Mother's Day Event

I am so excited to announce that I will be participating in a Mother's Day Event at Anthropologie's King of Prussia store tomorrow, May 13th!  I'll be custom making my intial birthstone necklaces on the spot!  If you are local or in the area, stop by and shop for your mama (or yourself!).

kickstart to April

A few exciting things have kick started my April.  I was searching to add a turquoise ring to my collection (how I didn't already have one was beyond my comprehension) when I stumbled upon this absolutely lovely Art Nouveau ring.  I found a lot of turquoise rings I loved but I just could not get this one out of my head!  The price was right, the turquoise color is stunning, and the classic Art Nouveau lines are perfection!

I also added a new bracelet to my arsenal: the Reverie bracelet (featured with other Villette bracelets: leather wrap bracelet, ombre aqua bracelet and my Resolution bracelet with garnet and gold filled beads).  The word Hope is hand stamped on brass and threaded on silk bead cord.  Now available for wholesale orders.

Speaking of wholesale orders, I am currently working with a new store opening up in NJ that hopes to carry Villette Jewelry.  More on this to come!

And if you can believe it, my daughter is turning 5 years old in a week!  April is shaping up to be a pretty exciting month!

your month

Now that the holidays are over and the gifts have been given, I can show a few of the things I made this season.  My Initial Birthstone necklaces (top photo) for my daughter and nieces (ages 4 and 6) were a big hit.  They feature a hand stamped initial on a sterling silver disc that is oxidized with a brushed matte finish and tiny briolette birthstone strung on silk bead cord (in their favorite color) with a sterling silver clasp and extender chain (not shown).  The silk bead cord and dainty briolette make these perfectly age appropriate for the little ones and the extender chain allows their necklace to grow with them.

My Mama & Co. necklace (bottom photo) for my cousin Sarah, who is expecting, is one of my favorite gifts to give at baby showers (because mama deserves a gift too!) and features wire wrapped birthstones for mama and baby on a simple cable chain.  Also featured in this photo is my Just Because tags in my gift boxes.  This is something I designed when I first created my packaging when I started my business and I still use them to this day!

charming

Finally got around to putting this charm necklace together.  I took the chain from another long necklace I don't really wear anymore, and adapted it slightly to allow additional charms in the future.  Not only do I love the sentimentality of this necklace but also the fact that I am wearing pendants again that were no longer getting a lot of wear.  From left to right: water casting techinique that solidified my true love for metalsmithing, clear crystal to represent my daughter's birth month, cut out coin my father made, a moon I wore all the time when I was younger, a skeleton key which was one of the main elements in one of my most popular necklace designs, and a blue topaz which I gifted to all the important females in my life prior to my wedding.  Already considering adding more, like the black pearl I picked up on my Hawaiian honeymoon (although I am slightly concerned about damage to the pearl against the other metal charms). So excited to wear this piece today and for many days to come!

gold links

Just a small piece I created for a taste of something new.  I've been going through my old jewelry and started to recycle pieces from ones I no longer wear.  This was made from the chain of another one of my necklaces and gold wire scrap from a few rings I made.  Simple and basic with great layering potential.  Also, I love seeing pictures of other jewelry artist's benches and equipment and am finding the beauty in my own soldering block.  It's an imprinted history of my studio work.

a sprinkling of newness

I have quite a few lingering projects hanging out in my studio, all planned out and supplies sourced, but I finally got the time to execute some of them last night.  I've been obsessing over oxidized silver and yellow gold for some time now but had the epiphany that this combo I love could also be created with black stones and gold.  Henceforth the onyx bracelet and thread earrings were born!  I've also been craving a pop of blue with my necklaces and whipped up this small wire wrapped blue topaz.  Perfect for layering!

Art Deco lines

Made this necklace this past week, consisting of hammered brass wire and oxidized sterling silver chain inspired by a lot of Art Deco prints I was looking up on Pinterest.  It still needs a few adjustments, like opening the loops on the chain to provide a better slide and possibly shortening the longer piece to accommodate the most common necklines I wear.  I am such a stickler about fit even when it comes to jewelry, something I think many people don't acknowledge often.  (Nothing bothers me more then when a clasp is heavier than the pendant and it pulls at the back of your neck!)  Regardless of the few adjustments needed, I am in love with this piece and am brainstorming different configurations, shapes and patterns.  How stunning would this be translated into another piece:

  (image from Flickr)

threaded wire earrings

My studio has been sorely neglected lately.  But all of a sudden yesterday, I experienced a surge of motivation that made me feel like if I didn't make something new soon I was going to burst!  Although I had minimal time to complete said newness after feverishly completing my daughter's Halloween costume, I was able to bust these hammered wire GF thread earrings out before crashing into my bed for the night!  But my goal for this weekend is to create a much needed shopping list of jewelry supplies to make a whole lot of more newness in the upcoming weeks!

Villette Jewelry + Instagram = LOVE

Villette Jewelry is now on Instagram!  If you have appreciated reading this little blog of mine, please follow me on Instagram.  I am so excited to be a part of another vehicle to share my love of jewelry!

Villette Jewelry ebay listings

Come one, come all... Villette Jewelry is now on Ebay!  I just listed 12 pieces from my own personal collection for sale.  I need to clear out some space in my jewelry box, and as hard as it is to say goodbye to these pieces, I dearly would love for them to go to good homes where they will get much more wear.  All priced to sell, with free shipping, so please check them out!

beloved

Happy belated Mama's Day to all the mothers out there!  As a treat to myself for Mother's Day, I gave myself some time in my studio to make this lovely ring.  This hammered oxidized ring has Beloved stamped on one side, with my daughter's name stamped on the other.  This ring works wonderfully as a stacking ring with it's narrow top and I have been pairing it with a thin diamond band to represent my daughter's birthstone.  I love the rough, hand wrought texture of this band in contrast with the refined dainty nature of the diamond band.  This is my first attempt at making a ring that sits higher than it is wide, so there were a lot of learns, but overall I am very happy with the outcome.  And of course I love commemorating special days with jewelry!

meet the artist

Here are a few pictures from the Meet the Artist event at Arts Plus two weekends ago. Unfortunately, the rainy weather kept a lot of patrons away but I loved having the chance to talk to those that made it out, especially connecting with people within my own neighborhood.  It was also a great opportunity to talk with people about custom work!  I love working with customers on custom pieces... not only does it push me to create and work with different mediums and designs but it also is extremely inspiring to me to make a truly special, one-of-a-kind piece for my clients!

second Saturday

Villette Jewelry will be holding a "Meet the Artist" event for Second Saturday at Arts Plus in Collingswood, NJ this Saturday March 14th.  If you are local, stop on by, and enjoy the Second Saturday festivities.  I love meeting my readers and followers on social media and I love nothing more than talking jewelry! Hope to see you there!

the gift of giving

Now that the gifts are given, I am excited to reveal the Christmas gifts I made this year.  The grandmothers and great grandmother each received one of my Novella lockets.  The lockets are all vintage and the chains were handcrafted by me with oxidized silver chain and ornate chain detail.  I was very excited to give these gifts but was extremely moved by the response I received from the recipients!  Specifically from Clara's great grandmother.  She burst into tears, overwhelmed with happiness by receiving her first locket ever in her life!  She had always wanted one but had never received one as a gift or purchased one for herself.  Every piece of jewelry is important in my mind, but there is something intimate and uniquely special about a locket.  Maybe it is the thought of someone carrying a case close to their heart with something personally important inside.  And it never ceases to surprise me and warm my heart that jewelry seems to speak a universal language... every piece is filled with a personal story, a memory, a mark of an important moment in life, and the love that is passed in physical form from one person to another.

Arts Plus

I am very excited to announce that Villette Jewelry will now be carried at Arts Plus Gallery in Collingswood, NJ.  This wonderful shop, located on the main strip of Collingswood on Haddon Ave, offers an array of artisan gifts and I am so proud to be included along with some very talented artists.  Stop by the store, if you are local, to pick up some truly one-of-a-kind gifts for the holidays.

tragic fail

This is what the ring was supposed to look like... and this is what it really looks like...

Sometimes you just have to admit you failed and start from scratch.  I am heartbroken because of the loss of 14K gold (which I can always cash in for scrap) but more importantly the loss of time.  But I feel confident that the second time around I am going to nail it!  Here's to some optimism!

baby bracelet

I made Clara her very first piece of jewelry!  Lately, she has been grabbing for one of my bracelets so I asked her if she wanted her own, which she replied yes.  Super excited that she was even interested, I let her pick out what color she wanted from the embroidery floss I had on hand and made her this bracelet for which, once she was presented with the bracelet, she hollered "No," and threw it across the floor.  Spirits dashed, but not entirely squashed, I finally convinced her to just "try it on."  Now she won't let me take it off!  The impossible tininess of it makes me realize that although she is growing up fast, she's still so very little.

beautiful scraps

Just made this bracelet last night from left overs I had in my studio.  I find it a fun challenge in problem solving to create something simply from the items you have on hand.  This was pieced together with some leftover garnets from a bridal jewelry order, random left over beads and findings from other projects throughout the years, and pieced together scraps of chain.  I am very happy with the outcome!

happy 5th birthday!!!

This little blog of mine turns 5 years old today!  I cannot believe it has been 5 years already... how time flies!  So many wonderful things have happened in the last 5 years... I finished up my Jewelry studio classes at Moore, I created my online portfolio, I formed many wonderful relationships with local stores, my husband and I became home owners, my pieces were sold through Anthropologie (and worked feverishly on that product while 9 months pregnant!), I had my beautiful baby girl Clara, and I have made some wonderful connections through the online jewelry community!  Thank you so much to my readers and thank you for supporting Villette Jewelry!  It has been a pleasure sharing my passion for jewelry with all of you.

love initials

Just a little necklace I made to represent my baby girl.  No matter how overdone, I still love initial and birthstone jewelry.  In fact, I love it more when it represents someone important in your life.