Vintage Shell Button Necklace

So, most of you know that I get a lot of my vintage buttons from my Grandmother, and that she is an antique button collector and frankly, just crazy about old buttons.

Well, she got her hands on the August issue of Bead & Button magazine which featured a shell button necklace project and we completed the project today. I decided to photo document some of the excitement....

working...
buttons...buttons....
and more buttons...
The project, from the magazine...
mine is on the top, my Grandmother's is on the bottom. ; )

Plaza Arts Festival

This weekend I traveled to Oklahoma City to participate in the Plaza Arts Festival in the Plaza district of the city. The event was great! A lot of people attended, I made some sales and met some new artist friends. I wanted to share my pictures with you!

The new and improved booth set up... notice my new banners!

Chinese puppet parade thing... was REALLY cool!

Balloon release!

me doing my thing...

my neighbor to the right... Sam doing her thing... http://www.samanthalambphotography.com/

my neighbor to the left... Mike doing his thing...

Happy customer... she got the skull cluster

Adona happy customer/new friend...

New Pendants

I decided to take yesterday morning off from the Art Market and I had a fabulous morning! I started by walking the dog, then I grabbed my coffee and headed to the River Market to do some shopping, hit up an estate sale, and finally made it to the bead store for work.
So, the point of this entry... I found a great new artist at the market. Her name is Heather Montgomery and she makes these fabulous pendants from old stamps.
The peacock is from Czechoslovakia 1975, the horse is from Hungary 1973, the bird is from Malagasy 1991, the penguins are from Hungary 1987. She does such a fantastic job sealing these unique little pieces of art and often times history onto clay tiles, resulting in a fabulous pendant. Check out her website at www.heatherjmontgomery.com and stay tuned to my blog to see what I create out of my new finds. (and yes Maureen, I was thinking of you when I picked out the bird and penguins!)

OMG! I am in heaven!

The vintage earring fairy came for a visit! Can you believe what she left?!

I have my work cut out for me...

Clusters

This is my newest design for fall...

The above necklaces are a new line called "Clusters." I strive to combine unique beads, colors and charms to create these eclectic clusters. They look great strung with beads or hanging from a long chain. You can customize the clusters too... If you have personal sentimental beads or charms bring them to me and we can get started designing your very own "Cluster" necklace.
Check out all of Bella Vita's new Fall 2009 jewelry on my facebook fan page. And don't forget to follow Bella Vita on Twitter too, that's where I post special contests and sales!

Client 1 before...

Necklace 1 after...












Necklace 2 after...












and the rest after...









Last week I had a woman bring me a bag of her Grandmother's jewelry that she wanted repaired. She wanted to be able to wear the jewelry but it was all broken and dirty and needed some major TLC! So I started by laying everything out, then I color coordinated what I was working with. After I got everything in color piles I started taking things apart. Then I started rearranging the piles, and then came the design part.

My favorite pieces are the first two images above! The client was very pleased and became teary eyed at first glance, when she realized she could now share the jewelry that her Grandmother once wore. When working on projects like this I give a free consultation and estimate then, I charge an hourly rate of $20/hr plus the materials it takes to reconstruct wearable jewelery. Please contact me if you or anyone you know may be interested.

Busy Summer

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted a new blog! I started selling jewelry at the Argenta Art Market in North Little Rock. Let me tell you, this keeps me extremely busy making jewelry! It is ever Saturday from 7 a.m. until noon. And yes, it is starting to get extremely HOT, yesterday was 99 degrees.

I want to share a newspaper article that was written about a class I teach at the bead store. It turned out to be a fantastic article that I am very proud of.