I love the ocean and the sea. Since I have lived most of my life very close to the ocean I have a special affinity for it. The mix of  colors, the sounds and textures, the smells and the feel of the sand on my feet are intoxicating to me.

Since summer is upon us, I decided to feature my new ocean series of jewelry. These pieces feel like a watercolor painting to me. The same way that a painter will mix hues of blues, greens, whites and even purples when painting the ocean, I mixed together Freshwater Pearls, Turquoise, Peridot, crystals, Iolite and Aquamarine.

I put all the stones in a box and shake them up good. Then I crochet them together in a random order to create this even mix of color. It’s amazingly fun. I just need to add the sound of the waves somehow… At least know that’s what I am thinking of when I create it!

The Ocean Sekhment cuff is a majestic and romantic piece of jewelry. Can be worn both casually with a pair of jeans and with an elegant dress. I can imagine it worn with a black, or a summery white dress or even some kind of a flowing chiffon print with similar colors.

The Ocean Tatiana earrings are named after my dear friend Tatiana who helped design them. We were sitting together and thinking what we could do with the ocean crocheted threads that I had laying around and this amazing pair came out! They simply look like a wave straight out of the ocean. They cascade down quietly and comfortably. Wonderful.

The two jewelry pieces can be easily worn together and will not clash because of the physical distance between then.

Blue Sky,

Keren

One more amazing recipe

Dark chocolate covered glazed apricots:

This is the best candy there is IMHB. Divine. These are really expensive to buy ready made and pretty easy to do yourself. Store bought ones are also rarely this good, even if I say so myself

Feel free to cut the recipe in half or double it.

ingredients:

About 2.5 cups dried apricots

3 cups white wine, half dry

3/4 cup agave nectar

1 package dark chocolate, chips or a bar of baking chocolate. About 4 Oz.

What to do:

1. Put the apricots and the wine in a pot and simmer on very low heat for about 25 min. The wine should reduce by 1/2. Stir occasionally

2. While the apricots are simmering prepare a large flat baking sheet and put some wax paper on it.

3. Also while the apricots are cooking break the chocolate in pieces into a microwave safe deep mug. Microwave in 30 second increments until all melted. Stir in between to make sure it doesn’t burn.

4. After 25 min and when the wine has reduced by half add the agave nectar and simmer for another 5-10 minutes. Stir often.

5. Turn off heat and take the apricots out of the syrup. There should be quite a bit of syrup left. Keep in in the pan, I’ll tell you what to do with it in a min.

6 Drain the apricots as much as possible and spread them on the baking sheet. Give them a few min to cool. Some of the apricots will break in the cooking. Put those aside and keep them for later.

7. Using tooth pics or a fork, dip each apricot halfway in the chocolate. If the chocolate cooled meanwhile, put it in the microwave again for 30 seconds or so. The chocolate needs to be melted. This is a messy job and they don’t come out perfect. Oh well. I guess that’s what we pay the chocolate companies that big bucks for… With some practice eventually they come out pretty. Put the chocolate dipped ones back on the baking sheet.

8. When all done put the baking sheet in the fridge for about 30 min. The chocolate should harden enough by then.

9. Keep in a container in the fridge separated by wax paper because they are sticky. Show off to everyone you know. They’ll be impressed

Enjoy!

What to do with the left over syrup:

Glazed apricot orange marmalade

You’ll have a bunch of syrup left (about a cup) and some broken apricots. Perfect for a marmalade:

1. Take an orange and peel it nicely. Keep the peels.

2. Scrape the white inside of the peels with a knife. That white stuff is bitter.

3. Chop the peels to as thin strips as possible. Also chop the orange wedges into small cubes.

4. Chop the leftover broken apricots into cubes as much as possible.

5. Throw the apricots, the orange cubes and peels back into the syrup and let simmer on very low heat until the syrup is mostly gone and you have nice thick jam. About 45 minutes. You can blend it or put it in the food processor if you don’t want it as chunky. I like it chunky.

Yum!!

Happy Passover

Keren

Hi Everyone!

Yes, I know it’s still cold and rainy, and miserably snowing in some parts but perhaps a good way to get spring to hurry up is to have a nice spring sale

So to kick off the season I am happy to offer 50% off on all the jewelry items in my new category “Sales & Specials”. Just use code “Blog_Jewelry_Spring_10″ at checkout for a whole 50% off!

Since the jewelry items are handmade, please allow 7-10 days for regular delivery. 3 day expedited delivery is also available, so please select the appropriate shipping options.

As always, FREE regular shipping on jewelry orders over $100! Yes! That goes for sale items too!

See you at the sale

Keren

Perfect for these cold winder days!

The original recipe calls for pumpkin and hence the name, but I have modified it so much so that any orange vegetable would work: pumpkin, sweet potato, carrots, butternut squash etc.. It does require a lot of vegetable cutting so you might want to consider using canned or frozen vegetables to cut the prep time by 1/2…. I do! If using frozen veggies total prep time is about 45 min, including all the simmering. I realize it sounds like a lot of ingredients, but it’s easy if you have them around.

The measurements are approximate… use your best judgment

800 grams cauliflower (that’s almost 2 pounds frozen, or one whole fresh cauliflower)
800 grams (about 2 pounds) orange vegetables - carrots, pumpkin, yams, squash etc. fresh or frozen
A couple of stalks celery and/or celery or root or rutabaga
2 onions, chopped (these can be frozen too! save the tears)
Lemongrass tea, enough to cover the veggies in the pot. Can also use lemongrass powder instead

1 teaspoon Garam Masala or curry powder
1/2 teaspoon grounded Ginger (can also use fresh, at which case use more)
1/2 teaspoon grounded Turmeric (antioxidants galore)
3 T soy sauce or Tamari
Sea salt - as salty as you want it. I use about 1 T

Cilantro (I use the whole bundle because it’s so good for you, but you can use less. I just wash the bundle, cut off the stems in one swoop, and stick it in the blender)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 cup coconut milk
some hot pepper or cayenne if you want it hot. If not, then drop it
Sweetener such as splenda, stevia, agave or honey to taste.

What to do:

1. Start by sautéing the onions until brown
2. While the onions are cooking make the lemongrass tea in a pot. If using powder then ignore this step
3. Once the onions are nice and brown add rest of veggies and lemongrass tea or water over it.
4. Add the Garam Masala, ginger, tumeric, Tamari and salt. Stir and let simmer for 20-30 min
5. When veggies all nice and soft use hand blender (or transfer soup to regular blender) and blend until smooth. Blend Cilantro with it
6. Add peanut butter, coconut milk, pepper and sweetener. Stir and let simmer for a few minutes.
7. Taste and see if you need to add anything.
8. Yum!

Enjoy!

Keren

Iceland gets a bad rep for being freezing and icy from it’s name obviously. I don’t know that history of who in the world came up with that name, but Iceland gets about as cold ad the rest of Europe (if not warmer), and definitely warmer than the Midwest. People have Iceland mixed up with Greenland. Greenland is the icy frozen one. As a lovely Icelandic woman put it: “some drunk viking must have come up with the name Iceland and we’ve been stuck with it ever since” Hehehe

People fall in love with Iceland, the land of natural contrasts. The fire from the volcanoes, the Ice and of course the Lava. Lots of Lava jewelry in Iceland. Can’t say I have seen anything fascinating other than the idea of using lava rocks - Stay tuned to see what I end up doing with that! The whole island is made of Lava! Have you ever seen black sand? If not, go to Iceland!

Another amazing revelation - This country has no McDonald’s! I have never seen a country with no McDonald’s so I was impressed. Even India had a McDonald’s! Icelanders seem to be doing just fine without a Big Mac. No great loss I say, and they would absolutely agree.

Apparently McDonald’s was franchised in Iceland for about 10 years before the big crash. But they were one of the first ones to go because of their ridiculous demands for uniformity, which required Icelandic McDonald’s to be importing their beef from the US. Totally silly of course since beef is a big industry in Iceland. That resulted in a huge increase in costs which the Icelanders were not willing to cover. So much for McDonald’s! I hate to gloat but as a vegetarian I must say to McDonald’s - Huh!

I’m in Iceland! I know many of you must think that I have lost my mind. I can assure you that I haven’t!!

Why did I end up here? Mainly it just sounded interesting and off the beaten path. Also the blue lagoon and the northern lights were major decision factors. Both of which I haven’t been to yet, so keep you posted!!

Iceland is a remarkable little country, more than I ever thought or even imagined. It is extremely technologically advanced. The short daylight is an interesting experience… Sunrise is at about 11:30 AM… Breakfast at the hotel ends at 10:30… That just cracks me up! Sunset is at around 3:30 again, with a long twilight period in both directions.

This country uses geothermal energy to create electricity and hot water. From what I understand all the electricity used in Icelandic homes comes from geothermal sources, which is 100% renewable energy source. How cool is that! If I get it right, geothermal energy uses tectonic plate movement (which often results in earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but also in geysers and hot springs). It’s just amazing that this little remote country has accomplished what so many big ones can’t. We got a lot to learn from them!

Iceland is expensive. I guess they have to import a lot of stuff and also the exchange rate is fluctuating rapidly so that would effect how expensive things seem to be to tourists. There’s a diversity of restaurants: Indian, Thai, Mexican, American and traditional Icelandic of course, which is a bit difficult for a vegetarian.

Icelandic art is strange, like many other things here… (but seriously, who can blame them. They live in a desert of lava and ice!) It has a very dark theme to it. In general I find that Iclanders like the dark… They party late at night and then sleep even into the few daylight hours… They are simply chill folks, which seems to be well befitting their climate. There’s good energy here - one of creating with regard to the natural environment. It it very clear that Icelanders love their country, their environment and their ancient language. They say that Icelandic is the closest language to the original Norse that was spoken centuries ago by the vikings.

This place is very cool, both literally and figuratively.

Happy New Year everyone!!!

Keren

At last I can show you a little sneak peak into Contour, my new jewelry collection. First, a little explanation of the name of the new jewelry collection. Why Contour?

From the dictionary:
contour |ˈkänˌtoŏr|noun (usu. contours)
an outline, esp. one representing or bounding the shape or form of something : she traced the contours of his face with her finger. | figurative the contours of American life.

Perhaps you remember, I was talking in an earlier blog post about the process of creating the pieces. Basically it went like this: I crocheted wire, used my fancy rolling mill to flatten it, then digitized it. The result was an outline of the original crocheted piece. Contour!

With the help of my friend Liz, of www.anomalydesign.com, who also happens to be a fab graphic designer, not to mention a very patient teacher, we took that original piece and transformed it into many shapes - circles, ovals, teardrops, and squares. Thank you Liz! You rock!

Arranging all these shapes into one file and getting it right was no easy task. Thank god for good friends! With the help of my good friend Enrique, who happens to be a whiz with photoshop, we got my digital file off to Israel where it actually got reproduced onto metal (under the watchful eye of my mother, thank you Ima!) .

I received the parts back here in San Francisco, and had a blast making them into magnificent pieces of finished jewelry by adding beads, and combining different pieces together. This time, I focused primarily on combining the three metal colors together 24K gold, Rose Gold and Silver, to create two and even three-tone pieces. I combined the pieces with Freshwater Pearls, Mother of Pearl, Blue Kyanite, Black Onyx, Red Cherry Quartz, Citrine and bright blue Turquoise. The result is before you… well partially… this is a sneak peak… The collection in it’s entirety has over 100 pieces. I will have the entire jewelry line available online before Xmas, so stay tuned!

So here we are - Introducing Contour 09. My new baby!

Keren

Long wires Earrings

Bracelet

Bracelet

Earrings

Earrings

Earrings

Earrings

Earrings

Necklace

Necklace

Necklace

Necklace

Necklace

Necklace

Tags: 24K gold, Black Onyx, Blue Kyanite, bright blue Turquoise, Citrine, collection, contour, crochet, designer, Freshwater Pearls, jewelry, Mother of Pearl, Red Cherry Quartz, Rose Gold, Silver, three-tone pieces
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