Japanese washi a medium weight paper made with mulberry fibers. There is a variety of different types of washi, but the kind that most people are familiar with, and the kind I use in my jewelry is Chiyogami or Yuzen washi. This type of washi has a variety of colorful and decorative patterns silk screened on the plain mulberry paper base.  One thing about making jewelry with paper is that you have to pick patterns that will look good on a small scale, otherwise you’ll just get large blocks of color instead a mixture of colors and patterns. Chiyogamil washi is perfect for this purpose.

I got a lot of washi where the dominant color is green to make more green book patterns for my “Wearing o’ the Green promotion on my Etsy shop. So look for

Some of the other papers I’m testing for new jewelry include Pasticcio prints, which are silkscreened cotton rag paper from India.

I’m also intrigued by this new type of paper made of recycled cotton viscose called Stardurst Chiffon. Basically it has a semi-translucent texture that feels similar to fabric.

It has a nice glittery background and is printed with delicate patterns of flowers and vines. What I like about this paper is that fact that it has glitter in the background without it becoming too overpowering like so many other papers that use glitter in the base of the paper. So I’m very interested to see how this paper turns out in my test designs. So keep an eye out!

Today’s Wearing ‘o the Green earrings are:

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While I love snow, I don’t like traveling in it. So this was the perfect excuse to stay indoors and make jewelry and catch up on stuff that I meant to do earlier…like this blog post I wrote about my trip to Palm Springs back in er, October.

I had gone to Palm Springs, CA in October because my hubby and his Word Team Tennis league went to compete in their National Championships at Indian Wells. Being the good wife that I am, I of course had to tag along on this trip…for moral support of course.

Being someone who’s spent most of their life on the East Coast where if something is brown, you run out to water it, the terrain of Palm Springs and the surrounding area took some getting used to. Everything is quite brown and rocky with the beautiful patches greenery, flowers, and desert foliage.

It being the desert, the temperature goes from 95 degrees in the day and 45 degrees at night which makes for a bit of a packing challenge, but there’s no humidity which is always good. Especially since hubs got a rental hook up on a neat little Volvo hardtop convertible (thanks family discount!). We were originally supposed to get a Mustang convertible, but they rented that, so we had to make do with the Volvo (*sigh…gosh darn it!).

If I rode around in this in Chesapeake with the top down I would look like Buckwheat in about 5 seconds flat. So no humidity is great The only thing is that the sun is pretty intense. It’s like sunlight is being filtered through a magnifying glass.

On about the second day of the team’s match play, I wandered around the area to see what kind of art related stuff they had. I’ve been hearing that there are some amazing galleries out this way and I stumbled on to the El Paseo area in Palm Desert. This is where I hit paydirt…big time.

El Paseo is known as the Rodeo Drive of Palm Desert. This area is often the winter home to a lot of the moneyed class. Mercedes, Jags, Aston Martins, and Bentlys are a common sight on El Paseo. Someone even parked their Rolls behind our little rented Volvo. So this area makes for some really amazing art galleries. El Paseo is home to 14 fabulous art galleries…all of them filled with amazing art.

There was also art featured up and down the street either as part of the decor of office buildings or restaurants or in the middle median of the street which featured some fun outdoor sculpture.

While I visited most of the galleries on El Paseo, I spent a lot of time in Coda Gallery located on 73-151 El Paseo. The gallery which recently celebrated it’s 20th anniversary is about 15,000 sq feet of beautiful art (upstairs and down). This gallery features a lot of blown glass, paintings, furniture, sculpture in wood, bronze, and glass in sizes all the way from desktop to outdoor size. Some of the artists Coda represents includes. The thing that I liked about this gallery is that while there was plenty of art in the $25,000 to $50,000 range there was also pieces as low as in the $40 to $100 which is cool for someone like me that doesn’t drive their own Aston Martin.

I wish that I could have taken some pictures inside, but the gallery owners quite naturally are understandably a bit leery about that so take my word that the inside of these places are amazing! In addition to Coda there are a number of other galleries that you’ll want to check out. They include:

A Gallery Fine Art
73-956 El Paseo

Edenhurst Gallery
73-600 El Paseo

Eleonore Austerer Fine Art
73-160 El PaseoSte 6

Gallery 1000
73-400 El Paseo#1

Desert Art Collection & Sculpture Garden
45-350 San Luis Rey Ave at El Paseo

J. Willott Gallery
73-190 El PaseoSte 1

Jones & Terwilliger Galleries
73-375 El Paseo

Melissa Morgan Fine Art
73-040 El Paseo

Richard Danskin Galleries
73-111 El Paseo

S.R. Brennen Galleries
73-375 El Paseo

The Hart Gallery
73-111 El Paseo

Zantman Art Galleries
73-925 El Paseo

According to the folks I spoke to, the best time to walk around in Palm Desert is between October and March, because the place turns into Dante’s Inferno during the spring and summer. Well, could have fooled me….I came back home with a nice crispy tan in time for Thanksgiving. It was only a balmy 90 degrees in the day! Ouch!

So if you ever find yourself in the Palm Desert/Palm Springs area, take a nice tour of the El Paseo section for a great day of art.

And keep the sunblock handy!

Me and my dad are cracking up at these corny jewelry commercials, good times (via @aprainey)

Have you ever noticed how completely lame all the jewelry commercials are? Does anyone actually use those lines? (via @KelleySeitter)

I will be very happy when Valentine’s Day passes and the commercials for tacky jewelry stop. Diamonds deserve better. (via @CapitolClio)

…to gagging and nausea…

Jewelry commercials make me violently ill… Is Valentines day over yet? (via @meghanlambert)

Confession #2: Whenever cheesy Valentine’s jewelry commercials come on, I make loud obnoxious vomiting noises. (@LeeAnnMarcel)

Jewelry commercials make me gag (via @mynameisdawn)

Why do jewelry store commercials always make me want to barf? (via @angrae17)

…to downright hatred and violence.

jewelry commercials this time of year at tantamount to waterboarding. #hewenttojared (@TheEngagementP)

Aside from my regular hatred for Valentines Day (which is HUGE), I hate it even more because of all the stupid gushy jewelry commercials. (@bractune)

All these valentines jewelry commercials make me wanna choke a b****. (@ThisIsAlanya)

Commercials for Kay Jewelers and Jared’s appear to be a favorite target….

does jewelry equal love? yes if you’re kay jewelers (via @ShantaFabulous)

The materialism of jewelry store commercials disgusts me. Every kiss begins with jewelry? Makes me grind my teeth. (via @joshgister)

kay jewelry commercials make me want to vomit. (via @whitneyw3)

Oh my gosh, these jewelry commercials are so cheesy, but this Kay Jewelers leg cramp proposal commercial had me dying laughing! (via @hlsteed)

The Kay Jewelry commercials make me want to vomit. (via @livelaughlove32)

Kay and her Jewelry store deserve to have baseball bats taken to the head for making us endure those heinous commercials! (via @libbycrews)

good lord all these jewelry commercials are SO DUMB! “Don’t be scared, I’m right here and always will be.” *GAG* (via @kerrinsuzanne)

The previous quote was talking about this commercial in particular:

So what is it about these commercials that makes people react so negatively? Seriously, I’ve seen very few comments how much folks enjoy the commercials. If they’re out there, then I haven’t run across them. People don’t wait for these like they do for Super Bowl commercials. Is it because there’s so many of them that people just get tired of them? Are the complainers mostly single folks that hate Valentine’s Day? Do they just seem cheesy and unrealistic? Or are people upset because they reduce the holidays and love to a retail event? Or maybe everyone just so cynical that they can appreciate old fashioned romance.

For my part, I mostly ignore the commercials. Although I make jewelry I’m more likely to get excited over a brand new MacBook Pro than a honking big diamond ring. But when one does get my attention, I’m more amused because I can’t envision anybody I know actually giving jewelry in any scenario like those portrayed. Now, I’ve witnessed some thoughtful and memorable gift giving involving jewelry in real life (my sister in law’s recent engagement springs to mind), but never the picture perfect scenes common in most commercials. But aren’t most commercials shot in that picture perfect world? Maybe jewelry commercials would be more interested if they were messier…or a bit more ironic. Maybe if they involved a bit of the messiness of real life, say a husband giving jewelry because he’s stuck in the dog house. Now that would be interesting.

So what do you think? Jewelry commercials…love them? Hate them? Indifferent?

To read the article, sign up for The Monthly Bling! for free here or by signing up on the form on the right. If you subscribe now, you’ll be eligible for my monthly jewelry giveaway and get a chance to win a free piece of handmade bling!

You can check out leentastic’s book-themed Treasury here. Be sure to do so before Sunday as the Treasury expires on November 8th. And if you’re an Etsy user, be sure to comment and check out the work of the other artists in the Treasury!

Here’s Today’s Deal

Multicolored ovals of yellow, pink, and green on white makes for a fun set of book earrings. Covered with acid-free paper designed by Peek Stationers, these earrings also have inner pages of Brockway text paper and are bound with Italian book cloth. Ear wires are 14kt gold fill french hooks.

Normal Price: $17.75
Today’s Halloween Madness Price is $14.75 + free shipping!

Each pair of earrings come on an earring card that doubles as a mini-book. Open the pages and read about “The History of the Book”! Click here to check them out!

Plus, check out the new items on the store as well

Here’s Today’s Deal

The bold black Chinese characters on a pale cream background makes for a memorable pair of book earrings. Handmade with Japanese kozo paper, with inner pages of Brockway text paper, and bound with Italian bookcloth. Ear wires are made of 14kt gold fill french hook earwires.

Normal Price: $17.00
Today’s Halloween Madness Price is $14.00 + free shipping!

Each pair of earrings come on an earring card that doubles as a mini-book. Open the pages and read about “The History of the Book”! Click here to check them out!

Plus, check out the new items on the store as well

Here’s Today’s Deal

Green, purple, turquoise, and red paisley patterns makes for a “groovy” set of earrings. Book covers are made with paper designed by iota, inner papers of Brockway text paper, and is bound with Italian bookcloth. Ear wires are 14kt gold fill french hooks.

Normal Price: $17.75
Today’s Halloween Madness Price is $14.75 + free shipping!

Each pair of earrings come on an earring card that doubles as a mini-book. Open the pages and read about “The History of the Book”!
Click here to check them out!

Plus, check out the new items on the store as well