing so much, seeing things for the first time and learning about how rich and how beautiful traditions and people are here in Guatemala,prepare because this post might be a little long,  this is what happened in December:

First it was the burning of the devil, I had never heard of such thing and well after asking around, the version is pretty much the same but  I liked the most was the one of a taxi driver who told me that when he was a child  people would grab all their old stuff in December, their clothes, matresses back then made of hemp, etc and they would burn them in the front of the house in a way of saying “off with the old, on with the new” this is not done like that anymore because of pollution and sometimes because the whole burning of things got out of hand.. but we have the devil, that it was a must see.

Sadly I waited for it for like a week and then went to ship some packages to the city and didn’t make it back on time for the burning and couldn’t take photos, but you must see the Devil on a bicycle

This was on early December, then there were more celebrations which I managed to go to,

Folkloric dances,delicious food,music,costumes,good friends tons of laughs..

I made a whole album of the folkloric dances that you can find over here

Then there where the celebrations of the Virgin, the cutest thing in the world, with a bunch of little kids dressed up in typical clothing.

the little girls where so cute, and the little boys with painted mustaches it was just too adorable, they had this little scenes where they could take a photo with the virgin

 

I have a photo with the virgin but I didn’t fit in the chair , some little kids where cracking up when they saw me go in there to take a photo too, and then I told them my friend forgot to dress me up

You can see some photos of this day over here

 

Ohh I’m so in love with this country, can you tell? I feel so happy, I smile so much , I can’t remember the last time my neck was killing me from the stress..

I had a very mellow christmas with some amazing people around me who I’m happy to have in my life, and got so many cute presents that where completely unexpected that really need a blog post of their own.

I am a horrible blogger and didn’t do a Merry Christmas post, so MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Then some relaxing days where I did manage to make some jewelry, not pressuring myself too much just enjoying what I do.

 

Some just for fun:

Now the year is done and I am here on the first day of the year thinking what comes next, there is a lot going on, many decisions to take, isn’t it nice we have the power upon our own life to guide it to the path we choose?

There is a trip coming soon, there is a long journey , some sad decisions, some opportunities for growth,one more time of giving it all away to start in a new place, but all this I have to tell you later because is too early and I still have to figure out things myself.

I like the new year, I feel really good, today I’m starting RAW today, remember the ring a day??? now everyone is making a ring a week, is such a wonderful group of jewelers who do amazing work and support each other,  this time we are doing a ring a week, which is very exciting because there is really more time to make some really nice, more planned pieces.

Feeling ready to work, to move, to take on this year..

And wishing all you that this year is the best one  of your life and only my heart knows  gratitude  I feel , for all your support, in so many ways this past 2010

Happy new year!

-Nat