2015

Roped In! and Totally Hooked!

via The ROPES Maine

  

The Coast of Maine is one of the spots I breathe best.  As a New England Girl from head to toe I try hard not to miss a chance to be where the world is "the way life should be".

 So whenever I am meandering through the small towns from York Harbor to Bar Harbor I am always on the lookout for Made in Maine that I can carry with me or wear throughout the days when I can't be by the coast.  This trip I literally stopped in my tracks... while hopping through Bath I spotted the ultimate Maine wrist candy in the window of Springer's Jewelers.  Springer's is over 140 years old and features classic gracious jewelry in a charming old mercantile shop along Front St (they also have locations in Portland and Portsmouth NH)... there in the window were colorful and happy pieces that roped me in and hooked me at hello! 

The ROPES are made from genuine nautical rope and hardware that instantly say Hi, I'm from Maine and put me on your wrist NOW!  :)  Nautical classic, traditional, but totally on style.  Handmade in Maine from the real stuff--fisherman's ropes and hardware, appropriately named lobster claw hooks pull them together.  Designed by Maine native and RISD grad Shana Aldrich Ready, these sea worthy styles come in a rainbow of colors and widths including multi-strands and necklaces all named from favorite port towns such as Cape Elizabeth, Portland and Kennebunkport.

The ROPES are at home in any boating spot or with any summer style, but you don't have to be bobbing along to wear them--you just have to want to be by the sea-even if it is only when you look down at your wrist.

A Pearl Girl-Portia Clark

I must go seek some dew-drops here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

Puck, A Midsummer Night's Dream

No surprise here..I am a Pearl Girl!  Inspired by great women of style whose iconic images are "strung" through their strands of pearls...

Pearls may be  classic but they do not have to be traditional and boring-

I have found a new Pearl Girl who gets that!

Portia Clark has set out to "...take the stuffiness out of pearls."  By incorporating the many shapes,sizes and colors of Freshwater Pearls in her designs Portia has lent a new "twist" to my favorite jewelry box staple.

Portia's designs are meant to worn ...everyday! not just weddings and funerals...

Come Visit The Shopping Bag Chronicles to see some of my favorites and learn how you can Design Your Own with Portia's Pearls!

All Aglitter-A Well Adorned Table of Contents

Usually when I flip through the pages of a magazine I don't often stop at the Table of Contents but the December Harper's Bazaar grabbed me at the first twinkle.  With a glittering nod to Holiday windows British paper artist Su Blackwell, who designed Crabtree and Evelyn's 2010 holiday windows, has created  three magical paper sculpture vignettes all adorned and bejeweled with pieces from Cartier, Harry Winston, Bulgari... used as chandeliers, curtain tie-backs, bedroom rug, headboard... and even the birds in their cage.  From this scene a very special and sparkling Winter's Eve is in store complete with an elegant ballgown and a horse drawn carriage waiting...I'm moving in!!

A Spring Tease from Anthropologie

After a string of dreary grey days it was such a treat to open my mailbox and see Anthropologie's Spring Jewelry collection---just what I needed to get me thinking about the garden---and the jewelry box!  Can I grow pearls???

EGGceptional-Easter by Faberge

The Hen Egg was the First of the Imperial eggs crafted by the House of Faberge in 1885. Tsar Alexander III presented it to Tsarina Maria Feodorovna on Easter. Within the white enamel shell is a removable gold yolk which separates to reveal a gold hen with ruby eyes. When the beak of the hen was pushed there was another surprise of a ruby egg pendant within a diamond replica of the Imperial crown. This piece's whereabouts are now unknown.

Each Easter a new egg was created, each more remarkably detailed, jeweled encrusted and surprising than the last.

Lillies of the Valley Egg, Easter 1898

Inspired by Tsarina Alexandra's favorite flower.

My favorite of the Imperial Eggs-The Orange Tree or Bay tree Egg. Presented by Tsar Nicholas II to the Dowager Empress on Easter 1911. A Silver key opened the surprise within the top of the jewel dusted topiary. Within the leaves was a winding mechanism, a portion of the tree would rise, music would begin and a Nightingale would appear, chirp along while moving its beak and flapping its wings. When the music stopped the bird descended back into its nest within the top of the topiary egg.

Photos from Forbes
For more information on the history of the Faberge Eggs, seeFaberge's Eggs: The Extraordinary Story of the Masterpieces That Outlived an Empire

Playing in a Jewel Box-Henri Bendel and The House of Lavande

Wall St. is imploding on a roller coaster ride like we have never seen; portfolios, pensions and financial security are teetering without anyone giving answers that make sense; the election is just weeks away and there is no clear view to the finish line; hurricanes have tossed homes and lives adrift; the cost of even getting out of bed is insane and polar bears are losing their ice pads...what are we supposed to do??? Change the station!..at least for a few minutes, not a lot we can do anyway and if we keep watching CNN we really will never get out of bed!

In the midst of all the gloom I found a sunny sign...OK so it was in WWD not the WSJ but we all need our diversions. Two of my favorite passions are together---Henri Bendel is launching a new department to spotlight the House of Lavande .Come Visit The Shopping Bag Chronicles.

Kinderblogging

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.Winnie the PoohThe House at Pooh Corner

Well here I am in BlogLand!

Pretty funny place for me to be spending time. I have lived days, weeks, hours, late nights here... reading, learning, trying to understand and make friends with this new planet. I have a Headache that may not go away til 2010!

You see, my concept of good technology is a pair of knitting needles and a ball of yarn- so you can imagine what trying to decipher HTML does for me. Although I suppose if you are not a knitter and you tried to read a knitting pattern you might feel the same way. I guess it is all about learning a new language and though I think French is much more elegant I am trying to speak BLOG. Like mastering any new skill I find something I didn't know each time I step to the plate.

I may not do everything in Blogland the way it was supposed to be done but that is probably true for most everything I do in my life.I will speak Blog with my own style.

As I write this I have to giggle to myself. You know the old adage "if a tree falls in the woods..."and no one is there to hear it, does it make a noise??? Well I think the same has to apply to this new adventure. If I write and no one is out there...OK so I am talking to myself---what else is new? My hope is that eventually "if you build it they will come" will kick in here.

So why do this?? now THAT is a question I have been asking for weeks as I was trying to decorate this new space without any fabric or paint but with only "code". Can't I hang wallpaper here somewhere??

I suppose the easy answer is that I have always had a lot to say, but probably the truth lies in my need to create a world that stands apart, that functions as a beautifully upholstered cosy chair,safe from the day to day annoying and the CNN style noise. A world where color, gardens, music , literature, skeins of yarn,beautiful spaces and the perfect handbag matter.

Do not think that I exist as a vapid piece of fluff ,or that I live an oblivious life filled with "stuff" not substance-far from it! People matter and politics is one of my favorite sports(forgive me Red Sox). This is a planet in a great deal of pain and I will chat a lot about that and about every individuals role in healing this world, and this country.

I just know that now more than ever I need to fill my corner of the world with all that brings me joy. I don't think I am alone in feeling this way. So many of us are so caught in the current of our lives that we risk being taken out by it. I have come to realize,however, that many simply don't know how to do it. Thus this space. It is my goal to share what I know, what I find, and what I love.

The name of this Blog is Strands of Pearls which comes not just from my goal of having each post bring "readers"(you will be there,right?!) a gleaming pearl of style, design, advice, literature,travel,recipes, gardening...and oh yeah shopping! but is also about pearls themselves. Pearls come from the sea I love, formed miraculously in a protective shell. Each is unique and precious on their own and can speak so much when strung together.

Wearing Strands of Pearls has come to define Classic. Pearls have been worn for centuries by women who have helped define their time and indelibly influenced our style.

As I thought about the feel for this space I wanted a sidekick, a"mascot",someone to come along for the ride who would act as the visual for the style and tone I want to create here. I expect my choice of sidekick will change with the subject, but as I designed each section of the blog I kept finding Audrey. No, not just for her famous pearls but also for the life she led. A life dressed by Givenchy, but filled with her commitment to her children and the children of the world. Audrey became an icon for many, a cliche for some, but beyond her fame she was a real woman, a Mother, a Humanitarian. She transended her celebrity and lived beyond, and above, the "little black dress" we all love. She not only wore her pearls but taught us all how to truly wear the pearls in each of our lives. Today, May 4, would have been Audrey Hepburn's 79th birthday so it's appropriate that for this new adventure I bring Audrey with me. Happy Birthday Audrey!

Pearls for me are also about connections. They connect us as women,and most especially they connect us to the women who have taught and influenced us. Strands of Pearls have been worn and passed down from grandmothers to mothers to daughters and thus link generations. When I want my grandmother with me(which is pretty much every day) I wear her pearls. The connection to the precious, the memorable,the inspirational,the irresistible runs through those strands, as I hope it will here.

So I am putting on My Nana's pearls, taking a deep breath and pushing that scary "Publish Post" button. And so we begin...