1.28.2017

Mt Washington Pottery - odds and ends sale!


I swear I try to pass this stuff on when I hear about it - but I don't often move that fast. This is one of my MOST favorite pottery people and she is having an ODDs and ENDs sale! YAHOO!

SUNDAY, JANUARY 29th
Mt. Washington Pottery
Odds & Ends studio sale
noon - 4 pm
2927 Gilroy St.
Los Angeles 90039

CASH ONLY!
get your butt down there.....

Svenskt Tenn

old photo from our home w/ Josef Frank shoji screen

Any trip to Stockholm deserves a stop at Svenskt Tenn. You won't get bowled over by crazy interior design, but it will create a major shift in what you see in interior design from that day forward. Luckily there is a story in T Magazine this week about Josef Frank, the 1940's print maker/furniture designer who made a name for himself, as powerful today as it was back then. You can walk into one of the most elegant Stockholm urban apartment (of the wealthy set) and find his unique take on interior design.

this could almost be a photo of my sisters living room - Hi Linda!

Here is a link to the story in T Magazine.

It's unfortunate but in the last ten years there have been a few American companies who tried to knock-off the prints - Anthropoogie comes to mind, the last time I was in Stockholm I was talking to the Director of Exports and he was pretty darn furious about this blatant copy. It's my impression that innovative Swede's would never imagine an exact rip-off such as this, it's just not in their dna - so watch out for the UNoriginal.


1.27.2017

My Lovely Pieces

top: small quartz crystal, medium smokey quartz and large tangerine quartz

No one can blame me for jumping into this with an whole and open heart - making jewelry with crystals is a dream of mine! Back in the 80's when I was in school I was such a huge fan of ME Stewart... anyone remember he 100% natural pieces - think a piece of wood on a knotted leather - she was my hero! I took many jewelry classes in school and explored different techniques but it wasn't until I saw a netted stone that I knew this epitomized it for me. I sold them in the shop over the holidays and no matter how fast I made them before I could have a photo shoot they would be GONE. They make terrific gifts, because what better thing to share with your friend of loved one than a beautiful crystal.

large herkimer diamond, quartz crystal, tangerine crystal

How to actually make these lovely pieces has been something that has eluded me for some time. I have kept that netted rock next to my bed for years (and years...) never finding the time to try things out and figure out how to do it... but then one day a few months ago I did it! I sat down and made my first netted crystal. It's evolved and taken on a few different forms, as I am sure it will over time. I am totally in love with these pieces - making them AND wearing them - I take the time to clear the crystal for you, because I know how busy we all are and if I do it for you it's ready to GO. I have the added benefit of living next to the ocean so heck, gives me a chance to jump in and clear the crystals in the open ocean. I say open ocean because it's not a bay (the Narragansett Bay is nearby) but I like to clean them in front of our home in Matunuck, where we look straight out onto Block Island in the distance. Then I take the crystals and leave them out to clear in the New Moon (for new beginnings) and finally I take a moment and bring the crystals with me to the beach on a sunny day and lay them out in the sun - it's a chance for me to do a meditation in the sunlight and with the power of all the crystals nearby it feels like a strong vibrational bath.


I have yet to come up with a name after figuring out that someone else had "enlightened pieces" *darn!* but something will come to me (email me with ANY and ALL ideas!) but in the meantime I wanted to offer them to you and all my friends! They are now on the website and I hope that you enjoy them as much as I do - you can wear them out, but I also love to wear them next to my skin, they get warm and feel wonderful inside your shirt! Cut them and tie a not to the length you like (careful to not make it too short - there's no going back!). Next I am going to learn to make a clasp... more exciting things to learn!

I can also do various colors of cord: gray, brown, white, natural, dark natural

1.14.2017

A bit storytelling in the new year...



I am going to share a little bit with you, probably not appropriate by some standards but here I go.. coming into the new year was very rocky for our family personally. While the Holiday time is great for my store, we came out of it with just enough to pay off who we owed for my inventory - whew! This is living by the seat of your pants that is our life - the life of two self employed people. Needless to say in the coming year I am using my workbook "Many Moons" to work on asking for more, creating more and being stronger in the coming year.


Last night I was feeling so strong as I read my workbook and started jotting down my intentions for the Full Moon (Thursday nights full moon), I love the way Sarah writes because she knows what crazy lives we all lead and that we can't necessarily sit down on the exact night of the full moon and gives us space to work on it a night or two after - I am just glad that I am doing it. As I write things down I realize I am in a good space and the coming year has many surprises for me and that my new adventure in making jewelry, making a lot more things for the store, is going to be wonderful for me on so many levels. It will fill my heart, it will give to others and adding to the beauty in the world. Just what I wanted - so I went to bed content that strength was coming on many levels. I laid out my new crystals to bask in the light of the full moon, to drink in the energy of what the Cherokee call the 'Cold Moon' (the January full moon has many names). I made a small prayer and all was good.

That was in the quiet of the night. The morning brought chaos - it's Saturday so the weekend is usually swedish pancakes in the morning, I figured we could make it work even if we got up late for Franny's Basketball game - we "got'er done" and arrived just in time for the game to start. As Franny said from the back seat, it's okay because really this is the last year that she was doing Basketball, effectively saying "I'm not trying to impress anyone anyhow". Then we wanted to take a walk on the beach before I had to be in the store, so that we could wash the crystals in the ocean.

We took the crystals down to the ocean to wash them, I stepped into the water a bit to get them deeper into the water so that they could be submersed. Then a wave came in stronger than I thought, I jumped back just in time to trip, while holding my net full of crystals up and planted face first on top of the wave. Boots, socks, sweater over two t-shirts, cashmere scarf and down jacket - faceplanted on the sand and surf. This was not my beautiful crystal cleaning ceremony that we had done before... it had gone so well last time. We drove home in silence, I was caked in sand, soaking wet and cold - then Franny and I looked at each other, I had sand on my face too! and we started laughing. Well THAT must have looked interesting from the beach! (what the heck are those two girls doing!?)

Wet and cold I tripped on the stairs at home, dropped by tea all over the floor this was not my version of the day. Until today I had felt some momentum towards a 'things are going right in my direction' people were coming into the shop with so many good things to say, the Holiday season had gone well in the shop and I felt that there was an opening for a change. But the day had confused me and made my second guess my triumphant feeling. Then I realized I had just got my period. In Macroboitics I have learned that when you have your period your body can be clumsy, unbalanced and weak because it is basically out of balance - your CHI is off. This came as quite a relief to this day that I thought was going to screw up my good karma or my centered-ness about the coming year. Now I realize it's just a passing and that tomorrow, things will be better.

Bring Back the Cocktail Party - Hell YES!


One of my New Years resolutions is to WRITE MORE BLOGS... for gods sake! After twelve years of writing these things this has been my resolution for more than just this year. But I'm going to ease into it by sharing this article from the Huffington Post that I thought was pretty delightful and certainly very true - this may be the year that we all need to have more cocktail parties! Since everyone is becoming better cooks, eating more whole foods, making crazy good cocktails at home then really what better time to re-introduce the Cocktail Party!

The Article (link here) gives us nine, very good, reasons to bring back the cocktail party. Reason number one is enough for me to bring it on back! Remember years ago when you used to balk at a $10 drink, I used to say that's New York City prices if I saw that amount on a drink somewhere other than NYC. Now I can go to my local Rhode Island hang out and there it is.. the $12 drink! Not to mention NYC's $16 Manhattan. So here you go, the Huffington Posts reason number one.
1. You can drink what you want, without paying a ridiculous sum.
"I remember being aghast when the price of a cocktail hit $11 — and now we live in the era of the $15 martini. Even dives are raising their prices. Of course, I’m in the NYC region, where the cost of living has replaced pickpockets as the thing most likely to take all your money. Even still, when you think about a budget martini and the dubious ingredients mingling in the glass, wouldn’t it be much better to get one bottle of really good gin, rather than spend that money on bad drinks?" - Huffington Post - they go in with another 8 reasons...

I would introduce that it's such a nice thing to do in January, February and March when so many of us stay at home and cozy up. Why not get out and have some fun with your friends or host one yourself. This last holiday season we hosted a "Game Night" in the days between Christmas and New Year. We had a group of friends over and when they walked in the door they got a piece of tape with a name on it stuck to their forehead and they had to ask questions to guess who they were. Okay not the most unique idea in the whole world but it broke the ice and we had a good time. We went on with simple things that kids could play too like Charades and Spoons, most of the time simple is better when you have a crowd.

When we have parties I like to mix people around, it's not the same group of people every time, we mix surf friends, with my favorite shop customers, with some of our artist friends and then I like to throw a yoga guru in there for good measure. Never too many people, just a good number so everyone can talk to each other at least once. I like to serve a "cocktail" as people walk in and then we always end up hanging out in the kitchen - but hey that's fun too!

Read the article here and I hope we have 'elbowed' you into throwing a cocktail party!