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By Amber, on January 29, 2012, at 10:10 pm Back in December I saw some crystal peacock feather earrings on ideeli that were beautiful but kind of expensive for an impulse purchase. I decided to sit on the thought, and by the time I’d decided I had to have them, the sale was over and — oh, guess what? You can’t get them anywhere online!
For over a month I single-mindedly stalked every sample sale site I knew of that has ever carried KJL, sites of department stores that carry KJL, Amazon…I even set up a special search on my Zappos profile so I could check at a glance (they had a matching bracelet, but not the earrings!). The pendant resurfaced once on ideeli, but not the earrings. I was recently shopping on Harwin and found lots of cheap peacock earrings, but nothing came close and I knew nothing ever would.
And then one day…they came back! I even purchased the membership upgrade so I could snap those suckers up the second they were available. Sweet, sweet victory.
They are super heavy, but I love them!
By Amber, on October 25, 2011, at 10:36 pm As promised, a tutorial on the bracelets I recently made! This is going to be picture-heavy.
You will need: a couple feet of beads, leather cording and matching embroidery floss, the bar half of a toggle clasp, scissors, pliers, three needles, tape (I used painter’s tape because it’s sticky but not too sticky), and a measuring tape of some sort.
Continue reading Beaded wrap bracelet: how-to
By Amber, on August 30, 2011, at 10:19 pm I haven’t worn a watch in years, but before that I felt naked without one. I have a couple inexpensive watches whose batteries ran out, but Target didn’t have the right batteries, so they are still in a ziploc bag in a drawer.
I decided a few months ago that a watch would be useful, and I’ve looked at more sample sales than I can count, but nothing grabbed me. Everything is plastic right now, even watches going for $300+ (marked down from $2k!). But finally I found the right one, no plastic:
I love rose gold and I’ll wear it with any other metal, so this is a good solid piece toward growing my collection of rose gold and copper jewelry. And solid it is — it feels pretty massive on me, and I definitely do not have small hands or arms!
Oh, and this time when the battery dies, we have an excellent watchmaker shop not too far away. ;)
By Amber, on June 12, 2011, at 11:15 pm My sister and I visited Harwin Dr. (WHY do I always call it Harwin St.??) today for a little cheap jewelry update. I always get overwhelmed, so this time I made a list ahead of time. Of course I forgot to bring it, but found a few necessities anyway:
I’m a sucker for Chanel necklaces, but I’ve made peace with the idea that I’ll never own one. I can live with $6 for a knockoff necklace and earrings! L-R: earring/necklace set (necklace is about 34″), multi-strand bracelet, gold tassel earrings, another knockoff earring/necklace set (the longer strand is about 54″). The best part? I got out for under $40. It would have been under $20, but the bracelet was a splurge!
By Amber, on December 21, 2010, at 10:00 pm Last Christmas I ordered a bunch of gifts from Amrita Singh and earned a reward certificate. I held onto it until last month, when I decided I’d better buy something before it expired! I paid only shipping on these earrings, which came today:
Pretty, right? But did you notice that the one on the right is missing a couple pieces? Bummer. I contacted the company about an exchange. My experience with their customer service has been very positive in the past, so hopefully this will go smoothly as well.
If you get onto their email list, they do a lot of promotions throughout the year. I’d estimate that about half of them are discounts and the other half are free merchandise with a minimum order (BTW, and I say this as someone who loves their merchandise, don’t ever pay full price for anything over $40). I didn’t expect that ordering with a reward certificate would qualify me for any of these offers, so I was very surprised to find this in the box:
I have some of their earrings in the same color, but they’re awfully blingy to wear together. Still, who doesn’t love fun, free jewelry?
The one thing in the box that really puzzled me was this:
I guess someone got a deal on printing..?
By Amber, on November 16, 2010, at 10:00 pm I was good with my two regular sample sale websites (in truth, I belong to a few others, but I turned off notifications and I browse them only once in a blue moon). And then for some unknown reason, I went and joined one more. Why did I do that? Seriously. For now, when I do my rounds on all THREE, I can at least tell myself I’m scouting Christmas gifts. If I happen to see something I cannot live without, then oh well.
But I’m not going to kick myself too hard, because it almost immediately paid off. You know I sometimes like my jewelry a little rock ‘n’ roll, and this fit the bill:
This puppy sparkles. I wore it out to dinner over the weekend, and Mark’s first reaction when he saw it was to declare that if our car broke down or we got into trouble, it would be my job to signal the HPD helicopter.
The other thing I like is that it has a lot of heft to it. I’m not a small person, so I tend to like my jewelry to be in scale with the rest of me. This is a nice size for me (even if my wrist just barely fits!):
I was wearing an unusual amount of sparkle that night — sometimes you just feel like a disco ball.
By Amber, on September 19, 2010, at 9:15 pm I am a hoarder. Of jewelry. Especially since I discovered Harwin Street. Sure, it was a great idea to buy a million-billion gold bangles — they were cheap and I use them all the time! But the problem is that now I have a million-billion gold bangles, along with all the other wonderful things I’ve been amassing, and it all has to go somewhere when it’s not on my body. Most of it collects on top of the built-in dresser in the closet. Some of it has migrated to the top drawer. The jewelry tree that my sister gave me is wishing lightning would strike it and put it out of its overburdened misery.
Recently I saw this and remembered that I have a similar drawer unit that my mother bought for me long ago! It’s been sitting on the top shelf in the guest closet since we moved here two years ago. It was full of old jewelry and junk like receipts and movie stubs from 2000:
And concert tickets from even longer ago:
I shredded the old receipts, sorted the jewelry as ‘donate’ or ‘keep for parts,’ and squirreled away the few things I wasn’t ready to part with (like an enormous stack of concert tickets, for reasons I cannot explain). Then I got to organizing the things I do use. I have a bunch of little satin pouches that I bought on Harwin Street for $1 each, and some cute paper tags that I bought from the scrapbooking section of Michael’s when I was putting together gift bags for my wedding. I sorted categories like silver pendants into individual bags and tagged them with descriptions:
A perfect fit! I need to pick up more bags and tags. Those tags are the only hope I have of not completely forgetting what’s in there once it is all tucked out of sight. So here are the results (the bags on the front left corner carry each day’s jewelry selection to the gym):
I set a few of the most unwieldy bracelets and rings on top of the little chest, where I can see and be inspired by them:
I’m very good at organizing, but I’m terrible at maintaining organization, so hopefully this will make it easier. I still need a better solution for the necklaces, but this will do for now.
By Amber, on August 10, 2010, at 10:20 pm I got a package! Miss Jes sent me a few things, some or all of which she picked up when she went to St. Croix:
 I noticed that they misspelled ‘wonderful.’
 These earrings are made from butterfly wings! Don’t worry, the butterflies died peacefully in their sleep at the age of 92.
 Isn’t that pretty? It has a magnet on the back. It’s not going anywhere near the fridge — some people get a little too excited over there!*
Thanks, woman!
*I may or may not be talking about myself.
By Amber, on July 27, 2010, at 10:00 pm Just a little treasure that I picked up in Austin at Parts & Labour. They carry wonderful locally made things. It’s very, very hard to choose just one or two items to take home, but if you blow your budget at least you can feel good about supporting local artists! Click the photo to go to the artist’s site.
By Amber, on June 15, 2010, at 10:00 pm The obsession continues:
Diamonds and emeralds in a platinum and gold setting. Looks like maybe ruby eyes, but the listing doesn’t mention them. And it’s nearly my ring size — must be fate!
I’ll admit, it’s all a bit much. But I think I could make it work.
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