This is just a quick photo post, as I’ve finally managed to take some decent pictures, but the EURO2008 final (Go, Spain!!!) is starting in half an hour, so…

The first set is Masquerade. Not for the faint at heart with this dramatic colour combination ! The black agate in the bracelet has exquisite facets and shine. My friend brought me a handful of those treasures from Barcelona in April. Ooh and aah!

Masquerade earrings

Masquerade bracelet

Carved gemstones are expensive but very inspiring and a real treat to work with. These twin necklaces feature charming flower-shaped red carnelians, one paired up with almost a whole strand of even redder carnelians and the other with a similar strand of faceted fancy jaspers.

Carnelian Flower necklace in red

Bottle jewelled with Carnelian Flower necklace in green and the Sunset Sky set. Another view of the necklace here.

These earrings I’ve made several weeks ago but noticed now that they have a very similar feel to the above necklaces.

Rowan earrings

Here is a bracelet made on request in the same style as another “Charming” bracelet from back in the day. The light colours made it quite a challenge to photograph in the circumstances I was having, and I must say this one looks much prettier in real life.

Charming bracelet in clear/aqua

And lastly, a threesome of earrings. I finally found a key to making them hang naturally when photographed! Yeay!

Afrodite earrings

Brunette earrings

Veranda earrings

I recently realised that my Flickr set for Jewellery is geting a bit hard to manage on it’s own, so I did something on a rainy day this week that I should have done ages ago: created separate sets for Earrings, Bracelets and Necklaces, alongside one more set, Happy Together. I think now the navigating through photos is much simpler, especially if someone is searching for some piece in particular there.

The gallery here on the bloggy is only for the pieces available for purchase, and is updated regularly so check it out if you see something you might fancy for yourself. Ok, enough of the advertising and on with the… EURO2008 FINAL! Cheerio!

So, I was on vacation all last week and spent most of it back home in Joensuu.

Birches. We have a lot of those all around the house and down by the sauna and river.

I wasn’t quite expecting the mostly cold and rainy weather conditions but this actually allowed me even more to relax and really gather some energy that I had most certainly been lacking these last few weeks. I slept very well and had extremely vivid dreams, made a whole bunch of new jewellery that I’m very happy with, read a pile of magazines, enjoyed my mother’s cooking, watched Euro2008 (Yes, indeed!! My dream final would be Portugal vs. the Netherlands!) and just chilled…

Sunset. Although it rained most days the sun fortunately always came out in the evening.

Next weekend will also be spent in these surroundings. It’s a bit crazy of course to go back and forth like this but since I only had one week off this time, I had to return to work on Monday. However, now my boyfriend and I both have the Midsummer weekend off, so we’ll pack up and fly away on Friday morning. This year my birthday happens to be on Midsummer’s Eve as well, and to be honest I’ll be much happier eating strawberry cake at my parents’ veranda with all the family than in our currently very messy apartment in Helsinki!

The nightless night. And one hundred million mosquitoes…

As I said, I finished many jewellery projects last week, a bunch of earrings, three bracelets and three necklaces, but I haven’t got much to show from those yet. The reason is that I’ve taken seriously crappy photos this week! I don’t know whether my camera is on the verge of a breakdown or if it’s just bad concentration on my part. I hope to be able to fix this problem soon. The citrine and red agate set below is all that I have to prove that I’ve been working.

Sunset Sky bracelet

Sunset Sky earrings

Now with the forecast changing all the time, most Finns are biting their nails over where the rain will finally fall next weekend. Thumbs up for each and every one for lovely sunshine! But rain can look pretty too, at least if it’s drawn by George Barbier. Have a great Midsummer!

L’Arc en Ciel by George Barbier. Picture origonally picked up from here.

Yellow is a colour towards which I’ve had some kind of love/hate relationship all my life. In nature it’s one of my favourite colours, from daffodils to sunflowers, lemons, the Sun, you name it. In clothes and interiors I’ve found yellow more difficult (i.e. slightly yucky) and have shyed away from it almost all my adult life. But in recent years yellow has slowly begun it’s journey back into my heart. So, here’s an introduction to “My Life and the Colour Yellow” featuring recently made jewellery, faraway places and some floral delights.

Kitchen table on a spring day.

When I was a kid one of my favourite pieces of clothing was a yellow, pink and brown striped terrycloth mini dress. I wore the dress with yellow, green of brown flip flops, the most comfortable shoes in existence. My first trip abroad with my family was to Algarve, Portugal in 1979 when I was five years old. What I remember most is the lovely, yellow mimosas that I then saw for the first time in my life and have loved ever since. I also remember that the beaches were very beautiful and wonderfully peaceful, just perfect for collecting interesting shells and playing with the sand. In every picture taken at the beach, I wear my beloved dress. I remember we bought a yellowish straw hat for me from Algarve and from then on I always wore that hat with my dress and flip flops.

Waterlily earrings

In my 6th grade school portrait  from 1986 I wear a yellow hoodie by Nike. It had been rather expensive and had come with a set of matching sweatpants. I never wore the pants though, I hated them from day one and have actually always more or less disliked sweatpants of all kinds. But I loved that hooded jumper! I wore it with black jeans and white Puma sneakers. Ha!  Since no-one else in my class wore much yellow in those days I never knew whether they liked it or thought that I looked ridiculous in it. Many years later my best friend and style queen Mirkka confessed that she had much coveted that hoodie. !!

For many years I had nothing in yellow in my home or my wardrobe. The nicest memory of the colour yellow that I have from the 1990’s is from the wonderful, hot summer of 1996. During the Helsinki Festival in August Mirkka and I went out just about every night. At one point I counted eleven nights in a row! Oh, the fun and the freedom! Both single girls, going from one musical adventure to the other on warm, moonlit nights (in August the Moon is big and yellow), attending funky jazz gigs in smoky bars and clubs, then returning to my friend’s flat for a late night snack, a dose of Astrud Gilberto and in-depth analysis of the evening’s events… Anyway, Mirkka had a set of absolutely gorgeous, yellow faiance plates. I distinctly remember them as we often ate at her place that summer. Every food, salad, bread, pasta, whatever it was, looked beautiful on those plates. It must have had something to do with the colour!

Lisboa earrings

When my boyfriend and I went to Paris together for the first time in August 2000, we stayed in some Finnish journalist’s vacant flat in Montmartre. The flat was on the seventh floor (no elevators, just a spooky, creaking staircase that curved clockwise and made us dizzy), it was tiny and very modestly furnished. There were merely an old Ikea sofabed, one chair and table, small stove and a weird shower cabinet in the corner. Two empty shelves on the wall and a white curtain. The toilet was outside in the corridor.

Little radio

One of the first things that Pasi bought on that trip was a little yellow radio. This tiny little thing instantly brought warmth and cheerfulness to our humble quarters and also introduced us to French radio stations, among which was also my current favourite Radio Nova Paris that I nowadays listen to at home almost every day.

Lisboa bracelet

Our Lisbon vacation in 2003 was a week filled with the warm shades of yellow. It was August again and the city bathed in the blazing, hot sun that seemed to paint the streets, buildings, even the air in yellow.

When I think of Lisbon, I think of the colour yellow against the turquoise vastness of the Atlantic Ocean. It is a truly mesmerizing sight!

Elevador da Bica in Bairro Alto, Lisboa

During our first few days back in Finland I felt as if the Lisbon yellow had somehow got stuck on my eyes, seriously, like a tinted lense! It was strangely difficult to get used to the “whiteness” of Helsinki as the light, even in the August sun, is never as yellow here.

From reminiscing these vacations that make me want to take a taxi to the airport once again, I’ll move to the subject of my undying love for jewellery…

…which has obviously introduced me to new aspects of yellow in the form of gemstones like citrine (featured in all of the above jewellery photos) and yellow calcite (below with amethyst and painted porcelain).

Giverny bracelet in yellow/amethyst

I have also found that although with my skintone it’s almost impossible to wear yellow next to my face, the colour is marvelous in accessories like jewellery and shoes. I bought a new pair of Havaianas at the end of last summer and haven’t yet worn them once. I can’t wait to have the chance to slip them on!

Sweet freedom for the toes!

Last spring I bought my first piece of yellow clothing in years. A gorgeous yellow skirt with a multicoloured, floral print on the hem. I just know that skirt will be one that I’ll wear until it falls apart in rags, just like my terrycloth dress from the late 70s or my favourite hoodie from 1986.

Favourite skirt

I’ll end this post with a link to a quirky little video. Check out what the old word jazz man Ken Nordine had to say about the colour yellow.