Birthstone Gemstone Jewelry -- A Thoughtful Custom Made Gift

My friend Lesley had the brilliant idea to give her nanny a necklace and a pair of earrings using the nanny's birthstone and the gems of her awesome daughters.  Since then, I have been creating these lovely, thoughtful gifts for other beloved nannies!

Here is one I made for a wonderful nanny with a May birthday that takes care of two girls with birthdays in November (citrine) and January (garnet.)

The process:

When I get the custom request, I lay out a variety of options.  This first photo below was ideas for the bracelet ideas. The second was for the necklace ideas. This customer combined some ideas together and we settled on the above.  She was super easy to work with too, which I think lends to a better finished product. Good happy vibes, good happy product.  Maybe?

She will be receiving her gift for her birthday in May. I hope she enjoys her one of a kind necklace and bracelet set that represents so much appreciation and love.

One necklace recycled, upcycled, modernized into multiple pieces

I am still very close friends with my freshman year roommate from college. When we say this, many people raise an eye brow. I assume this means that many are not still in contact with that person they shared a dorm room with the nerve wracking first year of college.

Noelle and I are still besties and she is one of my biggest supporters. As is her mom.  Here is a photo of a necklace that her mom used to wear a lot but then became tired of.  She sent it along to me so that I could re-use the beads for other projects.

I smelled a challenge :)

I decided to re use all of these beads and create new pieces but trying to use only the beads available (and adding when necessary.)

So here is the before:

And here are the afters:

Here is the complete collection.

I still have two beads left that I wanted to make rings out of but ran out of steam.

I sent all of these to Noelle as a surprise and happily enough, they are all going to find new homes this Mother's Day.  

What a great feeling that not one bead was wasted!

Amethyst Necklace Re-fashion -- One Gorgeous Piece Becomes Two

A friend of mine asked me shorten this beautiful amethyst necklace. 

How gorgeous! She thought it was a bit long and wanted the pendant to hang at about 18 inches.

Easy enough, just a little bit of wire wrapping and viola, a fix.

But what to do with the rest of the gorgeous amethyst left over? 

I took the left over pieces, added some citrine, a pearl pendant and gold chain and made this choker for her.

Here is a photo of the two new necklaces out of the original.

Here is a close up of the new necklace made from the left over amethyst chain.

Kuri Yasuno Designs at the GBK's MTV Movie Awards Gifting Suite

So excited to announce that my asymmetrical baby blue jade and pyrite necklace was included in the gift bags handed out to press through The Artisan Group!

What a great experience.  I sent 10 of my necklaces out to The Artisan Group and they distributed among the many press that came to visit at the gifting suite!

But wait! there's more!

The Examiner mentioned The Artisan Groups "little black bags" in a recent article and mentioned Kuri Yasuno Designs as one of her favorites!

How flattering and exciting!

Here is link to that article

http://www.examiner.com/article/gbk-mtv-gifting-lounge-2015-everyone-s-a-winner

Here is the necklace I gifted. If you are interested in one for yourself, here is a link to it at my Etsy shop:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/226465710/modern-asymmetrical-pyrite-jade-silver?ref=shop_home_active_10

Here is the necklace I gifted. If you are interested in one for yourself, here is a link to it at my Etsy shop:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/226465710/modern-asymmetrical-pyrite-jade-silver?ref=shop_home_active_10

Updated (5/7)

More press for Kuri Yasuno Designs on http://www.laplash.com !!

http://www.lasplash.com/publish/Entertainment_Celebrity_Gift_Suites/gbk-2015-mtv-movie-awards-celebrity-gifting-lounge-review.php

Thanks again to Valerie at The Artisan Group and all that she does to get us press and recognition for hand made goods!

Tis a gift to be simple...

We sang this song in chorus at my elementary school. Then, Yo Yo Ma played it on the cello at the Obama swearing in. So random that I remember this from 4th grade. Anyway....

A friend of mine graduated from high school recently so I wanted to make a present. I heard she liked blue so....

I wire wraped a blue Quartz with small faceted aquamarines on either side. There were many trial and errors with laboratories, pearls, silver beads etc but in the end, I settled on the dark blue and pale blue theme. I could have left it simple but I couldn't resist a little sassify-ing. I also felt like this was something she could get anywhere. 

I played around with embellishments. 

I thought about cutting the chain and adding a few gemstones on both sides. I thought about adding more briolettes. Then I found my kyanite stash. Perfect color match. 

The final product......

Pretty, original, and unique. Just like the recipient herself :). Congrats on graduating!

Thoughts? Should I have left the embellishments off? Let me know :)

Green garnet earth tone necklace with pearls or with out pearls?

Sometimes I make a necklace but something just isn't right. I made this necklace a while back and I loved the idea of dangling pearls. I had to give it a try. I liked the idea of it but not exactly the execution. Could be the pearls were too big, the drops are too far apart, I couldn't put my finger on it. 

Today, I took all the dangles off. I did a new pattern of garnets and I added the pearl into the chain instead of dangling from the chain. I also updated the dangling pendant to be more proportional, lengthwise, to the piece. 

It's a lot simpler in design and feel. But I think that's what I didn't like before. It was just too much stuff on one strand. Some pieces call for that. I like this version for this piece. The "less is more." What do you think?? 

David Yurman, I Love You.

David Yurman is one of my favorite jewelry designers. I love the chains, the stones, the rings... One day I saw a quadruple strand moss aquamarine necklace in a Yurman catalog and fell in love. But me, being sort of smallish, probably couldn't wear all THAT.  So off I went, on a quest to recreate. I wish I had the original picture. I will keep looking

Regardless, here is my David Yurman inspired triple strand necklace. And a selfie to boot :) 

Looks great with my usual, very casual style :) (so says me, taker of selfie and maker of jewels....)

The Three Stages of Green Tourmaline Tubes

Sometimes I have a strand of beads and I know what I want to make right away. Other times, like in this case, it takes three tries.

First, I tried silk knots with a moss aquamarine pendant.

No. I didn't love it. 

Then I went from silver to gold and created a longer and wire wrapped piece. 

Still, no no no. 

I finally settled on a triple strand bracelet. Yes?