So excited to share what is coming to Designs in the Light

  Designs in the Light Fall Collections Coming Soon!!

Mike of WaterSouls Studios and Cherrie of En La Lumie're

2013 has been a busy year for us as we are evolving in our jewelry business. We made the decision to build a website with both of our lines together. We are a husband/wife jewelry artist design team. We each have our own collections, styles and my Etsy shop at En La Lumie're. This year we wanted to provide a central place to share our bio's, collections, and schedules of  upcoming shows including other news.

You can visit our new website which is a work in progress at this point at Designs in the Light
We will be adding lots of news, new designs and more to share in the coming weeks.

We're in the middle of show season

Mike and I have been super busy designing new fall collections. We are designing parts of our lines to coordinate with each other. For several years we have shown at the same art and wine shows. The natural progression of mingling our lines seems logical.

Mike has been building hand-forged, wire wrapped gemstone earrings, bronze and rose bronze clay earrings and filigree wire wrapped earrings.  This week he will be making more bronze clay necklaces.

I am in the middle of a new fall collection of beaded bracelet/necklace designs. You can wear these pieces in a layered look with Mike's necklaces, my art bead necklaces or my embossed and patina metal necklaces. You can wear several beaded necklaces together or wrap them on your wrist with my art bead bracelets. It is a great bohemian look and I love the textures and colors together. So many choices and the possibilities seem to grow as we build our collections.

You can meet us in person 

Lafayette Art and Wine Festival, Lafayette CA 10-6  September 21-22

Pleasant Hill Art, Jazz and Wine Festival 10-6 October 5-6

Ladies Night at In the Mix 11 Town Square, Vacaville 5-8

We both sell our lines at a fantastic ladies boutique in downtown Vacaville called "In the Mix"  at 11 Town Square. If you live in Northern CA you have to check out this shop. The owner Darci Chadwick is amazing at helping you find just the right outfit. Love her style. Lots of new boho fall and winter clothing coming in. 

Thank you for stopping by. We always love to hear your comments.

The ups and downs of art shows

It's not only, all about the designs at these shows.......

This past weekend we worked at our Art and Wine Show in Novato CA. 

This is me. All ready to share our designs with you on Sunday. 

The weather was so crazy beginning with temperatures raging around 100. 

Our first two sales came early, in the first 10 minutes. That should be a good sign!! Neither one of our square swipers would work and we ended up selling the items for cash. Later I found a card swiper that did work. We had quite a bit of traffic but as the heat rose the comments were all around how hot it was. It seemed the vendors making money sold lemonade and slushies. Our next sale came at 3 pm. 

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That gave us lots of time to people watch. We noticed so many people walking down the middle of the street in a zombie like march as if they were on a conveyor belt. The were all busy talking and it seemed they had no idea why they had arrived at this street fair. The ladies who did make it in commented on how hot it was as quickly moved on. Deciding on jewelry was not the current concern. 

 

A teenager on a skate scooter flew by on the sidewalk behind our tent with 2 parakeets, not parrots,  on his shoulders and a little chihuahua running beside him. 

Two older ladies came in our booth with wine glasses hanging like a necklace on a leather strap. One of them also had a insulated cup and her friend mentioned her frozen champagne in it. She suddenly tossed it to the grass in the rear of our tent and said some street person would find it. He friends mouth dropped and in embarrassment and they left. We just looked at each other in amazement. 

Sunday was nearly 30 degrees cooler. We started off with Peet's coffee's new coconut latte and enjoyed a decadent breakfast at Rustic Bakery. They were located about a block from our booth and we ended up eating there all weekend. I can't tell you what you were missing, but the almond pastries and Chinese chicken salad were amazing. This was one of the best parts of this weekend. 

The reason we are here is we also enjoy talking to the many people who stopped to admire our work. At one point we chuckled and said if we had $5.00 for every time we were told we are "True Artists" or "How beautiful our designs are!!" we could make a lot of money. 

One of my new artist friends I met though Etsy, Tina and her husband came out to meet us. That is always fun.  It seems at nearly every show we have customers or other artists from Etsy come to meet us. 

In all seriousness it is always so encouraging to hear the comments and we sold more on Sunday. I received a tip for the most gorgeous eyelashes. A beautiful lady shared her secret. Latisse. 

We sold  art bead necklaces, bracelets, hand crafted earrings, some art work and lots of key fobs. 

The topping on the weekend was when we were dead tired and taking down our displays. A man walking his dog came by claiming to be business man and told us we were idiots to take our own tent down when we could pay someone to do it. 

We packed up the van and arrived home to a 1/2 bowl of soup and fresh toast from that bakery 

and it did not take long to hit the pillow. 

Our next shows will be in the next month and with some of our new designs and displays we are ready to go. Watch for our show schedule and lots of new listings coming this week. 

Where does the time go? My thoughts late last night...

Last night I was thinking about the events of the week and saying prayers for the families in Oklahoma.
I found it hard to go to sleep and decided to catch up on my blog and realized a whole month has gone by so quickly. What am I saying this whole year is flying by. My goodness it is Memorial day weekend.  I never quite believe how fast each year seems to fly by like are all in a crazy race for time.

This spring Mike and I have been spending every possible working hour on our jewelry business from every angle this year. It seems there are so many more parts than just design. The list is long, and I makes jokes our lists have lists.  I dream of a day when we could get some help. For now we wear every hat, sometimes more than one at a time.

Our current task is preparing for our first big show this year....

We will be in Novato Art and Wine in Marin County for the first time June 8-9 along with our newest collections and we have quite a few new changes to our booth which evolves every year.

Mike is designing jewelry......

He will be introducing a brand new collection of hand forged bracelets and bronze clay PMC earrings that are stunning. He designs everything beginning with an original sketch, molds and sculpts  the metal clay into the design, fires it and adds his special touches to these amazing pieces. He is meticulous in the details and it shows in beautiful wearable art. Look for new pieces in his hand forged sterling and copper earrings collection which he introduced last show season.

My new collections include, beach, nature and boho chic .....

New designs include short casual necklaces,  longer necklaces, chunky bracelets, several different styles of earrings with lots of color choices. Most everything features art beads from talented American
artists who have become my friends.  Lots of coordinating pieces, all ready for the perfect outfit. You will see all sorts of mixed metals and fibers that bring my beads to life.  A collection of water color patina-ed metals I am very happy with and made into colorful casual necklaces and earrings.

Our new website....

Mike  has also been working on our new website we plan to launch in the next week or so. The idea is a website "Designs in the Light" with each of us featuring our collections as a husband and wife design team.  We will share our journey in at this stage of our lives as working artists. We have been lucky enough to work together on and off most of our married life. We have each brought our unique inspiration and gifts to several other businesses including, interior design, fashion photography, and our family construction company.

The website will feature Mikes jewelry collections and possibly some of his photography. I will eventually include my published designs and some more complex art beads pieces on this site. I am planning to maintain my Etsy site pretty much as it is, always listing new designs in each week.

Please keep an eye out for the launch of our new website at www.designsinthelight.co

and also the new address for this blog will be linked back from that site. Stop by my shop and see whats new and as always please leave me a comment. I love to hear from you.