I sometimes forget..

That this is supposed to be a jewelry blog.

I have reached the conclusion that this year has decided to fly past me, and while it might not be my most productive year, it might just be the most furtive.

Over the last few months, this just happen to go in the right direction and I am quite pleased with everything right now, I know! every time I actually write in this blog, I often comment on what I am trying to do to have some order in life and work

It has been an everyday process since last year.. remember the breakfasts ? Those still happen and have worked wonders, it is quite difficult to decide to do something, to change something and actually do it, how hard can it sometimes be to realize that knowing yourself and working in your well being is pretty much the answer to many problems, only now I am seeing the result.

Now although I have like 12 hours a week of true work, I am not stressing as much about anything really and I feel calm, so so calm,  this is because I finally dived into creative escapes, there is more drawing,more reading, more paint and experiments and all is so personal without that constant pressure of it all ending in a solid jewelry piece in my hand.

I will talk about this later with more detail.

For now, I am preparing for a couple of summer craft fairs so more groups like these will be more common around this place.

Some of these pieces will make it to the shop, before the end of the week.

I have to go work now, but one more thing!

Listen to her..

I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too. Well, I hope that if you are out there and read this and know that, yes, it’s true I’m here, and I’m just as strange as you.

 

One rainy day.

I was faced with a weekend  full of rain, all custom orders have been filled, I spent almost two weeks making pieces to sell locally and to send to Costa Rica for Christmas.

I then had some time off, and found myself without knowing what to do, since one of my goals is not to pressure myself so much, I decided to apply the one advice I always gave some of my friends, I think that when you don’t know what to make, is good to think of something simple, once you find yourself working, you get the ball rolling and more ideas will come, the next thing you know the whole afternoon has passed.

So I started with cleaning my workshop, because sitting down in a workspace that looks like a tornado passed by it, is not very encouraging.

(usually there is no room for a needle on top of that bench, but that’s between you and I)

Anyways..

Thinking of something I like.

Its no secret I am in love with this book, and back in the day on my second jewelry class I remember telling my teacher I wanted to make something with the original illustrations, years passed me by and I guess I always wanted something so unique, so complex…that I never made it.

But sometimes we should just start, even with something simple like I said before, so it had to be the boa.

So it was time to work:

“I showed my masterpiece to the grown-ups, and asked them whether the drawing frightened them.

But they answered: “Frighten? Why should any one be frightened by a hat?”

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. But since the grown-ups were not able to understand it, I made another drawing: I drew the inside of a boa constrictor, so that the grown-ups could see it clearly. They always need to have things explained. My Drawing Number Two looked like this:

The grown-ups’ response, this time, was to advise me to lay aside my drawings of boa constrictors, whether from the inside or the outside, and devote myself instead to geography, history, arithmetic, and grammar. That is why, at the age of six, I gave up what might have been a magnificent career as a painter. I had been disheartened by the failure of my Drawing Number One and my Drawing Number Two. Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them”

 

Then, I couldn’t let go of the last page, because I remember so clearly when I was little and I read this for the first time:

“This is, to me, the loveliest and saddest landscape in the world. It is the same as that on the preceding page, but I have drawn it again to impress it on your memory. It is here that the little prince appeared on Earth, and disappeared

 

Look at it carefully so that you will be sure to recognize it in case you travel some day to the African desert. And, if you should come upon this spot, please do not hurry on. Wait for a time, exactly under the star. Then, if a little man appears who laughs, who has golden hair and who refuses to answer questions, you will know who he is. If this should happen, please comfort me. Send me word that he has come back.”

I probably was 9 and I remember telling my mom how he had gone back home, but that it was ok he was alive and he could return , later on in life after  reading it  over and over again it is probably my favorite ending of a book, it just brings me back to when I was a little girl and my first innocent impression of the Little Prince.

Donations to Mayan Families and a small story

For those of you who don’t know me in person, if you meet me today, besides the  basic introduction of my name and age, where I am from,  a small talk of jewelry making , music by  Spinetta and Silvio Rodriguez, tiny shops ,travelling and many other things  ,we would eventually end up speaking about Guatemala, you see I’m divided,  my heart is split in two, half of it  beats inside of me  and the other one is currently 10 000 miles away in Guate, probably having some coffee sitting in the park of Antigua watching people pass it by.

In Guate there is always a smile, you can spot it in every corner, always a sincere beautiful smile, this is a place where the human bond is very deep, where you see things that shake you inside and make you realize how much you have,we should walk around just chanting “Thank you, thank you, thank youuuu” to the universe,   and most importantly that by that simple luck of having more choices than others, we also have more to share with them.

I ran into Mayan families.

This is an organization that helps extremely poor families, everything from food, schooling for the children, tools that men need to work with, even things as small as a carton of 30 eggs you can see all the different things and some of the stories over here http://www.mayanfamilies.org/DonateOnline

It can be heartbreaking to see so much need, but then again we are in a good position to help, and really make a difference.

Let me tell you a personal story.

When moving to Guate, I rented a house, well not a house ,THE house of my dreams, the landlord told me it came with a maid, which I really didn’t  think I needed but, hey! ok!

She came once a week, and the first day I saw her cleaning the walls, and it was like 4 hours of cleaning for a 2 bedroom house, the next week I saw her again and told her not to clean windows,walls and that with me she could really take it easier.

When it was time to pay it was extremely low we are talking like $5 a week, I changed that too.

This went on for 6 months, she came every week and I remember asking her if she wanted some tea and she said yes but was so surprised I made it for her, I stopped asking and every time she came over I had the tea ready but she never drank it with me, when H. came into the scene she was surprised he would make me breakfast, and when one day he offered her some, she said ok, but didn’t want to sit in the table with us because the landlord could see her and that wasn’t her place …….…… this my friends changed too.

As time passed we chatted more and more, please note this woman was 62 years old, and the main income in a house of 3, a  husband with a heart problem and a daughter which got pregnant and her husband left her, a girl with no studies that also cleaned some houses, but Antigua is rather small and she didn’t have a lot of luck.

She told me how she used to sell tortillas, and the amaziiiiiiiiing chiles rellenos ( how I miss them!) but she had to stop because she didn’t have the spare money to purchase the things she needed to make the different tamales, chiles etc. Plus her husband was always in an out of the hospital which made it difficult to cope.

I asked how much we were talking about, 150q to begin and this would be $18, I laughed and said I could loan her that, and she was terrified by my offer she said she couldn’t do it and kept mentioning my landlord, she and everyone else would think she was asking me for money, or taking advantage of me Ooooo, NO!

And no meant  no,and I couldn’t convince her,so I said : “How about you pay me in tortillas and chiles?”, which by the way I have an unnatural ability to consume, then she taught about it for a while and I saw her eyes lit a little and said, “Well  I guess that could work”

This went on for like 3 weeks, which I was very well fed, once a week she would bring a bag filled with typical Guatemalan food, and she laughed and how I just devoured everything.

As time went by she obviously got some money on Sundays and  re using that money was able to purchase the ingredients herself.

When I was moving out, I remembered the tortillas, she told me she had the stove but her tank had ran out of gas, so I offered her the tank I used to solder, she said that would work and then soooo shy she asked me what was I going to do with the jewelry table, this table cost me $10 and was burned, beated and very messy,  she said she could fix it, to make a long story short, after I left, later on I heard how my old jewelry table now was bright and painted and served as the serving place of the many tortillas made with the stove and the gas tank, that once used to be used to make jewelry.

She had a second income, her daughter took over to help cook and sell for her to rest, and there you have it with 3, $18 loans, which were more like well  invested money on the best food ever , a gas tank and a $10 table.

The last day I was there, she told me  in the tone of a mother or grandma, that I was too nice and to be careful out there, because people could take advantage of me, but that I should never change that, and gave me a very sweet and my first hug from her.

And if I could only tell you how many stories like this exist.

I made a ring using some of the textile from Guatemala, I will be making some more jewelry which will be found in the “For Mayan Families” section in the shop, where I will donate 100% to them in the general section, where they use the money where is most needed at the time.

I leave you with a song, a song I have heard  since I have use of memory my grandpa would sing it, but the older I get the more meaningful it gets and I think goes well with this post.

Buenas Noches o Tardes!

Memories of tiny feet.

I got a request this last week of making a pair of cufflinks for a dad’s birthday gift, inspired in their 1 month old baby.

After several sketches, going through initials, silhouettes, shapes, some designs I had already made etc…

I suggested we could use his little foot, ..

And so it began:

First she sent me a photo and with the help of photoshop I did some arrangements to get it to a proper size to fit one of the cufflinks:

I printed a couple, and my bench was filled with adorable chubby little feet

Time to cut away with a jeweler’s saw.

She decided on a triangular shape and to have his initials engraved, I didn’t take photos of the rest of the process, because I was too busy finishing  them

Here is the result!

They are sober enough to be worn to work, but works as the sweetest reminder.

These are exactly the kind of custom orders I like to make, something to hold a memory, this time of how sweet and miraculous a new life is.

Sunday.

       I started Sunday with a big breakfast, then the jewelry started lining up to have their photo taken and get into the shop..

They usually behave very well..

I had to take a lot of photos and was trying new things, over in the beach..

Using pebbles and a grey background..

I ended up taking 555 photos and then sitting down to go one by one, edit some erase like 400 (( I know))  and finally announce it on Facebook which was a bit unexpected thank you for all the likes and sweet comments.

 

 

I worked on it all day yesterday and well still have a lot to do, today is about sketching I have 3 custom orders waiting for drawings,photos of stones and ideas and later going to the post office  to deliver two pieces, hopefully I will also list some of the items I still have pending.

 

Feels good to  have the shop open , to have a Monday filled with work.

To be honest with you this is what I missed to be excited about the next time I sit in the bench.  

I’ve done my homework.

Last time I wrote something in the blog was two months ago, my last post was a desperate plea of a vacation.

After closing my shop I had to spend some days trying hard to change the rhythm of my day to day and carefully planning what I was going to do with my time off, to be surprised with the fact that I had no idea what to do.

Which brought me face to face with the original problem, ALL swirls around my work, which is not healthy of course.

So a little soul searching began, what do I really want? do you ever ask yourself that question?, it’s hard to clearly live according to what you really, really want, so first I had to figure it out, we are built of layers, there is our body,mind,spirit and so much more, there is the side of us we share with others, there is you as a friend, you as a partner, as a daughter,mother, worker, etc

I decided to focus on myself first and what I wanted most, some of the things that first came to mind where:

-Finding the time to read more, in these 2 last months I’ve recovered my reading habit, carrying a book and devouring it, actually stopping in a park, coffee shop anywhere and sit down to read for an hour or more, I had not done this in such a long time, always worrying about the million things that had to be done.

-Not tormenting myself about silly things, sometimes the dishes can wait and the world will not stop turning.

- Closing chapters and dealing with the past I want to  keep beautiful memories and clearing my mind using bad things as lessons, what a difference when you switch “Why did this happen to me ?” to “What did that teach me?”, might sound corny to some of you but hey! it really gave me a peace of mind,sent some emails, said what I had to say and voila! weight started coming off, I think every so often we should stop and look back to reflect on the past, to help us along in the future.

-Seeing more of Spain, I did get to see a lot of new places and it was so exciting! being lost in a little town really makes me happy, now that I am back I will be blogging more about this in the next weeks.

Oh! and I spent a lot of time like this… I love my sombrero

Work.

I am kind of proud of what happened, same thing I asked myself : “What are some changes I have to do with the way I work?”

I made a little map of concepts, open to everything I would ever want with my business, some of the simple things like:

-Planning jewelry ahead, drawing a proper sketch before making anything.

-Changing my camera to take better photos.

- Think seriously and learn about the proper pricing of my work ( living in Europe and the price of silver has made such a big difference)

- Have a work schedule and respect it.

And many other things..

What happened is I created a schedule which will allow me to work on new items and custom work, I’ve had two weeks using it and so far so good.

Monday and Tuesday I work only on custom pieces.

Wednesday to Friday, are open to work on new designs or concepts but that alone.

Saturdays will be for photos, editing and listing.

Sundays are off unless I want to write a blog post.

This is what my bag currently looks like:

( This and a massive folder for drawings, divided into different sections )

And every single morning I get up, shower , grab this bag and leave my house to have breakfast outside, this stops me from having coffee in front of the computer , potentially getting lost in cyberspace, pinterest and pretty blogs and ending up working on my sweatpants.

My breakfast is about an hour long, there I am building the habit of drawing, which is really important, even though I am not that good , having the ideas on paper kills two birds at the same time, I clear my head from ideas and when you see an image more ideas come your way (((( Ohhhh I could add a stone over here as well..etc))) and at the same time, I plan ahead what to make which is certainly something I have wanted  to do for so long.

When I come back home after the breakfast out, work officially begins, which helps me so much since working from home you sometimes really don’t know when you begin and sometimes you don’t know when to stop, and keeping  exact track of time is important because is part of the pricing for your work.

All these little changes have made a significant difference and have taken a huge weight off my shoulders, each morning I used to start the day with : “What to do today?”, now I start with choosing a coffee shop, grabbing some stones, my books and heading out the door.

As for the pricing it’s so clear now, for a while there I was losing money this deserves a whole blog post of it’s own but I can’t stop recommending Designing an MBA.

Well this kind of got long, but as you can see I have been busy and hope to officially open the shop this Sunday.

It’s been nice, it took two months, the first month and a half  was the hardest not touching my tools very much, a lot of very long hard days, judging myself , asking a lot of questions as you can see and ending up being forgiving and peaceful with myself, I have the right to get overwhelmed and annoyed it is part of life, but  the great thing is that if you spot the problems, they can be fixed, I feel I am back and things look a lot clearer right now, after having time alone and unplugging and of really thinking of my goals in all aspects and what changes have to be made, how can we work towards something if we are not clear of what it is?

Thank you for reading, and I hope to be sharing some new jewelry and posts soon!

-Nat

The sea..

 

so soothing.

The end of May.

May was such a busy month, and  hopefully June will be just as packed.

Here is some of the work I have been doing these last 2 weeks:

A couple more of wave rings.

Mehndi:

 

 

This was a complete set but I didn’t have time to take photos of the earrings just the ring and bracelet.. still I like them very much  because I tend to make curvy rounded lines all the time but  I think these look very modern and elegant, hope to find the time to make some for the shop:

 

 

The minute I finish this post  I have to finish a bridal set, and I will make a couple more of these rings to list in the shop later in the week.

Enjoy Juneeeee!

Self-portrait.