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I was honored to be part of the "New Designer Gallery" at the JA New York jewelry trade show that took place last week at the Javits Center in NYC. Every year 10 new designers are chosen to exhibit their jewelry and be exposed to fine jewelry buyers from around the world.

My favorite part of participating in a trade show is getting to know the artists/designers around you. I have learned so much from them and it is always fun to be around other entrepreneurs.

There was so much press at the show as well, I think I was interviewed at least 30 times! I was blown away though when I found out that the Editor At Large, Jeff Prine, of Accessories Magazine put an article online during the show choosing one of my pieces as the "Item of the Day"! 

Overall it was an amazing experience and fabulous opportunities and connections were made. Loved it!

Today in the studio I have been working on some new jewelry that was inspired by the Hydrangea flowers in my garden and the Lily Pads in my pond.

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After making sketches of the flowers and lily pads I hand carve them out of wax and then cast the wax sculptures into solid sterling silver pieces. The silver castings need a lot of cleaning up and polishing, so I am currently covered in silver dust.

I decided to solder various arrangements of the Hydrangeas to resemble a natural looking cluster that you would see in the garden and the same with the lily pads. It's fun to come up with different ways to use each casting. These images below are the lily pads being soldered together with the torch and then a soak in the pickle which gets the pieces clean after soldering.

The various soldered arrangements will be made into earrings, necklaces, rings, and bracelets. And, the fun part...tiny blue diamonds are going to be added to the center of some of the Hydrangeas and tiny green diamonds will create a 'frog' on the lily pads! 

Another fun day in the studio.

Garden of Silver has just launched our first Kickstarter campaign, "Garden of Silver Grows".
We want to create jobs for young adults as they learn about entrepreneurship in a creative business. 

As a NYS Certified art teacher for the last 25 years, I have been privileged to work with some amazingly talented teenagers. I am dedicated to showing my creative teens how to be financially successful with their art and creativity. I feel that is extremely important for young creatives to learn the business side of the art world, as I was once faced with those same obstacles. I incorporate entrepreneurial skills into each of my high school class curriculums. Young creatives must learn the business skills required to market themselves and their art professionally in this competitive marketplace. I love tapping into the energy and talents of these young people and they always end up amazing me as we build upon great ideas together.

Kickstarter pledges will allow the expansion of Garden of Silver, while providing jobs for young adults. By working at Garden of Silver, young adults will learn marketing and advertising strategies, preparation of professional promotional materials, digital photography skills, product photography, Photoshop/computer graphics skills, blog writing, social media tactics, customer service, trade show booth design, jewelry display and presentation, working at a trade show, dealing with buyers, taking wholesale orders, and jewelry production techniques. They will learn everything that goes into working at a creative business.

These young adults will participate in the pre show preparation and real time business transactions in the international market place at the 2014 NY Now Gift Fair in New York City. This immersion in the market exchange will provide an invaluable opportunity for me to continue to teach, mentor and help to launch the next generation of creative entrepreneurs with real world experiences in one of the many careers in creative based business fields.

The way Kickstarter functions is that we have to reach our goal of $5000 in 30 days or, unfortunately, the project does not get funded. Trade shows are extremely expensive up front, before any orders are even written. This Kickstarter funding will allow Garden of Silver employ young adults immediately which will enable them to become better leaders, thinkers and future entrepreneurs so they may build upon their own boundless potential into new domains.

Thank you in advance for your support and sharing our story with your friends and family and for playing an integral role in helping to launch Garden of Silver to the next level and inspire young adults towards a creative future.

My husband and I just had all new carpeting installed over the weekend in our house. I was forced to get everything out of my studio, clean it all up, and put it back in order. Here are the results!    

Nice and clean and ready for the new spring Garden of Silver jewelry collections to be born!

I have been working on a new collection this winter of sterling silver flower shapes that I am creating into numerous jewelry pieces. Here are some photos of the process.

Sketching the flower and leaf shapes on a sheet of sterling silver that I embossed on my rolling mill. As you can see, I use every possible area of the silver so there is very little waste. Trying to keep an eye on the materials budget!

Then I use a tiny blade on my saw and cut out each piece individually. This is a tedious process but I wanted every flower and leaf in the collection to be a one of a kind. Each one has its own personality.

  

The pieces are sanded on my grinding wheel to smooth out the edges and give the flowers a matte finish which I love. I am not into very shiny polished pieces, looking for a more natural and earthy feel to my collections.

A handful of sparkling sterling flowers in my dirty hand.

The flowers are on the soldering block where I solder on the stems and leaves to finish off the look.

My plan is to combine these garden elements to create a large cohesive collection of necklaces, bracelets and earrings. There will also be an element of color added through my new enameling skills.

The collection should be completed within a few weeks in time to celebrate the arrival of Spring!

I just spent the weekend in Brooklyn taking a 'Torch Fired Enamels' workshop at Liloeve which was fabulous!  Emilie Shapiro was the instructor of the class and she was amazing, extremely knowledgable and a great teacher. I have been looking to learn how to enamel for the last few years and was very excited to actually find a weekend workshop that I could squeeze into my crazy schedule.

Enameling is the art of coating metal with powdered glass which is fused together with heat. Normally this process takes place in a kiln, behind a closed door but, with the torch firing technique, the entire process is able to be seen.  

We learned how to use the acetylene torch to enamel copper pieces by firing the pieces on a trivet from below. You are able to pull the torch away at the exact moment that you like the finish of the enamel. Very exciting. I played a lot and experimented with all kinds of sample pieces over the two days. Lots of mistakes and disasters were made, along with some keepers! I plan on adding some color to my jewelry and hopefully by the summer I will have a new line to show.

And, I would like to thank my fabulous cousin Colleen for letting me crash at her Brooklyn apartment as well as giving this suburban girl her garage parking space and a delicious sushi dinner! A great weekend in Brooklyn.

The New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx is one of my favorite public gardens to visit. I went there on this cold grey day to spend some time inside in their amazing greenhouses. Being surrounded by warm humid air and the scent of tropical flowers is such a fabulous way to enjoy a winter afternoon. 

Here are some of the flower photos I took during this trip.

I have taken botanical illustration classes at this esteemed institution for the last few years and am determined to, one day, finish the program and obtain my Botanical Illustration Certificate. There aren't enough hours in the day to do everything that I am passionate about!

Here is my 'Iris' colored pencil drawing.

My 'Peony Soul' colored pencil drawing.

And my 'Dahlia' colored pencil drawing. I try to get unusual angles on my botanical drawings, not your typical front view. Hope you enjoyed a peek into my fine art life!

To see more of my artwork please visit www.ebaumeistermcintyre.com

Early in 2013 I decided it would be beneficial to make an investment in growing my jewelry design company. I wanted to learn everything I could about the wholesale and retail jewelry worlds and make sure I was doing everything correctly. The jewelry world is a far cry from the art instruction studio I ran for fifteen years and, honestly, I didn't know what I didn't know!

I started taking online classes through Flourish & Thrive Academy in the fall of 2012. These classes are geared towards helping independent jewelry designers run their business like a business. The course is run by Tracy Matthews, a successful bespoke jewelry designer, and Robin Kramer, a rock star independent sales and marketing consultant. The courses included online seminars, conference calls, worksheets, guest speakers with famous designers and business professionals, lots of ‘homework’ along the way. One of my favorite parts of the course was connecting an active community of likeminded jewelry designers through a private Facebook group. Any time you had a question the members of the group were there to help you out and provide support. Just fabulous. Great connections with designers from all over the world were formed.

The information that I learned during the first few months prompted me to enroll in Flourish & Thrive’s ‘Mastermind 2013’. The Mastermind participants consisted of six other amazing jewelry designers so it was an intimate group. We each received private business coaching calls with both Tracy and Robin every month throughout the year, as well as a group call and a guest speaker call. I have to say that working with these women was the best investment I have ever made. Garden of Silver had a phenomenal year and now, with all of this intensive individual business training, the best is yet to come!

Here is a photo of Robin Kramer, Colleen Marie Mauer, myself, Tracy Matthews, Sarah Magid Swift when we got together in NYC. Missing from the photos are our west coast Masterminders, Nina Forrest, Kathy Loewenstern, and Christy Natsumi Comstock. Check out all the websites of these creative ladies!

Garden of Silver is here to make your holiday shopping a breeze! Here are some gift options for the jewelry lovers in your life:

Flower Child- Floating Flowers and Water Garden Collections

Yoga Lover-Zen Collection

Rock Star-Midnight in the Garden Collection

 Classy Lady-Spring Blooms and Summer Sunshine Collections

 Divas-Silver and Gold

Garden of Silver also has Gift Cards available if you can’t decide among all the gorgeous jewelry selections. They are available in increments of $10, $25, $50 and $100. And, one lucky Garden of Silver customer will automatically be entered to win a $500 Gift Certificate! The winner will be chosen on 12/23/13. Happy shopping!

I am honored to be featured in a blog post on UncommonGoods today. My jewelry business journey is out there for the world to see!

Garden of Silver and UncommonGoods

My garden is full of huge, gorgeous, fragrant peonies right now. I have spent hours photographing these beauties which I use as references for my colored pencil drawings, one of which is right here! 

"Peonies" Colored Pencil Drawing / 19" x 25" 

I also used one of my reference photographs to create a drawing of this peony which I then made into a wax carving that I cast into sterling silver. Just a little peek into my creative process!

"Peony Soul" Colored Pencil      "Peony Soul Pendant" Sterling Silver
8.5" x 11"