Category / Words to Design By
I created this bracelet to match the ring I bought earlier. I wanted something with details, texture, variety and something that was definitely not uniform. I used smooth tiger’s eye beads, chips and accented them with silver tubes from Morocco, a silver tassel from Yemen, and gold plated roundels from the UK. You can see a sketch of this set on my inspirational blog here.
One of the most interesting and fun things to do (for me, anyway) is to search the old, traditional souks for treasures. I found these lovely calligraphy pendants in a small shop at a remote, rarely visited mall. I loved the calligraphy, and the pendants’ shapes and textures. So I added the amethyst beads and a touch of “gold” in the shape of tiny separators. I love wearing both of them together. Have a look at the sketch I made of these designs here. What do you think?
Sometimes all the things I do seem separate. But mostly (and especially lately) I’m finding that they all collide. The more I try to keep them all distinctly apart, the harder I find it to update my 3 blogs regularly. So, I’ve decided from today to let things flow freely between them all, as everything seems to flow freely in my mind, in my journals and in my studio. To actually let my blogs reflect a more true representation of how I continually leap and bounce from one idea to another, from one project to another, from one journal to another, from one creative endevor to another.
Sometimes I am so clear about what I want to do, or create, sometimes its confusing and frustrating. But, most of the time it’s interesting and surprising. I like that 
So, check out this sketch I made of this bracelet in my jewelry journal and posted on my inspirational blog.
This year the Muslim Eid and Christian Christmas come together again – there is a symbolic unity in there somewhere which I hope can extend to somehow bringing people closer to understanding how similar they are and that the differences are very, very small. I wrote before about the power of the bead (http://www.fadwa.com/?p=94) and how this method of meditation, relaxation and remembering God is shared by so many religions and beliefs across the world. Added to this is the pure tactile pleasure of running the semiprecious, precious or glass, stone and wooden beads through your fingers.
To celebrate this coming together, I will be giving away 5 bracelets/anklets to 5 lovely women who will write to me with about an inspiring experience they had or shared that has brought peoples of different beliefs together.
This is a very personal idea, and I will be reading and choosing the emails, and I will select a piece to send the winners. Participants accept that shipping will be COD, and I will send the items by courier (Aramex). I will also publish all suitable letters received, if any, next month.
I wish all my visitors and clients a Happy Eid and a Merry Christmas.
Enjoy!
Fadwa
Wear what you enjoy and enjoy what you wear!
Well, my husband just returned from China - he visited Hangzhou, with its population of 64 million - give or take a couple of million.
I asked him for some Jade and some coral, and he got me some amazing stones, as you can see. I have not yet decided what I am going to make with these lovely stones, or if I will sell them or keep them for myself!
Visit me aain soon and look out for new designs!
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Thank you for visiting my Art-to-Wear Jewelry Gallery. I have been designing jewelry since 1997 and since I fell in love with semiprecious stones and beads, and their fascinating history. Each piece I create is original, unique and handmade; and each piece of jewelry has a story to tell.
Choose the collection you wish to see from the Categories to the right. You can buy online or you can email me – check out the Order Info page for details.
To see earlier blog posts, newsletters and thoughts on what inspires me, please check the Words to Design By category. Don’t forget to also visit my photo inspirational blog at www.fadwas-inspirational.blogspot.com.
Please feel free to share your comments, ideas and thoughts on my collections, posts and photos.
Enjoy!
Fadwa
My Designs and I
My senses are bursting with life; it is as if each one has five senses of its very own. Not long ago, I used to wonder where everything my senses touched went. Until I started to play with beads!
The many walks I took through the Canadian autumn, kicking up miniature paintings of fallen leaves in every shade and hue of brown and gold ever imagined. Wearing black gloves so that I could catch snowflakes during the winter as they danced their way back to earth and wonder at the intricate details of every snowflake’s unique design. The endless moods of light, emitted by the sun and the moon, each one’s magical effect on everything it touched. The stunning sea at Moraira, a lovely town in the east coast of Spain, which once I experienced, I could never say the sea is simply blue ever again!
Everything filtered by my senses was stored in a huge treasure chest, lodged deep within the fibers of my being. When first I held a handful of colored glass beads and semiprecious stones, this chest unlocked, and out came the multi-winged butterflies of remembrance, urging me to paint with stones and beads.
And when I studied semiprecious stones and glass beads, I was amazed to discover that each bead held the heritage of its maker and his culture. A miniature history lesson traveling through the bead route and the route of time.
Semiprecious stones held powers, secrets or beauty, it doesn’t matter which you believe, for they have been with us since time began, and our live earth continues to give birth to more.
It seems I began my journey as a designer without ever realizing it. Everything I do is so closely knit together that reading spills into designing, which in turn spills into music or dance or writing. One just leads to the other in an endless cycle of attempts to create something ever more dazzling, ever more engaging, ever more bursting with life.
Keys have very powerful symbolism. The very function they perform: to open … or to lock; therein perhaps lies their strength.
The strongest association of key to power is probably the possession of the keys to the underworld and afterlife realms in mythology. The realms guarded by locks that only this key could open or close, such as Hades in Greek mythology. The keeper of the keys had to guard the passage from this world into the other, and to guard the other world to make sure all the dead remained where they belonged. A Babylonian funerary chant beseeches these gatekeepers to keep close watch over the dead, lest they return.
Locked realm can also be our own earth, its seas, or the cosmos itself. Cybele, Greek goddess of natural caverns and the Earth in its primitive state, (who is to be worshipped on mountain tops .. I like that!), holds the key to Earth, shutting her up in winter and opening her again in spring. Janus or Ianus in Roman mythology was the god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings; he opens the door of the sky and releases the dawn. In Mesopotamian mythology, Ninib guards the lock of heaven and earth and opens the deep, and Ea unlocks fountains. The Egyptian mythology Serapis has keys to the earth and sea. While Breton folklore has it that menhirs (men meaning stone and hir meaning long) are the keys to the sea and to hell; it is said if they were all turned in their locks and the locks should open then the sea would rush in.
I have been quietly, and for reasons I do not know, been collecting keys. Keys to cars I’ve driven and sold, places I have lived, doors I have locked and opened one million times in my life. Or even keys I find; keys that have nothing to do with me except that they chose one day to lie in my path. I am no expert and I have no experience in this field, nor do I seek it. I have not bought keys, because I only want those keys that have come my way.
I have no explanation for this, except that I love their shapes. I love the way they feel in my hand. I love the idea that they may have kept secrets in or kept secrets out. I love to think that they have a story to tell. As I write this, I guess this is my major passion or drive behind everything I do: stories.
I cannot design a piece of jewelry unless it starts with a story. I also love to write, and have published many stories. The pictures I take, the scribbles in my journals, the collages, everything has to have a story. Maybe I am also collecting stories – and if I don’t always find what I want, I simply go ahead and make my own.
That is the key to my passion.
Until next time ..
I love the unity of opposites.
The idea of creating something designed with seemingly opposing material but which others may find beautiful enough to buy and actually wear. Mixing materials usually perceived as expensive and precious, with others regarded with less auspicious eyes.. glass beads, shells, yarns, pebbles. It is a statement I guess, that it is our perception that gives value to things around us, and to me, if they blend harmoniously or if they contradict melodiously, then they are all beautiful, precious and worthy of our attention.
This month, I added three new items; two are designed with banded agate and silver, inspired by the most accessible forms of art graffiti. The third piece is designed with sparkling crackle beads and squiggly silver loops, it almost looks like a tattoo when worn on the neck.
I have been concentrating on the effects of color, their contrasting effects on each other, and their blending smoothly together. A new concept is forming in my mind of creating in monochrome, of moving away from idea of the importance of color to maybe bring out the form, the actual design, to the forefront.
Then again, maybe I won’t! Right now all my journals are overflowing with bits of color. Visit my inspirational blog to see what I am talking about:
Do these opposites truly attract? Am I forcing them to stay together? Are they really opposites? It’s only jewelry after all.. Wear what you like, and like what you wear.
Until next time ..
Enjoy! And thank you for visiting.
Fadwa
I finally went ahead and started an inspirational blog to post pages from the many notebooks unto whose pages I have emptied all the crazy or maybe creative ideas that continue to fill my head. These notebooks have evolved over the years and they now seem to be part diary, part journal, part scrapbook, and many parts unidentified! And if that weren’t enough, I seem to have started to incorporate Mind Mapping ideas into my inspirational notebooks. At first I started to post the pages along with text, but I think I will now only post the pages as they are for whatever they’re worth. Have a look and let me know what you think: www.fadwas-inspirational.blogspot.com.
This winter I visited the Global Village which is held in Dubai, UAE, for several months every year. It is always a good place to source stones and beads. The village is divided into many pavilions representing countries around the world. The Iranian and Indian pavilions always have an unusual selection of beautiful stones, while the Omani and Afghani have great silver. During one of my scavenging trips I came across some really lovely faceted Amethyst oval stones – they look so delicious that I named the piece I created with these stones Purple Candy. I also found amazing Ametrine faced stones; part Amethyst and part Citrine, these two stones, and two colors (purple and yellow/orange), seem to be made for each other. Check out the Ametrine Rope Necklace and the Ametrine bracelet.
Legend has it that once upon a time a Spanish conquistador, Don Felipe, fell in love and married a beautiful princess named Anahi from the Ayores tribe. As a dowry, the father of the bride and chief of the tribe gave Don Felipe a cave lined with lovely colorful crystals; Ametrines. The couple remained in Bolivia for a while until Don Felipe had to go back home, and his lovely wife decided to go with him. Her tribe was upset, and Anahi knew that they might kill her husband to keep her from leaving. So she gave him the charm she always wore around her neck. Bad news for her, because she mysteriously disappeared before they left - good news for him because he managed to flee with his crew. The Don appreciated the beauty of the lovely Ametrine only in his grief as he realized that the two different colored halves of the stone represented his beloved’s heart divided between her love for him and her love for her people.
But the magic of Ametrine for me is that Amethysts and Citrines are created and crystallized at different temperatures. This means that at the time of formation there was a variance in temperature that give birth to two lovely stones forever embracing in the caves of the Anahi mines in Bolvia.
Until next time ..
Fadwa
