CRAVINGS

Reconfigured Jewelry & The Summer!

2010-07-30T10:56:00.001-07:00

It's almost August and try as I might, I must admit I never seem to find the time to do a little blogging. Every time I think I am going to post a new column, something comes up. With running a business on one's own, it's hard to find "free" time. It seems I am always listing on one of my sites, or shooting pictures or doing the bookkeeping (which I hate) or cleaning house. Balancing working hours with household hours is probably the hardest thing to do! But I try.

Buying and selling antique jewelry is a wonderful profession, but I find myself longing to go back into crafting. I did so many shows in the 80s and early 90s that there are, at times, moments when I want to go back to a show to see what I have been missing. Well, one thing I have not been aware of is Where Women Create, a magazine that (once I got over sticker price shock) I found to be the most amazing magazine. To have discovered its sister publications was like a Godsend. Not only did I bring myself up to snuff on the current "name" artisans, but I also found myself revisiting people whom I had known personally when I was still in Los Angeles.

Anyway, after seeing WWC I decided that I simply had to get my studio together. The only question was WHEN?? Well, I don't think it's going to happen this year as there are just too many things on my plate. My father is getting on in age and I have a trip to Vancouver at the end of August, back to back trips to London in October and November, and a cruise to Mexico with my father in December. And in b etween all that, I still have to file my 2009 taxes as I am on extension. Yep, that's enough.

But I do have time to make a few items at night so I did bring out a few bits and pieces and have been busy listing them on my sites on ETSY and RUBY LANE. Now when I break out the Christmas stuff, that will mean I am getting a little more organized!

Do you like the earrings I made? Here's a couple more pair.....

I do realize I am still behind in updating past blogs - especially my last trip to London and Vancouver. Well, let's just say that most times they revolve around the markets that are still around. Every trip there seems to be one less shop open, one less market open. I had thought about moving back to Vancouver before I moved to St. Peters, but the realization that I would never be able to afford a home meant I had to choose where not only I could purchase a home for myself, but also where the inventory was. And it certainly was not in Vancouver. Like Los Angeles, Vancouver doesn't have much of a history whereas St. Louis goes back to the late 1790s. So the potential of finding goodies in Missouri was a lot higher than in British Columbia!

Like Vancouver, St. Peters has the same seasons - something Los Angeles did not. I love the turn of fall colors and I love to see snow. Imagining snow in Los Angeles is a bit of a stretch! Anyway, I'm happy here and the "green" certainly has put my soul at peace. If I can't live in Vancouver, St. Peters is the next best thing. Now if they could only do something about the heat!

I have made a promise to myself to get back into crafting. I think I have a lot of ideas to offer but I also realize that to offer them means having lots of inventory in place. Right now, I have little in the way of what I really want to produce. So my listings will continue to be slim on the handcrafted side, but hopefully larger on the antique finds side.

Here's a few of my latest antique jewelry finds.....

And that's it for now. If you've stopped by, many thanks. Once I get my schedule down a little more "pat", I'm sure there'll be lots more for me to offer!

Take care.

Still at It!

2010-07-01T11:20:00.000-07:00

Hello! Well, I am back from trips to not only London/Paris but also Vancouver.

Vancouver is my home town having grown up in North Vancouver. I married in Vancouver, moved to Invermere, B.C. with my husband, left my husband, moved in with my father and then moved to Los Angeles to put some distance between me and a bad divorce. I settled into retail jewelry sales in Los Angeles before getting into a law firm as a receptionist. From there, I worked my way up to legal assistant/office manager and continued in law until 1999 when I told my last boss to &))^^#$#$(*$!! Needless to say I had EBAY to fall back on and thank goodness it worked! From then till now I have never had to go back to a law job!

I have been travelling to London since 1984. Well, actually my first trip was 1976 with my husband but I think I'd rather forget that trip - it was the beginning of the end of my marriage. Anyway, London in 1984 was also a VERY bad experience and in 1985 I decided to go on my own to the city. Yes, it was scary and I must admit that finding a hotel was the hardest part. But I settled on the Lancaster Court Hotel near Hyde Park and believe it or not, I have stayed there almost every year since then. The hotel is family owned and I have seen the owners' sons grow into manhood, marry, have children, and sadly, divorce. But they are great guys and the family welcomes me back to the hotel each and every time I arrive. If you are looking for low budget but close to the bus lines, Tube and Portobello Road, you can't beat this hotel!

My first trip to Paris was also in 1976 and I must admit my second trip was only done in 2009. That's a long time between French trips but it was something I decided to do with my friend, Sue, in London. We stayed in Paris for two nights, taking in The Louvre the first time. The second time we discovered a wonderful antique show in the heart of Paris and I now make time to travel each May and November to the City of Light. Paris is a fascinating city and I must say I enjoy brushing up on my 5 years of high school French - but Sue speaks fluently and there is no language barrier when talking the price of a piece of jewelry. The hotels, I must say, are terribly expensive and the price of a Coke always shocks me ($4.50). But, c'est la vie en Paree!

So, my May trip was to London & the Paris show while my June trip was to Vancouver to go to one of the flea markets and visit with my friend, Richard Fauteux, who just happens to be one of the best authorities on jewelry having worked at Dupuis Auctioneers for a few years. His experience is unparalleled having owned his own shop in Victoria in the 70s. Yes, we are all baby boomers around this blog!

Anyway, time to do some work so I will continue this post a little later but I'll leave you with a few of the jrewelry finds...

Stay tuned.

My Goodness How Time Flies.....

2010-04-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

I really did hope to stay on top of my blog but I guess it just isn't going to happen. With trying to run 2 websites, constantly trying to locate inventory, shooting pictures, bookkeeping, answering questions and then trying to keep my home life afloat (meals, laundry, paying the bills, etc.) it seems that 24 hours a day just is NOT enough in a day!

But here I will pick up where I left off.....

My last trip to London was in February and I must admit I had a good time. There was no side trip to Paris but there was enough to do in London with the many shows that went on. Portobello of course (which is mentioned below), Kempton Park and the Horticultural Hall show all kept me hopping and contributed to my collection of jewelry. The weather cooperated quite nicely and the trip to and fro had no problems at all. Not like my upcoming trip which is in 7 days. I'm wondering if the volcano in Iceland is going to keep quiet and if I am going to have fair weather while I am over in England. This time I will be taking in the French Antiques show at the Place de la Bastille and I am hoping to add some French flavor to my inventory.

My condo is a little further along now in the decorating arena. Not only do I have the aforementioned painted walls, but I also have a wonderful 36-drawer apothecary sideboard sitting in my dining room though my dining room is NOT a dining room - more a catch-all at the moment for holding boxes yet to be unpacked. I am still waiting to find the right pieces of furniture for my condo and my bed is still lacking a headboard.

Do you like the above pieces? They're Essex Crystals set in yellow gold and they are probably the finest I have come across in a long time. Essex crystals are quite collectible and if you are wondering, each piece is a half portion of a round rock crystal lovingly carved from the back and then handpainted. The result, if done correctly, yields a piece of artwork that shows all the nuances of the designer's choice of coloring. The crystal is almost always backed with a flat piece of mother of pearl to highlight the painted piece. The MOP backing is almost always white so that the design seems to have a 3D effect. One mishap in carving, one mishap in painting, and the artwork is spoiled and the artisan must start again. The best Essex Crystal jewelry was manufactured in the late 1800s and more often than not manufactured in England. A Victorian era Essex Crystal shows clarity that is not seen in later pieces. As the years progressed, the painting grew haphazard and plastic replaced crystal. There is no substitute for the best and the pieces shown above are premiere quality!

Anyway, I'm getting off track. Let's go back to London.....

London used to be full of what I call the "daily" markets, but property speculators decided that two of the best shows just had to go.....

Camden Passage was the fare of the day for Wednesday. You could get up early, take the tube to ANGEL and exit the station, turn right, and hit the start of the market. Open air stalls combined with small booths inside buildings. The walk was quite refreshing and you could find all manner of goods from the old to the new. I don't think I ever left Camden Passage without buying at least one thing. I knew one dealer at the market that started out in the open, then moved inside to one of the buildings, moved to better spot (got kicked out), moved to a better spot again (got kicked out again), and now she's in her own little cubby hole of a shop in the one remaning area of dealers under cover. You see, the property speculators decided that the Islington area of London was "up and coming" and that the antiques dealers just HAD to go! So now, what was once a thriving area for antiques is now a real "hit and miss". You might be lucky to see maybe 30 people outside. And if some of the remaining shops are open, you might see a few more dealers. But for the most part, Camden Passage died a death a long time ago and basically, it's a crying shame. I still mourn its loss to this day.

The same thing happened to the Friday Bermondsey market. If anyone has been to the market in the past, they will know that it was composed of three sections, along with a few buildings on the outskirts that held the overflow of dealers. When word got round that there was going to be a new tube stop in Bermondsey, everyone thought the stop would be right where the market was. Well, it turned out that that wasn't the case but instead, rumor grew that the space would be converted to flats over some retail shops. Well, over a great period of time, the market began to shrink. First, the "powers that be" closed off one section - the dealers moved to the other 2 sections. Then another section closed down - the dealers converged some more. Then finally the show shut down completely for some time. When word finally came through that the show was open again, a visit to the new site verified my worst fears. No, the new owners of the development did not provide the "cover" they always seemed to show in their promotion about the fact that they weren't going to change the market (HA!). Instead, they placed the wonderful dealers who braved wind, rain, even snow, right smack in the middle of a wind tunnel between two buildings! And because of this now ridiculous happenstance, only a handful of dealers even opted to brave the show. I ventured out to the show in 2008 and was sadly disappointed and terribly upset at the new promoters. A few dealers were huddled under layers of clothing trying to stay warm in the new "wind tunnel" and there were so many gaps between sellers that the time it took to get to Bermondsey from my hotel was not worth the trip. I managed to find a few things, mostly I bought because I felt so sorry for the dealers. There they were, cold and in circumstances that were not what the promoters had promised to them. I was so angry I could have screamed but what was there to do but spend some money and try to take home a few things. I haven't been back to the show since and maybe one day, if word improves and the promoters provide the "cover" they promised, the show might find its footing once more. Until then, I'll stick closer to town and the shows that are still surviving, if not thriving.

In my next post I'll talk about my latest travel to London and Paris and the trip over a very active volcano.

Stay tuned....

Back from London and Eager to Sell!

2010-02-13T17:54:00.000-08:00

Well, I left off on my last blog about my condo but I didn't realize I'd have a trip to London to fit in. So I'll talk about my London trip first and then will go back to the problem with my condo. I'm sure it will prove to be an interesting story for everyone. Anyway, on to London.....

I always enjoy my trips to the U.K., short as they are. I can cram quite a few antique shows into a small space of time and I must admit, I do enjoy it. The viewing, the buying and sometimes, the trading. I have my own little corner of London that I stay in - a small B&B on Sussex Gardens just down from Paddington Station. I've stayed in the same B&B for 25 years now, without a toilet in my room (but yes, there is a shower) and hardly any heating. I must admit I missed central heating THIS trip - it was so darn cold! I know all the businesses in my small area. My money changer is there, my grocer is there, and I'm right around the corner from Paddington Station where I can enter London from Heathrow via the Heathrow Express. 15 minutes rail time, a short walk, and I end up at my "home away from home." There's something quite comforting about seeing faces you've known for a long time at the end of a journey. They're more than faces really, they're friends.

February in London is always iffy. It's always cold but it can also be wet, dry or snowy. In my case, it was a little of all three. Portobello Road was clear and dry and cold. Victorian Horticultural Hall was rainy and cold. Covent Garden was snowy and cold. Kempton Park was just plain cold.

For those folks that have never been to London - here's a glimpse of my first stop. Later on, I'll add to my Blog and tell you of the other places I visit.

PORTOBELLO ROAD

I think a lot of people's first glimpse of this popular London road was in the movie "Notting Hill" starring Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant. While Mr. Grant could be seen strolling through the food and clothing sections, it was the antique section that I think moviegoers really wanted to see. Well, they didn't and so I will try my best to explain the antiques section of the road.

Portobello Road starts at Chepstow Villas and runs downhill from that point. In the early morning taxis congregate at this starting point letting out eager customers for antiques and yes, souvenirs of a London trip! Running for two full blocks is the antique section - hidden in little "cubby holes" of buildings running along the left side of the street. Enter these small tunnel like alleyways and you'll find a myriad of antique dealers eager to sell their wares. Jewelry, paintings, prints, clothing, statues, woodwork - you name it, you will find it on Portobello Road!

I search for jewelry and it seems that almost every stall along the road has a little bit of silver, gold or costume. Prices vary by dealer as does quality. But when you've found the good stuff you'll know it because your mouth will begin to salivate!

For the last 25 years I have been walking down Portobello things had hardly changed. But this time, I noticed something quite disturbing. A large block of dealers in a corner section of the road had been displaced by a clothing store called Allsaints Spitelfields. In the old days, these section would have held close to 100 dealers in individual stalls - now there was just a big retail store where once 100 people had made their living selling antiques. It was quite a shock. The store had attempted to "blend in" with the flavor of Portobello - its window was stocked with every old fashioned black Singer Sewing Machine that the store could find. The effect was amazing and people lined up in front of the window to have their picture taken. I felt right then that what I was seeing was the beginning of the end. Hopefully, I will be proved wrong and Portobello will stay the same for the rest of my lifetime.

Anyway, after seeing Spitalfields I wondered how much more of Portobello Road had changed. Thankfully, not much. But I guess the writing is on the wall.

Now back to my condo problem...........

I visited my neighbors and sure enough each had the same noise, only my upstairs neighbor a little lighter hum, but my downstairs neighbor - well, let's just say if I had it 100 times, she had 1000 times. The only difference was she didn't stay home 24/7 and when she went to bed she had the TV on. She thought the hum was being caused by ME!

So with this new information I again began to make some calls. I think I am talking around mid 2008 when this happened. And since that time, NO ONE has helped me. But something funny began to occur. As each month passed, the hum started to get softer, more manageable. The vibration stayed but it shrank in intensity. When it rained, it got softer still. When winter 2008 came, it was practically negligent. So much so that I began to paint more walls and think that I was going to fully move in. But then the winter would end and the noise would come back. Which led me to a conclusion.....

New buildings were still being built around me and one of the construction people had suggested that since my unit was the first to be built, all the power for the construction was being drawn from the electrical box near my building. As each new building went up, the drain increased and my hum would subside. Okay, that's one theory. But the other is more plausible.......

Consruction on a new freeway began at the same time the condos were being built. AND as they worked, the electrical company started installing new power lines. So in fact, there were two sets of power lines running and perhaps I was getting the "overload". Once the freeway is completed, the only lines will come down so that only the new remain. Again, could be the problem.....

So here we are in 2010 and yes, I still have my hum but it's the lowest its been. Yes, the floor still vibrates as does my bed but I can sleep now with just two pillows over my head and no ear plugs. I can tune the noise out with a loud TV and I can tune it out entirely with headphones. In other words, I can think and I can work and I can go to bed not having cried my eyes out because it was too noisy.

Friends and family visit and sometimes they can hear "something", other times they cannot. I realize that no one can understand my problem because they have not experienced it. But in April of 2009, there was published in a British newspaper, a "hum" epidemic within a certain community. So I was proved then and there NOT to be crazy. And if you do a GOOGLE on THE HUM you might see the story still in print.

It's a nasty occurrence that I hope happens to no one. It's a horrific nightmare and I pray every day that one morning I wake up not hearing the dreaded sound. We shall see.

Till next time.....

Still Cold and Still Plugging Along....

2010-02-01T13:01:00.000-08:00

So you've now seen my work space and my living room. My main bedroom, dining room and kitchen are still "works in progress." As much as I would love to be working on these areas - to obtain some kind of normal semblance of life - I guess I just have to stay tied to the computer to keep my small business going. But here's a look at how a couple of the rooms looked when I moved in. I must admit, it will be fun to go back to these pages when everything is finally said and done.

Yep, just a bed and a few things around. No chest of drawers, table, lamp or even a TV. Oh well.

And here's the view from my couch looking towards my entry way.

And looking towards the kitchen from my sofa......

And this blog wouldn't be complete if I didn't show you the view I had from my front porch when I moved in...

Yep, I definitely put up with a lot while the other buildings were being built and my waiting for the cable to arrive. I think that was the hardest part - waiting for the cable. No news broadcasts, no commercials, no regular channels of any kind. Just DVDs over and over and over again. Thank goodness I LOVE movies! I think I went through my library of films several times over. So when cable finally arrived, I welcomed it with open arms!

Once I had my cable in place and my connection to the Internet greatly improved, I settled in as best I could. At least I had pre-ordered a refrigerator but it managed to get put in place without my having painted the back wall. I still have that to do. And I did manage to paint a few walls to get my colors right - olive green for the kitchen and dining area and brick brown for the living area. I found the perfect sage green sofa (deep and comfy) and ordered it post haste (it went well with the hardwood floors and brick walls). One of the two oversized comfy chairs I had purchased when I first arrived in Missouri sits in the living room and once it is recovered, it will fit in perfectly with the scheme of things. While waiting for the sofa to arrive, I managed to get to JC Penny and pick out some curtains. They laid on the floor, in their original packaging for a VERY long time! When the sofa finally arrived, I was able to stretch out full body length to watch television. I thought I had died and gone to heaven! Until then I had only sat in the comfy chairs and there's hardly room to stretch out in them!

So things were progressing. I was in love with my condo, knew that eventually everything would find its right place and had only to drown out the pounding of nails and screeching saws to keep my sanity. A small price to pay, it seemed, at the time for owning my own home. But things were to change.

Approximately 3 weeks after I moved in, my unit developed a "hum". Yep, I went shopping early one morning and came home to a noise that is simply indescribible. Only that it was LOUD and constant.

I quickly ran to the salesperson, dragged her over to my unit, and we tried to track down the noise. It seemed to emanate from the main bedroom bathroom but as the day progressed it seemed to be coming from the main bedroom wall with the window. Putting my head to the wall, I could hear the most horrendous noise - like someone leaving an electric razor on. Only amplified 100 times!

I ran outside to try to figure out the problem but I could find nothing. I checked the electrical boxes BELOW my window and I thought I could discern a light hum. So I called the electrical people and asked them to come out. They did and found 2 things wrong with the set-up though neither was my hum.

The drone went on and on. Hours turned into days - days turned into weeks - weeks turned into months. I tried everything to keep the noise at bay. Earplugs. Head phones. Loud TV. Sleeping with pillows over my head. Everything. The hum went on and on. And slowly but surely, my feet started to tingle. And tingle. And tingle until I finally realized that the floor was vibrating and that the hum emanated from under the floor boards.

I called the builder. The City Inspector. The sales people. No one could hear the hum - no one could feel the vibration. I was going slowly mad.......

When it rained, the noise was less. When it didn't rain, the hum along with the building outside kept me awake ALL the time. I didn't sleep much and I certainly wasn't thinking straight. Whenever I had to go out of town I loved it so much I didn't want to go back to my condo. My dream home had become my nightmare!

No one could help because no one knew what was causing the problem. And when it finally dawned on me that if I had the problem, maybe my upstairs and downstairs neighbor ALSO had the problem. So a check was in order. But that I will save for another post.....

Stay tuned!

A New Year - A New Beginning!

2010-01-27T16:30:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my NEW AND IMPROVED Blog! Actually, I think what I mean is, welcome to a blog that I hope I can contribute to on a much better basis than I did in the previous year.

Yes, I am definitely one of those persons who finds it very hard to complete a project once I start it. Like Julie in "Julie & Julia", I seem to start a lot of projects but never quite seem to finish them. And if I do finish them, it's usually YEARS after I started! Even now, after moving into my condo in November, 2007, I am still living out of boxes and have yet to buy the requisite furniture I need to file/store/put away all the pieces of my life. Not that I mind living out of boxes - since my move from Canada to Los Angeles in 1978 I seem to have lived out of them for most of my life. I was hoping that with a new condo I would get motivated and truly start to unpack and decorate but just taking 2 days to move and being away from my home-based business for that short time created a serious financial crisis that I am not eager to have happen again! Being at home on the computer equals income and unless I am weeks ahead in listing items or have had one simply FABULOUS sale during the day, I can't afford to take the time to decorate my condo as I would like. So to start this blog off right, let's start off from the very beginning of my life in my new home in Missouri.

November 2007. May I present my condo - brand new, welcome mat out by the Sellers, flags flying high, and everything looking brand spanking new!

Nice looking building, huh? This is the first building built on an old lot that used to hold a "go kart" track. It's in St. Peters and this is what you'd see as you turn into the development to visit me. I'm actually at the back of the building, my second floor unit facing the other buildings. And it's a wonderful place to be - shady in the morning and with full sun in the afternoon. Once the surrounding $250,000 homes have been built in the outlying areas, I am told that our little community will encompass some 438 families. The only thing I am really sad about is the fact that I purchased at "pre-construction pricing" and paid a few thousand more than what the current asking price is. Yes, I bought just before the big meltdown in 2008! I couldn't even get the tax break on my unit as I bought in 2007 and NOT 2008. I'm still a little angry about that. 2 darn months! Can you believe it! Anyway, it's too bad you can't go back to the builder and complain about the current reduction in price but I look at it this way - if I hadn't gotten in when I did, I wouldn't have gotten in at all! A single female, self employed, does not a good credit risk make (despite the fact I had 7 years on my IRS returns to prove I WAS a good risk). Anyway, 2 years on this is all the decorating I have managed to accomplish in my unit.

This is what you see when you walk in the door. That's my living room to the back right. The kitchen is slightly to the left while the bedrooms are to the direct left and right. The right bedroom is my home office which looked like this right after my move.

Quite a mess, huh? Well, that's what happens when you have to move quickly to get your business up and running once more. In this case, I was just plain lucky to have Internet access when I moved into my unit. I had to use telephone dial-up until the cable could be installed. And THAT took another 1-1/2 months to arrive, not to mention cable television! I watched a lot of DVDs during that time period as well as listening to the next 5 buildings being built all around me. Yes, November 2007 through November 2008 was quite a time period for me. But that wasn't all that happened. And I'll pick up where I left off on my next post.

Stay tuned.....