Oldies but Goodies, More stars - The thirteenth door

There can never be enough stars for my taste, not just for the Christmas time.
I'm going to take it a little easy today. No story, only stars (from the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge)!

1 and 5 and 7 Cat's Wire
2 RioRita
3 and 4 and 6 MC Stoneworks

Oldies but Goodies - Renaissance Fair, The sixth door

I have never been to a Renaissance fair. There have been a few near or even in my town, but not that many, and there's no chance I'm going there. It's the people or rather the number of people. I just can't deal with crowds anymore, not even for a while. Strolling through the city is already enough for me, but too many people in one place, no can do.
This is also the reason why I have never been to the Esslinger Medieval and Christmas Market (if you have a look, ignore that they haven't updated all the dates, this IS for 2018), no matter how much everyone raves about it. Pity because it may have been the perfect introduction for this post.
Then again a Renaissance fair is not always set in medieval times at all, but often in the era of Queen Elizabeth I. But how did they celebrate Christmas back then?

When I looked it up, this caught my eye first "Christmas customs are hard to pin down and harder still to identify as verifiably in use during the Elizabethan era. (The past is not all the same place.) With the shifts from Catholic to protestant and back and forth again, some customs were banned or simply stopped, revived, then abandoned. Here are some of the things we're sure of." (from "Life in Elizabethan England).

Houses were decorated with all kinds of green, for example holly, ivy, yew and more. Hospitality was the rule, so whatever could be afforded, was there, from meat to pies, from spiced wine to drinks from hot cider, sherry or ale with spices and apples. "Eat, drink and be merry" (from "BBC History") was the motto for the Twelve Days from Christmas Eve to Epiphany. The merry part consisted of gambling, plays, morris dancing and general silliness.
There was also the custom of the Yule log, a block of wood cut from a tree chosen for the occasion and put into the fireplace, then lit using a bit of last year's log that has been saved. The Yule log is expected to burn all night.

Okay, people, you know what you have to do, and don't you forget about that silliness! ;-)
For decorating purposes I also offer you this selection of jewelry that could be worn at a Renaissance fair from the last Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge.

1 and 5 Cat's Wire
2 RioRita
3 and 7 Jewelry Art by Dawn
4 and 6 MC Stoneworks

Oldies but Goodies - Smoky Quartz

Welcome to this week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge! In fact this challenge is taking me back to the very beginnings of my jewelry making adventures. I had just started experimenting with wire crochet and had happened to pick up a smoky quartz rock at a shop when looking for something else. Back then I was ready to put a crochet bezel around everything, just to see if I could. Tiny moonstone cabs, big deco rocks, a friend even made a joke once that I should try to bezel a hot dog ;-)

I checked, but I don't seem to have a picture of the smoky quartz pendant that I made so long ago. I do have a collection of pieces from the challenge for you, however. Enjoy!

1 and 4 RioRita
2 and 6 MC Stoneworks
3 Jewelry Art by Dawn
5 and 7 Cat's Wire

Oldies but Goodies - Sodalite

Sodalite - today's topic giver for the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge - was first discovered in Greenland in 1806, no, 1811, erm, in the 19th century. Coming from a certain Canadian region it's also sometimes called Princess Blue because Princess Margaret fell in love with it in the early 1800s, no wait, Princess Patricia in the early 1900s, or was it King George V. and Queen Mary when they still were the Prince and Princess of Wales who had tons of sodalite-bearing rock shipped from Canada to England in order to decorate Marlborough House with it after being gifted with some sodalite at the World Fair 1901 in Buffalo?

Yes, I found all of that. If you care to do your own research, feel free to do so, but I'll stop at this point and present you this week's collage instead which is much easier. Once again we have some beautiful imitators among these pieces, can you spot them?

1 and 3 and 4 Jewelry Art by Dawn

2 and 6 MC Stoneworks

5 and 7 RioRita

8 Cat's Wire

Oldies but Goodies - Jewel Tones

My love of jewelry started early. When I was a kid, we had these plastic "flowers", interlocking disks that you can build things from. They are still sold today, in big boxes. We didn't have hundreds of them which limited us in our choice of sculptures.
So all I can remember making with them are tiaras and bangles, with "sapphires", "rubies", "emeralds", "diamonds" and I have no idea what we called the yellow ones, maybe it was our idea of gold?

The pieces from our Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge are not plastic, they shine in beautiful jewel tones. As much as I enjoyed my fantasy jewels as a child, these are so much better! ;-)

1/8/9/11 Cat's Wire
2/4/12 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3/5/13 MC Stoneworks
6/7/10 RioRita

Oldies but Goodies - Recent earrings

I struggle with making earrings. One problem is that I'm not very good at making two same things at a time, the other that I can obsess about mirror images. One dangly bead bigger than the other one, a pearl drop slightly different from the second one, a spiral not exactly the same? After tweaking and looking for alternatives I usually get over it, but gosh, it can be exhausting! ;-)

In today's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge you see earrings our JAC artisans made recently. We've got everything from playful, elegant and unique to sweet and fun. What is your favorite style?

1/7/8/10 MC Stoneworks
2/5/6/9/11 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 Cat's Wire
4 RioRita

Oldies but Goodies - Aventurine

I'm a few days late for this new Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, so without much ado I'll give you the collage for today's topic - aventurine, a translucent quartz with tiny inclusions that give it a shimmering look. Its most common color is green as you can in fact see in all of the entries, but it can have other colors as well, like blue, red, orange or yellow.

1 and 5 MC Stoneworks

2 and 4 and 7 Cat's Wire

3 and 6 RioRita

Oldies but Goodies - Carnelian

"Although now the more common term, "carnelian" is a 16th-century corruption of the 14th-century word "cornelian" (and its associated orthographies corneline and cornalyn). Cornelian, cognate with similar words in several Romance languages, comes from the Mediaeval Latin corneolus, itself derived from the Latin word cornum, the cornel cherry whose translucent red fruits resemble the stone. The Oxford English Dictionary calls "carnelian" a perversion of "cornelian", by subsequent analogy with the Latin word caro, carnis, flesh."
Huh. Thank you, Wikipedia, I have never read the word cornelian before. You never stop learning, do you?
What I do know, however, is that the warm orange-red of carnelian reminds of so many things. A warm fire, fall leaves, sunsets ... what do you associate with carnelian?

At any rate this is what the latest Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge is about, the warm colors of carnelian (and other stones from the entries, but honestly, would you have noticed? ;-)).

1 and 6 Jewelry Art by Dawn

2 and 7 RioRita

3 and 4 MC Stoneworks

5 and 8 Cat's Wire

Oldies but Goodies - Edgy/Steampunk

Why two topics today, you ask? It's easy, yours truly doesn't do steampunk and our challenge mistress graciously added edgy, so I could play, too.
I think it makes for a fabulous mix of items in our Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge today, don't you?
We have it all, gears, eyes, an octopus, spikes, dangles, pendants, earrings, a great hat, something for everyone!

1 and 8 Cat's Wire
2 and 5 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 and 9 MC Stoneworks
4 and 7 RioRita
6 The Crafty Chimp

Oldies but Goodies - Oval

I don't have a story for you today, but a question. What is your favorite shape in jewelry? Do you prefer it rounded or rather with angles and points?
When I looked through my cab stash and thought about what appealed to me over the years, I found that I have always been very drawn to oval cabs. I'm not sure if that has to do with my jewelry making beginnings when an oval cab seemed to be the best choice for wire crochet bezels or if this is in fact my favorite shape. I'll let you know if I ever find out ;-)
Oval was the topic for the new Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, so here's this week's collage for you. Maybe there's a topic you'd like to see sometime? Let me know!

1 and 8 MC Stoneworks
2 and 6 RioRita
3 and 5 Cat's Wire
4 and 7 Jewelry Art by Dawn

Oldies but Goodies - Copper again

I'll keep it short today for several reasons, instead I want to ask you to go this post where I talked about copper the first time.
Of course I have new items in the collage that I made with entries for the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge today.
Maybe you'd also like to tell us if you prefer copper or other metals yourself and what you like about them or not!

1 and 8 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 and 4 MC Stoneworks
3 and 7 RioRita
5 and 9 Cat's Wire
6 and 10 The Crafty Chimp

Oldies but Goodies - Pumpkins

Before the last family dinner my sister called and asked me if I'd like some pumpkin soup for a starter. What kind of question is that?? I love pumpkin soup! And I hate cutting pumpkin just for myself!! I really do, you know, so I would never turn down an offer like that.
Yup, pumpkin season is upon us (and pumpkin spice season ;-) although that is not such a big thing here in Germany, so the squabbling between fans and people who hate it leaves me unfazed), so that will be the topic for today's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, too.
Not everyone makes actual pumpkin jewelry, though, so pumpkin colors were allowed as well.

1 and 10 Jewelry Art by Dawn
2 and 8 The Crafty Chimp
3 and 5 MC Stoneworks
4 and 6 Cat's Wire
7 and 9 RioRita

Oldies but Goodies - Dangles

Last Saturday I told you a story about my friend and myself going to the local office supply store and buying sealing wax and stamps.
Today I'll tell you a story about one of our jewelry stores that took place around the same time, in the late 70s.
That store was called "Jewelry Chest" and, honestly, once I was grown up enough I felt a little sorry for the staff there. The "Jewelry Chest" had a sister store - whose name I don't remember at the moment which is driving me nuts - which was an ordinary jewelry store. Ordinary at least to us teenagers. They sold the real stuff, gold, gemstones, watches, way out of our budget.

The "Jewelry Chest", however, had little trinkets and decorations, from small animals carved from quartz to what we would call boho jewelry today, affordable silver pieces and more. It was heaven for us teenagers. I'm surprised I never stuck to that window with my nose because I couldn't resist it. Of course we bought friendship rings there (there may be another Saturday story in there) or we went just in to browse a little which I can't remember ever being discouraged, by the way, no matter if we bought something or not.

One day I finally had the money to buy a special birthday gift for one of my friends, a pair of dangly earrings from sterling silver (much of the silver jewelry still was 835 instead of the 925 at that time) that cost me incredible 32 DM. That was a lot of money for me back then, but my friend's family had always been so nice to me. They even took me with them for a vacation once, so I wanted to show that I appreciated it.
I had been so excited about these earrings. I had to go there all the time to see if they were still there. I loved them so much that I couldn't imagine anyone else not loving them. There was one little silver ball with two more little silver balls dangling from it on chains. Nothing that unusual, you may think now, but apparently I have always had a thing for dangles!
To present them in style I knitted a doll with yellow yarn braids and stuck the earrings in the head at the spots where the ears would be.
The birthday came and guess what. My friend didn't seem excited at all. She barely even looked at them. I don't know why, I really don't remember anymore if that was a style of earrings she never wore and if I had simply chosen what I liked instead of what she might have wanted. Then again I was only 13 and not always very wise. Okay, I'm still not always very wise, but maybe a little more than 40 years ago.
I wasn't mad at her, by the way. Maybe I regretted that I couldn't take the earrings back to keep them myself, but I never forgot that feeling when I walked out of the store to look into the little paper bag, and it's a good memory.

So why have I told you that story at all? Kudos to you if you made it all the way through. Dangles were this week's topic at the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge, just what I like :-D
I hope you will, too.

1 and 8 The Crafty Chimp
2 and 7 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 and 5 MC Stoneworks
4 and 6 Cat's Wire

Oldies but Goodies - Recent work

Okay, that's a bit of a contradiction there, I know. These entries for our latest Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge are no oldies, but I hope you will agree with me that they are goodies.
So without any delay I give you almost brandnew work from our JAC artisans. Enjoy!

1 The Crafty Chimp
2 and 6 Cat's Wire
3 and 4 MC Stoneworks
5 RioRita

Oldies but Goodies - Butterflies

I have always loved butterflies. I'm not good at identifying them, but I love their colors and fragile beauty. Actually I like moths, too (except for those who try to eat my Steiffs). Just the other day when I walked to the train station, I saw a pretty big one (big for what I usually see here) sitting on a wall. It probably wondered what a human was doing there at that time, but chose to ignore me in the end.
The last time my sister and I walked through our forest, we saw quite a few butterflies too, but the only one I was sure about was the common brimstone - which we call Zitronenfalter = "lemon butterfly" in German.
Never before did I wonder about where the word butterfly comes from, but when I looked up the English name for the brimstone, I stumbled upon this (from Online Etymology Dictionary):
"... but the name is of obscure signification. Perhaps based on the old notion that the insects (or, according to Grimm, witches disguised as butterflies) consume butter or milk that is left uncovered. Or, less creatively, simply because the pale yellow color of many species' wings suggests the color of butter. Another theory connects it to the color of the insect's excrement, based on Dutch cognate boterschijte."
Huh.

Now I've got some different butterflies from the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge for you. Not much butter to see here, but I hope you will like them, anyway. 

1 and 5 Cat's Wire
2 and 4 and 6 MC Stoneworks
3 The Crafty Chimp

Oldies but Goodies - Little Something

Today's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge doesn't need a big story because sometimes a little something is simply enough. It doesn't always have to be big and flashy.
Don't you agree?

1 and 6 MC Stoneworks
2 and 7 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 RioRita
4 and 5 Cat's Wire

Oldies but Goodies - The colors of ice cream

We have been caught in a heat wave, and if I whine any longer, I'll probably lose friends and family ;-)
One way to fight the heat is ice cream. I'm not that big of an ice cream eater myself, but at the moment even I have a big tub of vanilla in my freezer that I usually use with my coffee or more rarely eat with a sesame sauce for which I got the recipe from the international Japanese TV channel.

So this week the topic for the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge are the colors of ice cream.
It's hard not to be tempted by a huge selection at an ice cream parlor, just because the colors are so pretty. And I am NOT talking about smurf ice cream (I don't even know what flavor that is).
Usually I just show you my selection and link to who made the individual pieces. Today you'll get a legend, let's see, maybe I can make your mouth water so much, you head off to the next ice cream parlor. Or just raid your freezer, of course.

1 Vanilla with red currants
2 Blueberry
3 Fruit sorbet
4 Caramel
5 Strawberries and vanilla
6 Lemon sorbet
7 Vanilla with black currants
8 Chocolate swirl#
9 Chocolate and cream
10 Peaches and cream
11 Lemon sorbet


1/3/7 Cat's Wire
2/4/6/10/11 Jewelry Art by Dawn
5/8 MC Stoneworks
9 RioRita

Oldies but Goodies - Ruby Red

Rubies are July's birthstone, so their beautiful color was the topic for the last week of July at the Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge.
All I can think at the moment when I see red is how hot it still is here and elsewhere (which is also why I'll keep this short, so I can head back to my A/C ... I have no idea how the cats can stay in the warm rooms!!).
The beautiful reds of today's collection may not come from rubies completely, but they are definitely hot ;-) Enjoy!

1/7 RioRita
2/4 Cat's Wire
3/5/6 Jewelry Art by Dawn
8 The Crafty Chimp

Oldies but Goodies - Inspired by other cultures

Artists and artisans have always looked for inspiration in other cultures, sometimes deliberately, sometimes maybe not so much.
This week's Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge has so many very different entries that it was hard just to pick a few. Then I decided to highlight my favorites and invite you to click through to the rest. It's worth it because there's much more to see!

1 The Crafty Chimp
2 Jewelry Art by Dawn
3 RioRita
4 Cat's Wire
5 MC Stoneworks

Oldies but Goodies - Unisex

Once again it has been a while.
I have been struggling with a mean head cold, the heat, Greebo's health, my muse, finishing pieces for challenges and life in general, but here I am now with a brand new Jewelry Artisans Community Oldies but Goodies Challenge. And without my buttermilk that I left in the kitchen while fulfilling my lady's demand for a bit of condensed milk, so she wouldn't drop dead within the next two seconds. Gundel is a very determined cat lady. Just a moment. Okay, my buttermilk and I are back.

One of our earlier JAC challenges had making pieces for men as a topic and showed us that this was not necessarily something we members were very good at. The question was if we couldn't do it, if we simply didn't think of doing it or if we didn't want to it.
Today's topic - unisex - is kind of a sequel to that. It may be interesting to visit it again in the future to see if it has changed something.
For now, however, here's what we have to offer at the moment.

1 MC Stoneworks
2/5 The Crafty Chimp
3/6/7 Cat's Wire
4 RioRita