It has been one BUSY month!  My newest jewelry is now available at AllyJs.Com & TornadoGems.Com 

I've been working all month on a new collection, the Tornado Gems Collection.  All of the new jewelry in this collection is still not up, however the Tornado Gems Slide Bead Charms and necklace chains are now available.

The gemstone slide beads are available with any gemstone, (pearls too!) and are created in a small size (approx. 5/8") and a large size (approx. 1").  Each slide bead charm is handmade and is interchangeable.

I have a viking knit handmade necklace chain option available (bracelet chain too!), but the charms will also fit the popular chains along with other charms such as Pandora and Troll Beads.  These are a great way to add your favorite gemstone to necklaces and bracelets, as well as create a birthstone compilation for moms and grandmothers.

Each charm is handmade, one at a time.  The viking knit chains are also handmade and are very labor intensive, but well worth it when complete!

The photos I've shown here are of a grouping I made with a Christmas theme - garnet gems (red), genuine emeralds (green) and pearl.

The charms can be worn one at a time, or mixed with others to create colorful looks to match your favorite outfits.  Custom ordering for individual beads with your gems of choice and metal color is available at AllyJ's.

...I eat Mexican food.  And I've been so exhausted this week, which fosters little creativity, that I've been eating quite a bit of Mexican food. :)

I keep thinking maybe that burrito...or the taco...or even the lettuce, tomato and cheese just MIGHT inspire a new design.  It hasn't happened yet.  But tomorrow is SUNDAY.

SUNDAY is a very good creation day for me.  It seems I *always* come up with something new and exciting on a Sunday.  After the week I've had, I'm not sure it will happen THIS Sunday.  But I have hope.  I have faith.  The new idea will arrive!

In the meantime, I'm looking at my sword pendants and O Rings here on my desk, and feeling pretty grateful I came up with those designs.   I wore one of the sword pendants last night at my bowling adventure.  The idea was I would "slay" everyone...including our pastor...who, unbeknownst to me, appears to be a champion bowler. Or very close to it. I still did rather well, surprising even myself since I hadn't bowled in soooooo long.  And yeah, my body is paying for it today with soreness...I'll be limping into church tomorrow!

So as of tonight...I have no new idea.  I have a belly full of Mexican food though.  Perhaps I'll try adding some lemon cake into the mix?  Maybe the tart flavor will refresh my mind a bit and enlighten me whilst I sleep.

Stay tuned.  Tomorrow new ideas will come. :)

This month, I've released two new tutorials...The woven Sword Pendant, and the popular O Ring.  With Christmas coming up, this is a great time to expand on your jewelry skills and have some new and unique fun designs to offer your customers, or to make as gifts for your friends and family this holiday season!

Keep your eye on the tutorial page - I'm writing several more between now and the end of the year!

Also, check out the addition of our newsletter page...sign up to receive our monthly newsletter and you'll also be registered to win a FREE piece of jewelry!  One lucky winner is selected each month.

I spent months learning how to make these peapod jewels.  Of course, I was making the process much more difficult than it was.  :)  I had looked and looked for a tutorial on it, and couldn't find one.  Once I finally figured out how to do it, I decided to write my own and add it to my jewelry tutorial offerings, so others who would like to make peapod pendants and earrings could learn how as well. 

You can get the Woven Peapod tutorial on our tutorials page.

I plan on adding several more tutorials over the next few months to help others learn how to make some of these fun designs. :)

I'd have Christmas year round if I could. :)

Each year, I create one new Christmas tree pin or pendant design.  This year, I've created a wire tree pendant, adorned with gemstones.  This pendant features genuine garnet, and a vintage crystal dangling from the bottom for added glitz.  It will truly be a fantastic addition to your Christmas tree jewelry collection!

The design was inspired by a vintage Eisenberg wire Christmas tree pin and also the work of Swoboda jewelry (another vintage jewelry company) who used gemstones in their pieces. The two inspirations swirled around in my brain for quite a while, and finally everything came together to create this gorgeous tree.

The tree is available in my Pendants section. :)

Yes.  I'm addicted to pendants.  Totally.  I mean, they are just perfect for everyday wear!  AND for that special evening out.  I have a favorite gold chain and a favorite silver one too.  I'll pop pendants on and off those chains to match the outfit I'm wearing.  Sometimes...in fact a LOT of times...I'll pick the pendant, and THEN pick the outfit. 

I just love pendants. They're so easy to wear.  They're affordable.  They're fun.  And I love making them.  Each one is like a miniature artistic masterpiece.

Because I love them and because I make a lot of them, the website has now graduated to having TWO pendant pages.  I'm sure there will be more pendant pages soon.  Unless, of course, I have a slew of customers who come in and snatch them up...then I can move some to my SOLD page. :)

The pendant shown above is the one I completed today.  Using my Peruvian weave encased stone design, I took this emerald green glass vintage stone and mounted it in antiqued silver wire.  I added some bright silver beads to the top to give it a bit more sparkle and shine.  I guess nowadays they call that "bling".  :)

You can purchase the emerald glass pendant on the Pendants II page.  Just think...if you do, I can move it to my sold page!

I guess the most exciting new addition to the website this week is the ability for you to design your own pendant.  Choose your stone, choose what color wire you'd like your pendant made with, and decide whether you want the metal antiqued (darkened) or left shiny.  See our DESIGN IT! page for more information and to make your stone selection.  I do have more than one of a couple of the stones shown, however, quantities are VERY limited on these.

Also, I've set up a page where you can schedule a trunk show with me if you're in the Jackson, Tennessee area. I'd love to get more events scheduled before Christmas and these shows are a lot of fun!  Guests register for a door prize (a free pendant) and the hostess makes 20% of all sales income from the evening.  Plus I get to meet all of you wonderful people in person! :)  If you'd like to get on the schedule for a trunk show please visit this page and fill out the form.

My Bathroom Smells Great!
Thanks to a 15-year old bar of herbal soap…  

Granted, I spent about three times as much for this bar of soap when I purchased it from a local crafter at our flea market 15 years ago.  The soap was $3.00 per bar, as opposed to the 75 cent bar I might have picked up at Wal-Mart.  Yet I haven’t had to buy any kind of “smell good” for my dressing area since.

This is just one of the few benefits of buying a handcrafted item – quality.  It’s good.  It’s better than good.  It’s made by someone’s HANDS, rather than by a machine.  It’s tested by a real human being, individually, with careful thought and attention to the littlest detail.

This little bar of soap has personality.  It’s different.  From the special packaging to the scent, it reeks of uniqueness. (no pun intended)

It offers a fond memory, this little bar of soap with its spicy, tantalizing scent.  I’ll never forget my trip down that flea market aisle.  One booth had tons of remainder and slightly damaged health and beauty items…the stuff you see in every major chain store in the country…and at discounted prices.  But the alluring scent from five booths away is what grabbed my attention away from the bland and familiar and made my legs keep on moving.

I sauntered past the discount booth.  I stopped when I found the incredible scent, coming from a booth full of large, rectangular bars of rough-looking soap, each bar wrapped like a miniature gift in a colorful piece of tissue paper.  And that’s when I met Julia and her husband.  They explained the process each bar of soap goes through before it appears in its final form.  They told me about the various herbs they use, why they used them, and what each herb does for yourself and your environment.

Soon I left with five bars of soap and an education on herbs and their properties.  I was on a budget, and at $3 a bar, that’s all I could afford that day.  I could have left with 15 bars from the other booth.  But I wouldn’t have had near the sensual experience as I had with those five bars from Julia.

So here I am, 15 years later.  All but one of the bars of soap have been used (and all lasted 4 times longer than chain store bought soaps).  I saved the fifth bar, because the next time I attended the flea market, Julia was gone…her booth replaced by someone selling slightly damaged big-box store items.  I saved the bar because I wanted to remember Julia and my experience at her booth that day.  I wanted to recall my mini-lesson on soap making.  I wanted to remember her joy, her passion.

I also saved the bar because I wanted to prove a point.  Being an artisan myself, I know handmade items are far superior over the mass-produced things offered in the majority of our stores today.  But I wanted to prove it to myself another way.  So I saved the soap.  It’s labeled “Workers Soap”.  It still has its spicy scent to this day.  After 15 years, I can open the drawer the purple-wrapped bar resides in and be taken back to my day at the flea market when I met Julia.  In an instant, I can go back 15 years, and smile. 

What a memory.  What a product! 

Being a craftsperson, the thought that I helped to support and hopefully further the dream of another hard-working original artist makes me feel really good.  I’d like to believe that Julia’s future absence meant she moved onto bigger and better things…perhaps she eventually opened her own store, where quality, uniqueness, and creativity were rewarded, despite the fact a person could get mass-produced soap for a few less pennies in that monstrous building on the hill.  I’d like to believe her business, her hard work, and her creativity helped to feed her children and helped to provide a roof over her family’s head.

In reality, Julia probably went out of business due to a lack of support.  Her booth certainly wasn’t near as crowded as the other one on that fall day.  In reality, most people probably chose to shop at the chain stores where they’d save a buck, but inevitably ended up with goods made by children and older, underpaid workers in sweatshops in Third World countries.

Chain retailers have expanded dramatically over the last twenty years. Home Depot and Lowe's, barely a blip on the radar screen in 1986, now control half of the hardware and building supply market. Barnes & Noble and Borders account for more than half of all bookstore sales. Every sector is now dominated by a couple of chains, and Wal-Mart dominates them all, capturing one of every five retail dollars we spend.

Julia’s not in that picture.  She isn’t making soap for Wal-Mart.  She couldn’t.  It has to be made so cheaply, and in such large quantities, that it’s just not feasible.

As chain stores have exploded, thousands of independent retailers have lost their livelihoods and laid-off hundreds of thousands of employees. One study I read found that every new Wal-Mart store opened actually eliminates many more other retail jobs than it creates.

Studies have shown that on average, 65 to 85 cents of each dollar spent at a chain store leaves the local economy, with a large portion of that money being shifted overseas.   The United States is buying $162 billion more from China than we are selling to it.  A large percentage of these purchases are made by U.S. companies that build products in China and then ship them to the United States, like Wal-Mart's suppliers.

Despite a well-publicized "Made in the U.S.A." campaign, 85 percent of Wal-Mart’s items are made overseas, often in Third World sweatshops paying 13 to 35 cents per hour with up to 96-hour work weeks.

And that, my friends, leaves people like Julia out of a job, unable to feed her children, and unable to put a roof over her family’s head.  Sure, she can get government assistance – food stamps, for instance.  Which you and I are paying for via our tax dollars…which seem to keep rising year after year.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have some great-smelling, long-lasting, high-quality soap I can enjoy, than pay higher taxes due to individuals being put of out business by others making a choice to get more for less. 

I’d rather have less stuff, with more meaning, which creates fond memories, and something cool to talk about.  I’d rather have something different than the next 20,000 people I run into on the streets. I’d rather have something better quality, something filled with passion and creativity, something with a little love in it – which a machine in a factory just doesn’t possess.

So I ask myself this year, before the holiday shopping season begins, how can I achieve these goals?    How can I contribute to a holiday with more meaning, and offer fond memories filled with love this season? 

I can stay out of the chain stores, for one.  They’re good at enticing…good at manipulation…and good at getting you to buy mass-market produced things - which won’t be appreciated -  and will more than likely be thrown away or end up in a Goodwill store or garage sale in under six months.  Think “disposable”. 

I can seek out original, living, “real” artists online, or in my community at places and events which sell the handiwork of local artisans and craftspeople.  By directly supporting the makers of the products I buy, I will be spending my money in an empowering way.

I can visit Etsy.Com.  Etsy.com supports local economies by making it possible for artisans to make a living.  They have a “Shop Local” link right on their front page – you type in your location, and it brings up artisans in your area.

Whether you uncover a piece of cool pottery, pet toys, handmade clothing, original paintings, herbal soap, baked goods, sculpture, home décor, or artisan jewelry, each artisan creation offers enduring value to be treasured.  Each offers personality and uniqueness.  Each offers a memory you’ll be able to recapture at any time – even 15 years later.


Jai Johnson is an independent jewelry designer, artist, and photographer living and working in Jackson, TN.   Visit her main website at http://www.MicheleJanine.com

If I had to pick a favorite color, green would probably be lower on the list.  However...when it comes to EMERALDS...I really do like green.  Perhaps it's the stone itself.  It's a perfect stone for heirloom quality jewelry.  It's rich.  It's elegant.  It's alluring.

I also love history and emeralds have a rich one, going back as early as 2000BC.  Cleopatra was an avid emerald collector. Remains of "Cleopatra's Mines" were discovered about 1817.   Sixteenth Century Spanish explorers discovered South America's rich bounty of emeralds. Large emeralds were found in the possession of the Aztecs and Incas. The Moguls of India loved emeralds so much they inscribed them with sacred text. Some of these sacred stones (called Mogul emeralds) are in museums and collections today.  One talismanic emerald is deep green and weighs 78 carats. Around the edge in is an inscription written in Persian which reads "He who possesses this charm shall enjoy the special protection of God."

The emerald is a stone of harmony, wisdom and love.  A jewel with emeralds serves as an excellent and memorable gift, and is always appreciated by the recipient.  Even those of us who don't have "green" on our favorite color list. :)

The Emerald Branch Earrings can be purchased here.