Wednesday Item Feature: Summer in September

Normally, September and October are thought to be autumn months — not in San Francisco. While the rest of the Bay Area decides to start cooling down, San Francisco starts getting hot and the sun starts laughing in our faces. For those of you resting in the shade and enjoying the relaxing fall breeze, there are still summer items that can give your autumn wardrobe a bit more spice.

Sure enough, while I was thinking about pumpkin pie in all its creamy orange deliciousness, I stumbled across Gwen Harlow's shop on Etsy and came across some pretty earrings that accompanied my craving for something pumpkin flavored. Shipping out from Alameda, these earrings would match summer and autumn wardrobes alike. Spice up a strapless summer dress or wear a matching turtle neck leading the viewer's eyes to the leaves dangling from your ears! Vintage lucite golden leaves hang between crystal-centered white flowers: you can call these cute, hot, romantic, or just simply beautiful.

Whether you consider these more summer or more autumn, they're an absolutely affordable and amazing find if you're looking for a gift in the jewelry department or are an earring fiend like myself and just want another pair of dangling goodies. Is your girlfriend a Virgo? If you haven't gotten her a gift for her upcoming birthday, you've got about three more days left in the zodiac season to think of something quick. Even if you missed it or are going to miss it and end up presenting her with a belated birthday gift, these earrings are nice enough that she might forgive you. Or if she's a Libra, you've maybe got a little more time — decide now and have these arrive in your mailbox just in time!

Get them before I decide to!

Check out gwen's listing on Etsy now: Summer leaves earrings, golden brown vintage lucite!

Tune in next week for the Wednesday Item Feature!

Love & donuts,
Mayene

Wednesday Item Feature: Need a lift?

Butterflies are so light and pure; they can be such a beautiful aspect of nature. Their fluttering wings are constantly a symbol of love, when we try to describe that feeling of happiness, a natural high, and longing for someone else. There is a Japanese superstition that notes if a butterfly comes into your room and lands behind a bamboo screen, the person who you love the most is coming to see you. Some people also say that when a butterfly lands on you, it means good luck. When you're not feeling those butterflies in your stomach, you could be feeling them on your ears and keep some good luck around!

Heidi Rand (also known as GardenDelightsArts on Etsy) from El Cerrito captures the beauty of butterflies and turns them into lightweight dangle earrings. Both a nature photography and teacher, Heidi uses her original photos and crafts them into her works of art. These beautiful butterfly earrings were made from an image Heidi took of a monarch butterfly she raised herself from egg through metamorphosis. Her love for the monarch was transformed into these earrings and a new batch of monarchs that she continues to raise.

Crafted from lutradur, a spun bonded polyester with a texture than only enhances the monarch butterfly pattern, and measuring roughly around 1.25 inches long, this pair of wings will dangle lightly from your ears and give you a lift whenever you want to add something special to your outfit. The vivid orange of the monarch butterfly would pop in front of dark hair and make those with lighter hair look even more natural. For both the type of girl trying to achieve a natural look and the type that has nights out on the town, these earrings are great for a variety of occasions.

Check out GardenDelightsArts's listing on Etsy now: Monarch butterfly wing earrings - original design on lutradur!

Tune in next week for the Wednesday Item Feature!

Love & donuts,
Mayene

Wednesday Item Feature: Give your ears something to think about

It's summertime (is it really, though?) and these months remind me of the times my friends and I were on campus for summer courses. Several of my friends were around retaking the dreaded organic chemistry summer classes, spending endless hours in lab and pulling their hair over the dizzying text in huge, heavy textbooks. Now, that was something to make you sweat more than the beaming sun and humid weather.

For the chemists and aspiring scientists out there, Lani V. from Emeryville (also known as nnvillan on Etsy) makes affordable handmade "science jewelry". As a huge earring enthusiast, her "ThINK" earrings really gave my ears something to yearn for. With a mom that's a chemist, I'm no scientist myself, but I'm pretty nerdy, and I generally think anything referencing the periodic table of elements is pretty cool.

Measuring at 2 1/2 by 1/2 inches, let some lightweight elements dangle from your ears. Shipped in a gift box, this pair of inspiring earrings is crafted from shrinkydinks, shrink plastic, base metal wire hooks, and lots and lots of love. Lani's earrings are a perfect gift for the science nerds out there or for the chemistry students taking summer classes and need a little inspiration to keep them company while they're thinking hard in the labs.

As Lani says, "Think clearly, think often, but try not to over think."

Check out nnvillan's listing on Etsy now: ThINK Inspiration!

Tune in next week for the Wednesday Item Feature!

Love & donuts,
Mayene

I'm a peacock, you gotta let me fly!

With a store name like "Heavy Metal Vomit Party", what do you really expect to see? I wasn't too sure I wanted to find out, but the name was interesting enough for me to venture in. I'm pretty dang glad I did.

Kaiti Fink (also known as heavymetalvomitparty on Etsy) roams around the country selling her stuff. Among that stuff are pretty cool treasures, including handmade suede boots and jewelry made with real animal bones. Her items are crafted from found objects collected from her ventures, and the ones that really caught my eye were her Green Feather Earrings made from duck and peacock feathers. I have a thing for earrings and color theory, so you can imagine how wide my eyes got upon seeing the image of these peacock feathers ridiculously rich with color.

Each earring has one of each feather (duck and peacock), silver wire wrapped, and attached to a close backed earring finding. If you love cool colors, earthy tones, or just rich colors in general, this would be a desirable pair of earrings to have in a treasured jewelry box or hanging somewhere in your room for easy access to put on every morning or on a night out with friends. I've seen a lot of "feather" earrings from various retail stores whenever I'm out shopping, but ditch the synthetic materials for this! The beautiful eye-catching teal mixed with shades of green and brown on top of the dark duck feathers are definitely something to admire and is so much more worth it than the cheap pairs you might score at the mall.

Check out heavymetalvomitparty's listing on Etsy now: Green Feather Earrings!

Tune in next week for the Wednesday Item Feature!

Love & donuts,
Mayene