Hopeless Romantic and Piscean Jeweler, Melissa Trice

Pisces Full Moon August 24, 2010 10:04 am pdt Spotlight on Piscean Jeweler, Melissa Mayes Trice Shop: Melissa Trice Louisville, Kentucky, USA

Being a Pisces definitely influences the creation of my handcrafted jewelry. Pisces are creative beings often drawn to the sea and influenced by water. We tend to be intuitive, romantic, imaginative, subtle, and mystical daydreamers although I take issue with some of the traits attributed to Pisces.

The symbol for Pisces is two fish moving in opposite directions representing the conflicting desires of flesh and spirit. I too have conflicts in this area. I am a corporate queen during the day, but my true desire is to make a living selling my beautiful handcrafted jewelry. I'm also a day-dreamer and you will often find me staring and smiling and dreaming up some really great jewelry creation while in my own little world. I will get out my bead board and some beads and stones and just start placing them soon finding myself in a zone all by myself where I can create anything. I sometimes become attached to one of my creations and want to keep it for myself and then there is conflict, but the business woman inside of me overrules this selfishness so that I can focus on profit instead.

My creativity is usually inspired by my mood and reflects my feelings at any given time.

I am a hopeless romantic and my wedding necklace and earring sets reflect this romantic, feminine side. Crystals and pearls together envelope the senses and exude romance & femininity and I feel very honored that someone would want my creations to be a part of their special day. Crystals are so mystical and reflect the light so magnificently which only intensifies with the movement of the wearer, but don't stare you may become transfixed!

Pisces are also know for their compassion and I also like to spend time volunteering with Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

Full Moon in Libra Divinely Inspired, Holistic Healing Jeweler, Sophie D.

Full Moon in LibraMarch 29, 2010 5:25 pm PDT

During the Moon in Libra, relationships become our source of growth with our beloveds or in our relationship to beauty, to friendship, to our creative muse, to fairness and equality. While you need to avoid taking responsibility for everyone's happiness, you can be a real leader toward dynamic cooperation and peaceful co-existence. Excerpted from the We'Moon Datebook.

This month's one and only Full Moon artist is a splendiferous combination of many lovely Libran traits, she is not only a crystal healing, lightworking, soulful, artistic creator, but a Reiki practitioner, holistic healer, angel seer, and breast cancer survivor. I hope you enjoy her inspirational story.

Sophie Dangtran

Raleigh, North Carolina, USA

SparklesAndAngels.etsy.com

I am a Libra, born on September 25 many moons ago. Libras love beauty, harmony, and balance. Appropriately enough, my purpose in life is to create beauty, harmony, and light. I am doing this by being a Reiki practitioner and by creating jewelry for your body and soul.

My Reiki practice helps to balance and harmonize your body, your mind, your emotions, and your spirit. My intention for my jewelry is to bring more love, more light, more peace, more beauty, and more of your heart's desires into your life. I joyfully infuse all of my creations with love, healing energy ? including Reiki energy ? and prayers.

A very UN-scientific survey among my friends and fans shows that the words most used to describe my creations are: elegant, harmonious, graceful, beautiful… all typical Libran traits! I call my style “neo-classical.” A Libra is too well-balanced to be avant-garde, though I do admire the talent and creativity of those at the artistic forefront.

I was born in South Vietnam and grew up there. After I got my French Baccalaureate degree, I moved to the United States to further my education. Upon getting my master’s degree, I worked as a computer programmer, and then as a web site designer and producer. I have since left the corporate world about five years ago to devote myself to Reiki and jewelry design.

While I was a technical person, and my Libran artistic tendencies were dormant back then, I had noticed long ago that I made people feel better by my presence alone. I found out recently that this is said of many Librans: "They always make you feel better for having been with them."

Kitty Come Here Earrings

My interest in holistic healing started about fifteen years ago, when a beloved cat got seriously sick and modern medicine could not help him. I studied herbs, homeopathy, and crystals. I "discovered" Reiki in 2001, and was attuned to the first level of Reiki in March 2002.

A week after that first attunement, a murder suicide took place in my neighborhood. I was totally freaked out by this event, and after a few sleepless nights I called my Reiki teacher, asking for help. She told me to visualize angels surrounding me and my house with the golden light of grace. At that time I was sitting next to a window, and I happened to look out at the golden light of the setting sun streaming in through the window.

Opalescence Necklace

THAT was the moment I first realized that angels really do exist, and that there was a whole world my physical eyes could not see. That experience was the beginning of my spiritual awakening, and marked the beginning of my personal healing journey.

Reiki also unleashed my Libran creativity and artistic talents, and I started making suncatchers and jewelry out of beads and healing stones. The act of making jewelry is for me a form of meditation and prayer. It helps me stay balanced and fulfills my Libran need for peace and harmony.

Essence of a Woman Earrings

I found this tidbit on a web site: “Librans are sensitive to the needs of others and have the gift, sometimes to an almost psychic extent, of understanding the emotional needs of their companions...” Well, in my Reiki practice, I offer intuitively designed and one-of-a-kind Reiki jewelry. If you choose a Reiki session, I will create after that session, under your guidance’s direction, a one-of-a-kind necklace or bracelet using semi-precious stones, Swarovski crystals, sterling silver, glass beads and/or gold accents. I then charge this jewelry with love, healing energy, and prayers, to assist you in holding the energetic balance that you received during your Reiki session.

The designs I offer in my Etsy store are also charged with healing energy, love, and prayers, even when they do not contain semi-precious healing stones, since anything can be filled with good energy! While they are usually not designed with a person in mind, I know that they will find the right owners, and will bring to their owners more peace, more divine grace, more joy!

In 2007 I got another opportunity to evolve spiritually: breast cancer. This traumatic experience helped me to further open my heart, to become stronger as a person, to enjoy life more, and to be grateful. This has inspired me to create a line of inspirational necklaces, such as the ones featured in this post.

Be Here Now Necklace

To connect with more Full Moon Artists please click on the link.

Pisces New Moon Bohemian Jeweler, Lynn

New Moon in PiscesMarch 15, 2010 12:01 pm PDT

Take time to celebrate the New Moon in Pisces by listening deeply with your whole soul as you become acutely aware of your feelings allowing your sensitivity to feed you. This month's New Moon artists are Lynn - a spiritually inclined self proclaimed bohemian jeweler from Montreal, Quebec and and Heavy Metal artist, Steff Green from Auckland, New Zealand.

Lynn - Les Bijoux Créa-Lune

Shop: lesbijouxcrealune.etsy.com Blog: lesbijouxcrealune.blogspot.com

I am a true Piscean with all the traits of my sign: easy going, instinctive, compassionate, sensitive, imaginative and artistic. It is so obvious to me that Pisces draws me in a certain direction along which something develops through my imagination.

Creating is a form of dreaming for me and where I find my peace. Sometimes I get so completely absorbed in my environment and my jewelry making that I tend to exclude everything else and find it difficult to come back to reality. I rarely put my designs on paper unless it’s a custom order, preferring instead to begin my designs with a feeling, an idea that inspires me through creative process. I tend to follow my intuition which I consider a gift.

Frame of Thought - River Shell Framed Pendant

When I was younger I used to form mental images of things that I had never before perceived in reality. On the other hand, I sometimes feel that some of my best work comes from outside of myself. I am very critical about my work and myself. Sometimes my jewelry doesn’t turn out the way I imagined and I get frustrated and start to doubt my work. On the positive side, the Piscean symbol features two fish swimming in opposite directions and I feel that this duality allows me to have confidence in my work and myself once again.

Vintage Style Moonstone and Brass Earrings

Most Pisces take the easy way out in life and never attain the degree of recognition that they deserve - we have to stop doubting ourselves. A good example of this is the under pricing of my work. One thing I sometimes regret is not having enough ambition in life and not being motivated enough to go through with some of my previous objectives because I didn’t believe I could do it. I lacked confidence in myself. Today at 50, I am more self-assured than I have ever been. I am finding peace and despite my sensitive personality, I am a survivor. When life is hard to take, I create my own reality and I find that meditation helps to calm the internal struggle within my soul.

Pisces have a mysterious way of figuring out what a person needs. When I work directly with my customers, I often have a sense of which necklace will bring out their personality. I also find that receiving feedback for my work is really significant, it's what keeps me going.

Amongst the Waves - Mother of Pearl, Silver and Bubble Asymmetrical Necklace

Always yearning for new sensations. I have done a lot of traveling to remote places not yet discovered by most and have really absorbed different cultures and art. Pisces are often stimulated by water and especially the ocean. I started making jewelry while traveling in Costa Rica many years ago when I had once again packed up and left everything behind. Being a typical Pisces bohemian I learned the basics of jewelry making by the ocean. I have been evolving ever since and am exploring new techniques, styles and mediums in my work.

With time I have learned to channel my psychological penchants into various forms of art as I walk the path of the mystic becoming truly conscious of the great mystery playing through the waters of awareness.

To read more New Moon Artist features please click the link!

Aquarius New Moon Artist Inspiration!

New Moon in AquariusFebruary 13, 2010 6:51 pm PST

This month I have managed to discover not one, but two Aquarian jewelers - these gals do love the rocks! Which isn't too strange actually because Aquarius does rule: obsidian, opals, pearls, quarries, stone, sapphires and slate! Surprised?!

Arona Offenberger

Melbourne, Australia

Shop: http://flossadornments.etsy.com Blog: http://abitoffloss.blogspot.com I’d never really given any thought as to how my Sun Sign (Aquarius) might influence my jewelry making or any other craft I’ve tried. I only started crafting in the last ten years. I’ve tried decoupage, mosaics and some scrap booking but now that I examine why I started making jewelry and the kinds of pieces I make, the Aquarian influence is completely obvious.

I have a day job but have been on leave since October 2008 after having my second child. Babies do take up a lot of time but after a while, I started needing to do something other than mothering. My motivation for making jewelry was to have some pieces to wear that weren’t mass-produced or bought in a store. I love handmade and I love the concept of one-of-a-kind, and I want to cater for others who feel the same. This trait is so typically Aquarian (if there is such a thing) and that is a desire to be unique, original and different by not following the crowd down the beaten path.

Black, white and grey resin bead necklace

Essentially, all of my jewelry is one-of-a-kind. I don’t ever make more than one of anything except by request and even then, it may not be possible, because when I buy beads, I only buy a few of each so that I can’t make multiples even if I wanted to. I do repeat design ideas but always with different colors and combinations.

I find that some artists and crafters show a preference for a particular medium or material, but I’m quite the eclectic Aquarian in the pieces I produce. I use a wide variety of beads and materials with no preference for one style or another. I also want to create pieces that will appeal to people with a range of different personal tastes and aesthetics and I think I achieve that in my work.

Sometimes I wonder whether other people will understand or even like my aesthetic. It’s very interesting to get feedback from people about which items they like. I’m always surprised by the variety of responses, but to me, it justifies the diverse range of pieces I produce. I suppose I want to have broad-ranging appeal but within the niche of “handmade”.

Long flapper-style necklace in white, red, purple and turquoise

Aquarians are known for seeking out new experiences to avoid boredom. I love trying out new techniques, designs and color combinations or working with new material. If I don’t know how to do something, I’ll “Google” it (Aquarians love technology) and usually find a plethora of instructions and videos to satisfy my need to learn. Some days I tell myself I will try to focus on only a few styles of jewelry but it never happens: I get excited by some new beads I’ve seen that I absolutely must try out or by a new idea my overactive brain has come up with instead of letting me sleep.

At the moment, I’m playing with polymer clay and making my own pendants and beads, but I’m adapting and experimenting with the basic techniques that I’ve learned to suit what I want to achieve. I’m not one for following instructions to the letter, I’m just an unconventional Aquarian doing things her own way.

Necklace with hand stamped quote on sterling silver tag necklace

Personal space and time are other Aquarian necessities I can’t do without. Making jewelry is a great form of therapy for me, especially at the end of a hectic day spent entertaining and running around after two young children. The fiddly aspect of making jewelry, like hand-stringing beads or aligning the ends of jump rings is a perfect way to unwind and switch my brain down into a calmer mode. There are also days where I’m not feeling very inspired but I can spend hours on the computer browsing for supplies, maintaining my online store and working on marketing. I love having this time by myself, I need this time by myself.

In the future, and Aquarians are definitely known for this, I'd love to continue with my hobby and turn it into a day job, but I expect that's a long way off.

To read more New Moon Artist Features please click here.

New Moon in Aquarius Artist Feature

New Moon in AquariusFebruary 13, 2010 6:51 pm PST

This month's featured new moon artist is jeweler and soul seeker, Shi Eddy. Plus, stay tuned for yet another Etsy jeweler (these gals do love their rocks!) who hails from Melbourne, Australia. The moon in Aquarius invites us all to aim high and pursue our goals with passion and courage. Test out your tiger-heart this new moon as you free your mind, run with the wind and share your innate charisma and sensitivity with us all!

Shiron (Shi) Eddy

Rainier, Oregon, USA

Shop: http://shijewels.etsy.com

Blog: http://shijewels.blogspot.com

Being born under a sign that’s ruled by Uranus, the planet of drastic change, revolution, upheaval and independence makes for some very interesting twists and turns in this life of mine. Both my sun and moon signs are Aquarius and I’m absolutely true to my sign. I’m a tree hugging, Goddess loving, hippy at heart. As an Air sign I live for the wind -- it cleanses and re-energizes me; I’m mule stubborn, fiercely independent, a dreamer and idealist…always looking forward to tomorrow.

As a mother of twins and a recent empty nester, making jewelry not only fills the void of a quiet home but also allows me to express my creative side. With Nature as my muse and Earth’s bounty of wonderful little treasures at my fingertips, I am provided the never ending inspiration to create pieces that show my appreciation of the beauty that surrounds us all.

'Te Amo' ~ Labradorite, Topaz & Peridot Sterling Silver Necklace

I love learning about the metaphysical and healing properties of the stones that I work with, it never ceases to amaze me how versatile these little earthy gems are. I’m always surprised when a piece refuses to be made how I intended…you’d think I’d be used to it…but the stubborn side of me is determined to make it as I have it in my mind’s eye only to relinquish this vision after a few exhausting hours allowing it to be made as it wishes, and it never disappoints. Jewelry is an extension of me, it isn't just a fashion statement; it's an expression of the soul.

To read more New Moon Artist Features please click here.