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Thursday, April 9, 2009

Jewelry takes people's minds off your wrinkles.

Thanks Mae West. We think so, too.

This Thursday, we're investigating what kind of jewelry box-related fabulousness we can come up with within the wonderful Etsy universe.

We have some thoughts on accessories that go on your fingers, ears, necks, wrists, or maybe even toes (though we don't necessarily condone the last practice unless your on a beach in Bermuda or something) that we'd like to share. Basically, we feel as though there need to be two kinds of things in your collection: pieces that get you noticed and pieces that your grandmother would approve of. One piece can cover the two categories, no problem. Or not. Your jewelry should reflect your own personal taste and style, not necessarily what's popular at the moment. Just because everyone else insists upon wearing tons of brightly-colored lucite, should you do the same despite the fact that you severly dislike it? Only if you want to be uncomfortable all day. Not to mention waste your money.

Depending on the frequnecy of your accessories rotation, jewelry can also add new life to regular clothing stand-bys; it has the potential to turn one staple into several different days of versitility. One of our favorite situations in which to utilize this strategy is on days when one solid color for all your clothing is a necessity. Like, for example, the day after $1.99 margarita night at our favorite Mexican establishment? Yeah. Days like that. We're big fans of an all-black outfit on these days because it can cover up any physical...ahem...results of excessiveness from the night before, but it doesn't hurt to have some sort of color near your face or add a little something exra to the outfit to avoid looking like a mime.


One thing is for certain: jewelry doesn't need to break the bank. At least not jewelry that you are buying yourself. This, like so many of the other things we like to talk about, can follow our basic principle that not everything one buys needs to be an investment piece. You don't have to spend a lot of money to spend it well. Not to mention supporting independent artists. Which we also love.



By rows, starting from the left:


1. Octavia, $23 from MDsparks: This is one of those pieces that falls into that "unique and classic at the same time" category. Everything in her store is gorgeous, and there's something for everything. Which kind of rocks.

2. Lady in Waiting, $22 from ForTheCrossJewelry: Umm...how gorgeous are these earrings? The colors are just insane. The whole collection has a very vintagey-antiquey (yes, antiquey) feel to it, which in our opinion os universally stylish.

3. Melancholy Lashes, $25 from UntamedMenagerie : Yeah. We love this necklace.

4. Octupus Earring, $24 from affixment: I'll just say right now that we have a necklace with an octupus on it, and it's way more versitile than you'd think. Plus...your earrings can protect you from preditors.

5. Wist mix tape bangle, $8 from ivyteakettle: Now we wish that when we had pulled all the tape out of our Ace of Base cassette after our boyfriend dumped us in the summer of '96, we'd had the fortitude to save the remains of our rage and weave it into to bracelet like this one. Alas, we'll just have to settle for seeing someone else fufill our dreams.

6. Ginko Leaf Ring, $38 from esedesigns: One of the things we adore most about Etsy is that one can always find something comparable to a piece seen in a magazine or a celebrity (however rare an attractive one of those may be) for a much friendlier price. The same can be said for our next item...

7. Silver Gossip Girl Necklace, $39.99 from SpoonerZ: as the title implies, it was apparently part of the show at some point. One of us watches, the other doesn't. The one who doesn't watch happens to be authoring this post, so we'll have to check with the other half and confirm. Either way, we have a total hard-on for jewelry made out of untensils. Why? Because we're awesome like that.

8. Pink and Gold Bracelet, $59 from ThePaperNut: We think pearls are great. Crocheted pearls? Even better.

9. blue skies yo-yo necklace, $25 from cookorrikoo: We'd definitely be lying is we said we didn't want one of these in every color.

10. Posh Punch, $21 from ERMoriginals: When considering the possibilities for this necklace, we get little butterflies in our stomachs. Pink! Copper! A different kind of neutral! It does seem a little delicate which we don't (generally) go for, but the necklace makes a big statement without raising it's voice. Kind of the opposite of us.

11. Prairie Plant Wooden Bracelet, $30 from uncharted: We began our love affair with the color yellow long long ago. Alas, our coloring is such that we can't wear it near our faces (i.e. shirts and/or sweaters), and yellow pants would just be....well no. So we've had to settle for shoes and sunny pieces of jewelry like this hot little number that's made from wood covered in Japanese paper.

12. Smokey quartz twisted cut and peridot tear drop earrings, $20 from jennytrinh: We hate to admit it, but even we sometimes need something a little sparkly and girly to brighten our days. But if we have to stoop to such levels, we're doing to do it with shiny blacks and greens.

Next week: Spiffy prints for stylish walls.

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