The Oscars - Red Carpet Jewels 2014

Another awards ceremony has been and gone ... and this one was certainly sparkly in the jewellery department - although a bit lacking for colour with diamonds the overwhelming choice. 

If you are an A list star with a shortlist of gowns that you may not chose til the day, perhaps they chose diamonds so they don't have to match colours of gems to the dress? 

There were a few more necklaces evident on the big names - Naomi Watts (at top) has regularly worn necklaces to awards ceremonies over the last few years and did so again this time wearing a geometric diamond collar by Bulgari.  

Jessica Biel chose an aquamarine and diamond ensemble from Tiffany & Co. from their Blue Book collection.

 

(this photo is from Jessica's facebook page and also shows her Chanel gown and Jimmy Choo shoes)

 

Jennifer Lawrence repeated her back necklace idea again this year with Neil Lane diamonds,  although it looked fine from the front,  I think the look was more successful at the back of the gown last year with a longer necklace.

Charlize Theron went for a pendant look with a 31 carats diamond studded drop by Harry Winston.  It look fabulous with her sleek black gown.

Kristen Bell wore a Piaget diamond collar along with her pale dress and could have been quite ice-maiden without the soft hair updo.

Idina Menzel is quoted as requesting Italian jewellery company Chimento to design a collar for her classically styled dress 

I did note one necklace with some colour - a labradorite necklace and earring set by Shamila, worn by Suzanne Marques which enhanced her grey dress beautifully.

(Photo from Suzanne Marques FB page as she was sheltering under an umbrella to keep her jewels dry - although it would have hurt the dress more I'm sure!)

Earrings abounded of course, as they always do, and diamonds were once again the favourite.

A highlight in colour were the Tiffany & Co. earrings worn by Amy Adams, featuring pink rhodochrosite and blue lapis lazuli and turquoise.

Cate Blanchett did have a little colour in her white opal and diamond earrings by Chopard but that colour was hardly visible, but I applaud her choice of 'not diamonds'!

Anna Kendrick wore some black gem and diamond drops by Piaget.  Just a little different and a lovely choice.

Calista Flockhart added a pop of colour to her otherwise white ensemble with emerald and diamond earrings by Jacob & Co.

Jenna Dewan-Tatum wore Lorraine Schwartz diamonds as did Sandra Bullock.

Julia Roberts went for diamonds by Bulgari...

...and Penelope Cruz chose diamonds by Chopard...

...while Angelina Jolie reportedly spent quite a bit of time finding just the right pair of diamonds to go with her dress.  The diamonds total a hefty 42 carats and were made into earrings by her jeweller.

Not adding colour but at least not completely diamonds, Olivia Wilde went for white agate and diamond drop earrings by Lorraine Schwartz.

And with the barest hint of colour were Shaun Robinson's earrings.

So, would you wear diamonds down the red carpet or go for some gems of colour?

Till next
Annette :)

The Jewels from Cannes

The 64th International Cannes Film Festival has been on this month and as it is heavily sponsored by Chopard, the couture jewels on the red carpet have definitely been worth watching!

It was nice to see it wasn’t just diamonds at this event – coloured gems definitely made their presence known and it was a lovely change from white diamonds.

Uma Thurman (at top), on this year’s jury, wore these chandelier earrings set with 34 pear-shaped emeralds for a total of 54cts together along with a more understated emerald bracelet. The emeralds just glowed even from a distance and gave some colour to her all white ensemble. Another day, she wore this little diamond cuff. (I’m not jealous, really, I’m not… much!)


Model Bianca Balti went the green route as well, wearing this amazing De Grisogono emerald necklace. I adore the intense colour - she carries it well.


In the sapphire brigade were Fan Bing Bing wearing Cartier and Jane Fonda wearing Chopard.



Rosario Dawson had a showstopper necklace by Faraone Mennella of aquamarine and diamonds and look at the size of those rocks!


The co-president of Chopard, Caroline Gruosi-Scheufele wore a peacock bracelet set with diamonds, emeralds, tsavorite garnets and sapphires with matching earrings. I’m not a fan of this ensemble, but to each their own!


Former Miss World, Aishwarya Rai wore Chopard diamonds - 12cts of pink diamonds in her ears and a whopping 53ct emerald cut diamond on her hand.


Linn Ullmann, Norwegian writer and critic wore a more low key Chopard oval diamond necklace totaling of 46cts. A nice little row of sparkles :)


Penelope Cruz showed great taste wearing these rubelite and diamond earrings. Gorgeous.


Salma Hayek wore pearls with her diamonds in a cuff bangle and earrings.


Although hardly well known in Australia, Italian fashion blogger, Chiara Ferragni wore this Chopard mixed gemstone bracelet and earrings. I love the delicate colour of the gems yet the overall substantial size – I think this might be one of my favourite jewellery sets seen on the red carpet this year.


Till next :)
Annette

Moods and Creativity

I've had a lovely couple of days working on my spring/summer collection. In fact I have the whole week scheduled for nothing else!

Monday I was into the turquoise blues as it was a sunny, bright day. But Tuesday it was raining most of the day - everything was soggy and with the low clouds things were dim. But I put myself in mind of spring rain rather than winter rain and ended up working with the wonderful watery-looking stone, aquamarine. A sneak peak at one of the pieces above!

It's funny how your mood/surroundings will be reflected in what you create. Monday I was trying to get things done in between unexpected visitors, telephone calls and housework. The clear skies and warm breeze did lift my mood (luckily!) from harried to 'getting the job done'. The pieces I created when I eventually got to my bench were consequently also more 'energetic'. Easy to wear, eye catching, low maintenance - I could see people throwing them on as they rushed out the door for a busy day - not thinking about them until it was time for bed after another busy day.

Yesterday, however, with the wet weather settled in, I enjoyed the peace of the constant thrumming of rain on the roof and enjoyed the calm in my quiet, warm studio. When the rain started during the night I started to think about a particular aquamarine strand that had been sitting, patiently waiting for me to have some inspiration about it. I sat down with it in the morning and it all came together beautifully (I just love it when that happens!) Looking back at the day's work, the designs from yesterday are serene and unfussy - someone will put them on with care and thoroughly enjoy them.

I wonder what today will bring?

Can you believe we're well into August already? That means spring is just a couple of weeks away! And now we're well into the second half of the year many people I know have started to do things for Christmas. One girlfriend, incredibly, has already FINISHED her gift buying!!! Incredible. Monique from Your Cheeky Monkey has started on her Christmas crafts. Even I have not been immune - I have already designed and received my Christmas postcards! Considering I left it till the last minute last year and paid a premium for the rush job, I must have learned my lesson! Have you started thinking about the "C" word yet, or are you already in denial?

Till next :)
Annette

Blue Diamonds and less momentous things!

All across the gem news this week was the sale of the 7.03ct rectangular cut internally flawless vivid blue diamond over the past week? Extracted last year from the Cullinan mine in South Africa it went under the hammer in a Sotheby's auction held in Geneva to an undisclosed telephone bidder. The price hit a new high (per carat) for any gemstone sold at auction, eventually selling after some harried bidding at 10.5 million Swiss francs ... that's almost $9.5million USD or $12.2million AUD! Wowsers!!! Apparently the new owner gets to name it for prosterity as well. (Well, you'd like to get some sort of kudos for paying that much for a stone - albeit one of the world's rarest gemstones).

This led me to read about other blue diamond sales. I found that London jeweller, Laurence Graff, paid just under $5 million for an oval vivid blue diamond of 3.7ct in mid 2008. He followed this up at the end of 2008 by buying the 35.56 carat Wittelsbach diamond for $24.5 million! The really interesting thing is that he outbid the Bavarian government!!

Well, back to reality and even though I have a sizeable stash here, no blue diamonds I'm afraid, not even a little one *sigh*. The closest I have would be blue topaz - so above is a picture of some blue topaz and aquamarine earrings. They're still pretty, even if they're not diamonds!

Onto other things.... I wanted to tell you about two jewellery artisans that have really taken my attention lately. Andrew of Chainmaille by MBOI makes some amazing chainmaille pieces and he photographs them so beautifully as well!

The other is Jenny of J. Mack Gems, who I recently met through Creative Bloggers. She has made some outstanding beadwoven pieces - check out this piece call Gladiator - isn't it extraordinary! I just love it!!

I know Mother's Day is past, however slow little person that I am, found this great gift that would be appropriate for any work at home mum from the Business Mums Network.

Now I have been very remiss in not putting up the recent blogger buddy award I was honoured to receive from Jenjen at Gotta Love Mom. I love sitting down with a cuppa and catching up with what she has been up to (and admiring her wonderful pics), so really appreciate her giving this award to me!

Sites to sell and network in

It's been a bit of a whirlwind couple of weeks down here on the farm :) My daughter broke her arm a few weeks ago and after numerous trips to the Base Hospital (140km away) the cast is now off. Yay! My inlaws have been away so husband has been doing lots of extra running around looking after their property and it seems the children have had extra curricular activities all the time!

But not one to rest on my laurels, I finally did what I have been meaning to do for almost two years and that is open an Etsy store. Yes, you heard me - TWO years. Three days off it in fact. That's pretty awful isn't it. I was spurred into doing it by a great little networking group that has now officially become an Etsy street team called eSMArts. Cool, eh. Check out my *new* Etsy store here.

AND I joined an Australian Etsy-like site called Made It and have a few items listed there too. And of course I've been on the Canadian version - icraft - for a couple of months now.

I'm sure you remember me mentioning Posh Mama, that great social networking site for mums and Everything Skwiggle for the creator in all of us. Well, I've found a couple of more - Divapreneur and Indie Inspire Co.! I'm also a dedicated member of a couple Aussie networking sites too - the WAHM network at the BlogWhammy group. I have met the loveliest people through these sites, found the most interesting blogs and made quite a few customers too! One blog that I was checking out today was EP Designs. I'm not really into shabby chic but Elena does it with style!

Golly. It's a wonder I have any time to create at all!

But I do :)

Above is a pair of simple yet stunning earrings. Beautiful flat nuggets of aquamarine hang from sterling silver earhooks. Simplicity at its best.

Have a great day!

Aquamarine and Finding your Niche

Identifying your niche market can be a huge task which can sometimes seem insurmountable. But I came across a link to a magnificient Niche Workshop by Tad Hargrave on Ingrid Cliff's Small Business Ideas blog. I would highly recommend this workshop paper to anyone in business that feels like they are wallowing around a bit finding their target market. I am fortunate that I know my target market...women just like me LOL!

So, being a woman, just like me, I hope you like my piece for today! I was fortunate to acquire some amazingly beautiful aquamarine smooth nuggets and made this rather stylised pendant and I really like it, although it might be a tad too modern (or even tribal) for some!

Aquamarine gets its name from the Latin 'water of the sea' and I picture the Aegean with these nuggets! Aquamarine is a type of beryl and quite a hard stone although it can be brittle, so I wouldn't recommend it for bracelet or rings unless it is well protected. A lot of aquamarine comes from Brazil, Russia, Australia, Myanmar, China, India, Kenya, Madagascar, Namibia, Nigeria, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the USA.

For many centuries, oceanic energy was believed to be contained within aquamarines. Legends say that it is the treasure of mermaids, with the power to keep sailors safe at sea. Amulets were made of aquamarine and sailors believed that it would instill them with bravery and the ability to overcome even the most terrible storm. It was also believed to have a soothing influence on land, especially on married couples, and to counteract the forces of darkness. Should you dream of aquamarine it meant that you would meet new friends.

I feel a strong desire to "own" this stone, and when I read that aquamarine is a stone of courage, with calming energies that reduce stress and quieten the mind, I now know why! It also harmonizes its surroundings and protects against pollutants as well as healing sore throats and swollen glands and calming the immune system.

Enjoyment in what you do and a favourite bracelet

I am just soooo in love with this bracelet - I'm showing it off to everyone at the moment! In a way, this bracelet defines the enjoyment I get from designing and making jewellery, although it took reading http://rainbowdesigns.com.au/blog/?p=109 to make this connection ;)

I love how I can put stones and or pearls together and it works - the result of the whole is even better than the individual pieces that went into it. Yes, the lime green pearls are beautiful, and so is the amethyst, the aquamarine and the other pearls - in lavender, purple and grass green - but put them altogether and WOW - it really 'pops'!

The happiness I get from the design and creation process is why I keep doing what I do, and my passion (and we ALL need to have a passion in some aspect of our lives) is what makes my jewellery appealing to others - people want to have a piece that is not only attractive to them but because it has a tiny piece of my passion in it - they remember my eagerness and happiness when talking about it to them.

I think myself fortunate to be able to do what I love as a 'job'. It makes the not so nice work that is involved quite bearable.

What is your passion?