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Everything seems to be pink this week in my garden. The cherry trees and bleeding hearts are in full bloom. I took some great pictures of this cute fuzzy bumble bee too, this little guy inspired another jewelry collection based on bees and other helpful garden critters.

And, of course, my garden buddies-Emma and Utah. Always finding a patch of plants to squash!

The humble Daisy, April’s flower, stands for innocence, purity, love, fidelity and patient endurance.

The Daisy flower name originated from the word meaning ‘day’s eye’ which is appropriate since the flower opens in the morning bringing sunshine into peoples lives. Open it is a symbolic representation of of the soul and closed an emblem of purity.  The Daisy was often used as a motif in medieval art as a symbol of Christ’s innocence when he was a child.

Throughout history various cultures had different myths and legends featuring the Daisy. For Italians the Daisy is a sacred flower, the star of Italy and the symbol of Queen Margherita. In Scotland the blossoms are called “bairns flowers” meaning child’s flowers. The Welsh call the flower “trembling star” and the German’s call it “love’s measure” as daisy petals measure a lovers adoration. Celtics connected innocence with  daisies and thought that daisy flowers grew to lighten a persons grief. And, it was the Victorians who chanted, ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ while plucking off individual Daisy petals.

Enjoy my versions of this sweet, simple flower.

I am sitting here in my studio looking out over my snow covered garden and dreaming of spring.  A few years ago my husband Tommy and I bought a house with a nice piece of property and I began to create gardens throughout the backyard. As you can imagine, I love to  be outside gardening and creating beauty in my environment. For me being in the garden is meditative and peaceful. As soon as the weather breaks I am outside doing spring clean up and starting to work the soil. Last year the winter was so mild I actually had the spring crops planted the end of February. This year is a much different story!  My garden is a working kitchen garden, I plant vegetables, flowers and herbs all together informally which I absolutely love to look at.

The garden, the vegetables anyway, has been moved to the front yard in recent years. We now have an edible landscape.  The two main reasons for this are in the photo below. Their names are Johnny Utah, the thief with the tomato, and his lawyer, Blue.  I never actually saw a ripe tomato when the garden was in the back and wondered why. Some other missing garden elements were strawberries, zucchini, and these scoundrels actually figured out how to pick the carrots! Needless to say, I had to move the garden.

My brother Chris came over and removed all the grass off the front lawn and I made paths that I covered with two truckloads of wood chips.  We are organic gardeners, absolutely no pesticides or chemical fertilizers are used. I had compost delivered and I worked it into this beautiful fluffy organic rich soil.  I actually have a worm farm too that creates organic compost, but I will save that story for a future post.  

Occasionally the thieves help me in the garden if they are on their best behavior.  

These images are from the end of last summer, when the garden was full and lush.  The trellis is a new element that Tommy made which I love.  I covered it with clematis vines, peas, morning glories and hops. My cousin brews beer and I wanted to give him an organic crop of hops for a custom brew. Didn't pick them in time though and Hurricane Sandy blew them away...

Today I will read my heirloom seed packets with a cup of tea and patiently wait for the snow to melt so I can get out and get my hands in the soil again. Looking forward to another great growing season.

This is how I spent this chilly winter morning, making a pair of earrings for one of my fabulous customers.

"Rosie" pattern on Shibuichi metal sheet. Shibuichi is a Japanese alloy of copper and sterling silver. It was used by Samurai warriors to accent their weaponry. This is what it looks like in its natural state, similar to rose gold.

I traced the pattern twice on the metal sheet with a sharpie marker. 

With a fine saw blade I carefully cut out each piece.

This is my grinding/polishing station where I sand the edges of the metal pieces and polish the fronts and back to give them a matt finish.

After the initial polishing the pieces go into my rolling mill in between two brass texture plates. This embosses texture onto the petals.

Here is where I hammer the metal petals into a bent natural shape.

After polishing once again I add a micro-crystalline wax polish to seal the surface of the Shibuichi and prevent it from tarnishing.

I put two pieces of sterling silver wire through the rolling mill to texture it for the accent pieces that will dangle in front of the petals.

The blow torch is out to ball up the ends of the sterling silver 'stamen' accents. This takes about two seconds, if that, in the flame for the silver to create a little ball on the end of the textured wire pieces.

My husband Tommy took these photos, I kind of had my hands full!

After the wires were polished and cut to size I hammered the ends and drilled a hole in the end of each 'stamen'.  I like to make each piece a little different to look more like natural botanical elements.

Each French ear wire is handmade in sterling silver and I use this high tech way of curving the wires into shape.

The final shaping of the wires before assembling all the parts into the finished earrings.

VOILA! A finished pair of "Rosie Earrings" made by hand for my friend Sandi!

A look behind the scenes in my studio! Here are some of the steps that I take to create my cast sterling silver collections. Below are wax wire flower designs that I made using an x-acto knife and a hot wax pen. I wanted to make a collection of larger, yet lighter, floral images for  this jewelry collection. My process is very free form and loose. First I will sketch some images in my sketchbook from flowers in my garden and then I cut and bend the wax pieces into various shapes and 'weld' them together with the hot wax pen.