Unveiling my love affair!!

My love affair with pearls is many years old. The fascination started when I saw one of my aunt's daughter wear a lehanga (an Indian attire) embellished with only pearls, in a family wedding. She looked so sophisticated in that white dress from which strands and strands of pearls were hanging in semi - oval shape. Think I shouldn't say this, but to me she looked even more beautiful than the bride. Soon enough, I asked my mom to buy me a pearl set when I'll get married. My mom thought I had gone crazy, talking about my wedding at the age of 13-14.

Knotted Freshwater Pearl necklace

Pearls are heavenly. They evoke purity, elegance and sophistication. When I think pearls, my mind says beautiful moonlit nights, quiet blue sea, releaving yoga class, relaxing sea salt and essential oil bath. Pearls give me peace.

Coco Chanel, perhaps the most influential designer of the twentieth century declared "A woman needs ropes and ropes of pearls".

Pearls shoudn't be under-estimated (rather over-estimated) as just the formal and traditional jewelry. They have the power of going irresistably funky and informal. And by no means, they should be considered the domian of high-income society only. With the increasing production of imitation pearls, which are very affordable, anyone can easily satisy their taste buds for this iridecsent stone. 

 

Multi Color Imitation Pearl Necklace

I intend to do a series about pearls, but for now, lets just understand what a pearl is!!

According to "The Pearl Book - The Definitive Buying Guide", a Pearl is an organic gem, that is, a gem that comes from a living thing. Coral and Amber are two other organic gems. Pearls are produced by several species of saltwater and freshwater molluscs including oysters, clams, mussels, snails, squid, octupus and many other shellfish. When a tiny intruder finds its way into a mollusc's shell, it begins to produce something to soothe the iritation the intruder causes; this soothing secretion is a brownish substance called conchiolin (kon-KY-oh-lin, "ky" as in sky), over which another substance is secreted, usually a whitish substance, called nacre (NAY-ker). The conchiolin binds the nacre together to form the pearl.

Classy Mother of Pearl Bracelet

Bridal Pearl Necklace

Beachy Pearl Necklace

Giveaway: 1000 Facebook Fans Celebration

NaiyaArtBoutique has been live for 9 months now. And today, after these successful 9 months, my database is 1000 fans strong. I have met some great people here. I have become so fond of these great people that every morning I enjoy my first tea with them while reading their daily updates. Some of these great people include Gail Ainley, Linda Briggs Sprague, Debra Ann Cerritelli, Eileen P. Cooper, Dorothy Byrd Landfear, Tammy Ward Haas, Frauke Avent, Ankita and Jeni Fernandez. I share my moments of joy, fun, laughter, sorrow, pain, achievements and jokes with each one of them. To thank all of these and all other 1000 fans, I am doing this giveaway. Without going any more gaga about my fans, lets just read the giveaway rules and regulations.

Prizes:

1) First winner gets giftcard worth $25 at NaiyaArtBoutique ETSY shop.
2) Second winner gets giftcard worth $15 at NaiyaArtBoutique ETSY shop.
3) Third winner gets giftcard worth $5 at NaiyaArtBoutique ETSY shop.

Rules:
1) The giveaway is open from 14th Oct to 18th Oct midnight (EST).
2) You must be a fan at NaiyaArtBoutique facebook fanspage. This giveaway is open only to my fans :-)... Fair, right??
3) You must tell me which three things you like the most in my ETSY shop (that you think could make a perfect christmas present for ur loved ones). For this, you can leave a comment on my Blog below or in Discussions on facebook. Click here to go to Discussions.
4) You must heart those three favourite things in my ETSY Shop.

Each participant will be alloted a number and three winners would be announced on 19th Oct. Winners will be selected randomly using http://www.random.org/

Please share this with ur friends and family :-)

Three Cheers!!

26th April, 2010: My inbox received an email from the chief editor of a Jewelry Magazine called “Jewelry Affaire”. Beth Livesay had written that she liked my jewelry pieces and would like to consider them for the next edition coming out in October.

24th Sept, 2010: My mailbox received a package with a magazine inside. It was the Autumn edition of Jewelry Affaire. Since I wasn’t expecting it to arrive so soon, my heart started to pound. I had to go and pick up Gaurav from his school, but I started to flip through the pages to find my jewelry articles. My face turned red when I didn’t find anything about me. So I went to pick up Gaurav with a swollen face. I remembered Beth saying in one of her emails that some selected pieces might not be featured in this issue and would be published in the next edition. As I was telling Gaurav about all this, he pointed towards a pair of earrings which looked familiar to him. OH GOD, yes yes yes. I was there, I was there. Soon enough we found out my other necklace also. I was elated and was jumping while driving the car. Many of you might say that, that wasn’t very safe, but I was having a rush of adrenaline all over. This is my biggest achievement so far in this profession.

Many thanks to Beth, to have the confidence in me and encouraging me to take part in this.

Jewelry Affaire is a jewelry magazine published by Stampington and Company. It is published only twice in an year and features many talented artists who also give easy steps on how to make their jewelry item yourself. Go, get your copy now and feel inspired.

All that glitters is Goldstone?? May be!!

I have always been fond of things which have slight glitter in them. So there is no wonder why I like this beautiful stone called ‘GoldStone’ so much. Their glittery glow that comes from within, makes them look so gorgeous without being gaudy. The stone almost looks like a clear star studded night.

Goldstone is often mistaken as a natural gemstone. It is, rather, a glass with copper flecks in it. Goldstone was created accidentally in the European Renaissance period, when alchemists were trying to create gold.

Goldstone was originally made by monks in Italy, and due to this association with monastery, it is often used in religious jewelry.

For making Goldstone, copper salts are added to brown colored liquid glass in low oxygen atmosphere. As the glass cools, salts turn into copper crystals.

It is abundantly available in reddish goldstone and dark blue goldstone, but there is a relatively less available green goldstone as well.

Goldstone is said to promote calmness and stability.
My nature inspired Goldstone jewelry collection is available for sale at ETSY.

Tutorial - How to make your own ETSY shop Banner with your pictures using Picasa

A banner speaks a lot about a seller's personality and its products. Keeping it simple, tidy, and beautiful would generate more customer interest. Some people might not like to go further down when the first thing they see in your shop doesn’t look very inviting. So, without any further delay, lets make a simple shop banner using Picasa.


Picasa is a very helpful photo editing tool that can be used very easily to make a banner. I’ll try to explain all steps in detail, but if there is something that u don’t understand or if I have missed any step, write down in the comments below.

1. Before you start, you must have Picasa set up on your computer. You would also need your favourite picture saved on the desktop of your computer. I prefer to use a picture of my own jewelry.
2. The picture should be larger than 100 pixels high X 760 pixels wide, else the banner would come out blurred. Set your camera to high picture size before taking the pic.
3. Open the Picasa application and add your pic to picasa. For this go to file --> add file to picasa. Select your photo from the desktop. I'll be using my favorite flowers photo as an example. The pic will open in the right hand side.


4. Double click the pic to open the editing tool. Following window will open, ofcourse with your own picture :-)

5. Click on ‘CROP’ in the left hand side panel.

6. Select ‘Add Custom Aspect ratio’ from the drop down menu.

7. In the window that appears, put the dimensions as 760 x 100. For your reference, you can even put ‘ETSY BANNER’ in the name.

8. Select any one of the horizontal selections that come and click ‘Apply’.

9. If you want, you can move the selected portion up or down by holding the left key of the mouse and moving the mouse up or down.
10. Now select ‘TEXT’ from the left hand side panel.

11. Select your favourite font and font size from the drop down menu. I like to use ‘Pristina’ and font size 96. You can also do other style adjustments like Bold, Italics, Underline and alignment. You can also change text color.

12. Click anywhere on the picture and print your text there.

13. Hover your mouse over the text until u see a small hand and a circle. Hold your mouse over the arrow and you can adjust the size and location of your text by moving ur mouse. Play around with it to find your perfect selection.

14. Click on 'APPLY' to embed this text to your picture.

15. Your new shop banner is ready. Save it on desktop to upload it to your shop. For saving, click on File --> Save as . Then save it on your desktop or any other favourite location.

Yippie, you just made to your shop banner with your favourite photo and your favourite text. Upload it to your shop like any other banner.

The Treasure of Ammolite

On my recent trip to Alaska and Canada, one color drenched thing that really caught my eye was a gemstone called Ammolite. Without a doubt, I had never seen such a beautiful stone, such bright rainbow colors in one stone. It resembled an Opal, but much more color intensified. I have found some fun facts about this beautiful stone and the reason why it is so expensive.

1) It is one on only three organic gemstones (Ammolite, Pearl, and Amber).
2) Ammolite is a very soft gemstone, only 4.5-5 on the Mohs Scale.
3) It is arguably the rarest gemstone on earth, rivaling the rarity of such gemstones as alexandrite and red diamonds.
4) The gemstone is found primarily along the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains of the United States and Canada.
5) The price of this gemstone is rapidly rising (between 2000 and 2005 it averaged about a 40% increase per year) and its limited quantities make this gem a great investment.
6) Feng Shui followers believe Ammolite has the power to detoxify the body and improve overall well being by improving the body’s flow if energy.
7) Ammolite is sold in four grades according to its color and brilliance.
AA - exhibits three or more brilliant sharp colors.
A+ - a stone that displays two or three bright colors.
A - exhibits two or more play of colors.
Standard - exhibits one or more distinct colors

It Feels Good!!!

Today, after 3 months of opening my shop, I am feeling great.. So here I list some of my achievements.

1. Made 16 sales. Some of them were batch sales, like 6 bracelets of a kind or 7 necklaces of a kind. So, to make myself happier, I would say I have 16+ sales.
2. Got 14 feedbacks and all of them were 100% positive. Yes, some of them were through my friends who bought from me but I PROMISE (or alteast hope) they were genuine. Or I can say, if they come back, it would be genuine.
3. Got 125 Heart shops and 193 Item hearts. With this saying, I remember when I first got a heart. It was so special for me. Someone saw my work online and liked it. It was a great feeling.
4. I have been featured in three Treasuries. I made quiet a few of my own treasuries also.
5. My Google page relevance is 2/10 .. 10 being the best. But I happy for the fact that I am seen by google.
6. I started my Facebook Fanspage. Today it counts 354 fans. I want to hit 1000 very soon and that too without spamming. (http://www.facebook.com/NaiyaArtBoutique)
7. I made a twitter account though I am still clueless about what to do with it. I am sure I'll figure that out soon.. (http://www.twitter.com/Naiyartboutique) Yes, it has only single "A" .. Twitter had a word limit.
8. Last but not the least, I started my shop dedicated blog :)