Elena Adams Designs - News

For the last two weeks I have been without a reliable computer. I have so many photos that are ready to clean and upload, and so many little projects that I’d love to get working on, but instead, I’ve spent the last two weeks surfing digg endlessly and playing free flash games to get my game fix.

But finally, my new hard drive arrives tomorrow and I’ll finally be able to install Photoshop and the myriad of other programs that make this whole thing possible.

I admit I am one of those women. I eagerly await the arrival of my monthly fashion magazines and pore through them hungrily. I never really understood fashion magazines when I was younger: Why read a magazine with pictures and no words? But now I take a guilty pleasure in them. Since getting into jewelry, I hardly glance at the clothes (although I love the shoes!), but consider and judge the jewelry carefully and in great detail. I’m the same on the few occasions that I happen to flick through a gossip magazine or watch an awards show. Who cares who dressed them? What jewelry are they wearing?!

The proud moment of Harper’s Bazaar this month comes slipped in at the very last page with their monthly “What’s In; What’s Out” segment.  The final judgment is as follows:

In: Big organic accessories
Out: Petite Necklaces

*pause for applause*

Magazines have definitely been suggesting this trend with more and more  layers and artwork pieces appearing in the last few years, but it’s very satisfying to see it spelled out like that so plainly.

I certainly enjoy petite necklaces from time to time. They work with anything, they’re easier to make, and I have a mix of them available for sale most of the time. But my passion lies in the over-the-top; the extravagant; the kinds that make a room gasp, but finding the event where one can pull it off is as challenging as keeping your head upright all night. Beauty is pain! exclaimed my mother on many an occasion, usually when I was complaining about the tangles in my hair, and I have taken that to heart. Why show up if you haven’t spent at least a little time agonizing over your accessories? Why wear clear, boring diamonds, when you can wear garnet and tourmaline and other gemstones that make your mouth water? Why wear just earrings when you can wear EARRINGS? Granted, my idea of “dressing up” is making sure my jeans are washed, but you better believe I’m wearing a killer necklace.

So what wisdom can we glean from the fashion mags for the late summer and fall? Ribbons and lace are all a-flurry, the younger crowd are decked in prep, and the older in layered floral and stitch. Lace and ribbon extend into jewelry with bright, layered beads, often finished with cord or ribbon, and the look of lace is reflected in fine metals, silkily drawn into webs, or thick cuffs of dense chain. Take note, and store your petite necklaces. Embrace the over-the-top!

I designed these earrings about a year ago when I was the web manager of The Bead Shop and we were trying to come up with new instructional handouts. I’ve finally added them online. They are fun make, although they take a little patience with all the fine detail. The gems are strung on stringing wire, and threaded through the chain frame.

While they’re quite different from many of my other designs, they still carry what I like to call my “jewelry signature”: a touch of chain maille, even in a heavily beaded design. See the earrings in more detail here.

Another example of this idea is the unique Tunduru Sapphire Necklace. I fell in love with the beads and bought about three strands of them. I very rarely string beads, because I’m a snob and think that unless you’re creating an interesting color palette, it just relies on the beauty of the beads. So despite that, I realized that unless I wire wrapped every single, little bead, stringing was the only way to go. But then all I’d have was a bunch of beads that anyone could have strung. The solution? I added some chain maille! That way I added a little flair, injected my own style, and tied it into the rest of my line. And naturally, you never want to let something like that fight with the rest of the design, so I oxidized the chain so it didn’t stand out too much against the dark beads. Perfect!

See more on the sapphire necklace here.

Looking for something new to delight the senses? I’ve added seven brand new necklaces and pendants to the collection, and each is one-of-a-kind, so don’t wait too long to snatch them up.

Pictured here is an homage to the sun.  Fiery citrine, studs a sterling silver ring, that floats freely on a snake chain. To create this pendant, I took multi-colored citrine rondelles, and used a very fine piece of sterling silver wire to coil them onto a large silver ring. I thought a snake chain was in order to support the pendant without overpowering an otherwise delicate design. Buy it here.

Every now and then I consider whether it’s time to fine a new shopping cart solution. I think a lot of shoppers get cold feet when they’re redirected to Paypal to pay and it’s never clear that they don’t need an account.

I think I may have found a good free alternative that I can easily add to the website without a forced redesign. Mal’s E-commerce relies on buy-now buttons, similar to Paypal, while a lot of other carts work as a full intergration that only give you a few options for your page layouts. I’d still use Paypal to acutally process credit cards, but the whole thing would work from my site, rather than sending customers all over the place as they shop. The reviews are good and the setup seems relatively simple, so I might try it out.

The Berkeley World Music Festival was great fun. Lots of music, and people dancing in the park. There were only about 20 vendors, and I think we were kind of an afterthought to the day, but there were still plenty of interested people and worth the time.

Here’s a picture of the stall setup. I really need to get a hand cart and folding tent. The current one breaks down into metal rods, which takes me a long time to put up and down. I was first one there and one of the last to leave. Granted, my stock is also time consuming to put on display, but it’s still a lot longer than I would like; it’s makes for a very long day.

There were so many fantastic performers from all over the world and people just loved it. Berkeley is such a vibrant place, so unlike anywhere else. It’s like the summer of ‘69 never ended in many ways.

Hula hoops! It’s not often you see so many people playing with them for such extended periods. The girl on the right was seriously skilled too: she could roll it up her arms and back down again totally easily.

One of the main reasons I do these shows is, not so much the monetary side since I usually make only a little profit, but the idea that my name will start becoming locally familiar. I always hand out plenty of cards and this time a few people recognized me from previous shows. It’s a slow process, but I believe it will be key long term.

So what’s next? This weekend I’ll start adding online a lot of the pieces I made in preparation for the show. That should be a nice bump in stock. Now that I have a couple of good shots of my stall, I’ll look into applying for more fairs.

I’m trying very hard not to enter that state that every artists experiences of “Surely I can do more!”. I’m sure I could make 10-15 more things tonight, and maybe they’ll sell, but that way leads to insanity, and insomnia.

So for the first time the night before an event, I’ve poured myself a martini, queud up some television, and set myself to relaxation mode.

Everything’s packed; I just have to throw the valuable stuff in the car in the morning. I’m trying to tell myself that my displays will be just fine, and really all I need is the jewelry, some change and a couple of tables. Everything else is, almost literally, window dressing.

My first newsletter went off without a hitch. I’m very curious to find out if anyone presents the coupon at the show. (If you’re thinking of coming and aren’t signed up for the newsletter, just print this post for 15% off one item June 7th at the festival.)

I’ll post after the day and let you know how it went. I’ll try to make lists of things I should have had for future reference, and other things that could have been improved. It’s all a learning experience, but I hope it’s fun.

After much consideration, I’m very pleased to announce that I will be donating a portion of every sale made through elena-adams.com to WildCare. Based in Marin, this wonderful organization is committed to wildlife rehabilitation and helps educate the public on how to live peacefully with our furry neighbors. Now you can be even happier about shopping here, or you can make a direct donation at wildcarebayarea.org.

If you’re of a technical bent, or are interested in camera data manipulation, you may find the project at lightfield.stanford.edu interesting. The team, including my husband Andrew Adams, created a light field capture system for capturing scenes that can be focused and manipulated later. I’m afraid I don’t understand enough of it to be more articulate, but check out the web page and play around.

The best part (in my opinion), is that they chose to use some of my jewelry as samples for scenes, since they have plenty of shine and fine geometric detail to make good examples. Actually, most of the props, other than the lego (Andrew’s) and the bunny (the Stanford bunny), are mine. On an SEO side, a Stanford incoming link is priceless, especially in the case that they get dugg or slashdotted.

Check them out here. The load time is slow, since they’re huge files, and you will need around 1GB of ram to effectively run them, but they’re worth it, even if you can’t follow the full technical stuff.

I’ve been beavering away this week, and I’ve made quite a few more pieces of jewelry, which I’m very happy about. I’m flickering between inspired and stressed out, so it’s hard to tell if I’ll be able to produce each night, or if I’ll just make a futile attempt at packing displays before crumbling in an exhausted ball. The house is completely trashed with my things. Thankfully, Andrew hasn’t really commented on it at all, so I’m trying to keep it at a minimum so as not to alarm him.

I have some new tasty earrings to unleash upon you, and I finally finished a handful of design projects that have been sitting around for a while: the kind of designs that I was overly eager to start, and then got distracted halfway through. Whatever doesn’t sell at the fair, I’ll be adding up online for those who aren’t in the Bay Area to peruse.

In the meantime, check out the sapphire earrings pictured. I put so much time into them (about 16 hours!) that I totally spaced on announcing them. They’re sapphire and sterling silver. Crystal clear sapphires with a spattering of blues, yellows and pinks in multiple, shimmering strands are simply breathtaking. I wore them to a wedding (I road test all my designs to be sure they hold up to regular wear) and every person I met complimented them. Okay, making them made me one step closer to blind, and I watched enough Law and Order that at times I wished I was blind, but they were completely worth it! I know they’re one of the priciest items here right now, but keep in mind they’re 16 hours of work and over $250 in raw materials. Girl’s gotta eat! See them here.