Canada Day festivities

It's already mid-June, which means the Salmon Festival Craft Fair is only a short while away! The displays and takeaways are being prepared for the event and I can't wait to see some familiar and new faces! Here are the details:

Date: Monday, July 1st
Location: Steveston Community Centre (gymnasium)
Address: 4111 Moncton Street, Richmond
Hours: 10:00am to 5:00pm

This is Canada's "biggest little birthday party" and is a great family event so bring the little ones too!

Tea party

The garden tea party held by PINK in the City was an adorable event and all the attendees dressed for the occasion! Here's a quick snapshot of some of the participants:


The ARIA INDUSTRIES original, a necklace named Zosia, was a part of the silent auction and the lucky winner got it at a great price and of course the entire amount went to charity! Now that's what I call a win-win!

Zosia at a tea party

PINK in the City is back and ARIA INDUSTRIES is excited to be a sponsor again! This annual Vancouver event is a fundraiser for women's cancers and always has a fabulous theme. This year's is a garden tea party (I'm thinking Alice in Wonderland) and can't wait to attend on June 15th! Here is the Zosia necklace, with crystal quartz, grey topaz, and rose quartz, and it will only be available as an auction item:

Sweet Sidonie

The Sidonie earrings consist of four ingredients: cloudy white sapphires, apple green apatites, baby blue calcites, and tiny orange sapphires. The combination is like a delectable blast of sweetness!

Faerie good happenstance

Just a little bit of Etsyland news for this blog update... The Maurella earrings, named after a True Blood character, have been featured in a treasury! I particularly like the colour palette that GreenChairPress chose:

Spring sale!

Spring is officially upon us so to celebrate, everything at aileen.etsy.com is 15% off until March 31st - just use the code HELLOSUNSHINE when checking out. Why not use it on the pretty Iolanthe earrings?

Dorallama!

The Dora necklace has just been posted to the shop along with seven other pieces. This lariat imposter looks like the real thing, but there is a spring ring clasp in the back because the center stone does not fit through the twisted hoop. This means the piece will not accidentally fall off!


The pink tourmaline has a peachy-pink colour and looks like a juicy teardrop. Rounding out the stones are a solitary morganite next to the twisted hoop and white topazes connected to the clasp.


This necklace has a silly story behind the name: I was speaking in accents and joked about various prices. "Dollar" somehow turned into "Dora" and that's how this name was born!

Like candy

The brand new Clementine necklace was a real design adventure and this post will describe the stone variations that were considered.

The original plan was to use the chandelier component from the Gia, Cyrilla, and Paige earrings with some red, pink, and brown stones. A number of combinations using garnets, rubies, sapphires, and smoky quartzes were tried:


But then I found some carnelians at my favourite Vancouver bead store and a pink sapphire at a fabulous Victoria bead store and knew I had something special. Here is an in-progress shot of the pendant - an earring hook was used during the production stage so I could hold the piece up to tell whether the stones were evenly balanced:


Rounding out the final design are a single crystal quartz above the center stone, red spinels in between everything, and a pink tourmaline to connect the pendant to the necklace. Don't the colours look like candy?

Treasury: Aura

I am pleased to report that the Aura earrings have been featured in an Etsy treasury called With none among them that ever sings... Here is a screenshot of the collection by Poppy & Purl:

And then there were twenty-eight

Remember when winners were selected for the gift card draws at the Steveston Christmas Craft Fair and the Urban Artisans Craft Fair? Anna Li applied her $25 gift card toward the Della earrings and Liz Hayes-Brown selected the Letitia bracelet!

In other news, 28 (yes, really that many!) pieces are being prepped for the shop. It is taking a while because a different background is going to be used in the photos and a lot of experimenting was involved. Here is a peek at the upcoming Tarina earrings: