Under a red Hawaiian moon...

Okay..so of course our moon isn't red...but during the lunar eclipse the other week...once it was completely covered..it turned red! My camera didn't like that there was no light once the mood was covered by the earths shadow and I didn't understand how to change the shutter speed..so it's really blurry..but when you get to the last of these pics you will see how red the moon turned. pretty Trippy! The moon got really bright too as soon as the shadow even touched the edge of it.

Networking for Indie Designers

I found a really cool new corner of the web..it's like MySpace...but for indie designers...it's called IndiePublic

Heres a screenshot of my page:


It seems to work a lot like MySpace but with out the meat-market atmosphere. Everyone there is to promote what they make and sell. You link with friends and post comments...ultimately advertising for yourself on each others pages.


I'm not sure how much this helps with marketing yourself...it certainly can't hurt. I've gotten really lazy with marketing Jonara Blu Maui so this summer during slower season I've been trying to spend some time with it. So many new places have popped up in the last few years, it's much more fun and exciting.

I also just joined IndieDesignerLables it's more of a group of links for indie designers. Free to link if you put their link up on your site..otherwise a $25 donation. That will also get you on the front..for I think a month? I'm not sure..actually I was suprised when I saw myself up on the front. I only paid because I can't link back to them with their graphic like they want you to (Rubylane where I sell only allows text links) So I submitted the wrong size graphic not realizing it would be put on the front as well and it got shrunk to fit so it's way too small and not very readable. Still kinda cool to be up there when I didn't expect it!

situation averted

I'm happy to report no hurricane! Thanks to our trade winds it got ripped to shreads and now is only a tropical storm. We aren't even getting the rain we needed so bad. The trades have stopped too...wierd cuz if they had stopped the hurricane could have turned up north and hit us like Iniki did...but they did their job and now it's like they are taking a break. The news says we will still have strong trades with gusts up to 60 mph with this storm..but as of 5 a.m. it was going by Maui and I don't see any signs of it. We woke up to dry ground.

Here is what I woke up to this morning...this is perfect sky to take pictures of my jewelry in..the cloud cover works like a light difuser. but I have no new jewelry to photograph...darn

Waitin' on a hurricane....

It was Cosme about a week or two ago..now it's Flossy. Cosme like so many other hurricanes died out and became a tropical storm before it reached the islands. Flossy though, they say is supposed to remain a hurricane and not turn into a tropical storm until it passes the island chain. In fact this is the first time in years I made my way to the store to buy hurricane supplies. We got our batteries, extra water, some non perishable food...stuff like that. And I had definite plans to put my jewelry making supplies and computer in a safer area lol!

Thank goodness it keeps weakening though...it was a catagory 4 and they were calling it 'highly dangerous', then yesterday sometime it got downgraded to a 3 and now it's a 2..but still with sustained winds at 104 and higher gusts. It's slowing too..it had been moving at about 16 mph for a while there..now it's down to 9 mph.

Kona is being affected by it right now...high surf and they are supposed to get up to 10 inches of rain in some parts. Oh and poor Kona had a 5.3 earthquake last night as well! We didn't feel it this time here on Maui. At least my family didn't. We need rain badly here on Maui..so hopefully it will be enough to end our drought and 10% water restriction. I have no idea how much that will take.

If you are interested.. here is the NOAA update link:

http://www.prh.noaa.gov/cphc/pages/prod.php?file=/data/HFO/TCPCP2

and here is a picture of our islands and the path it's taking so far. Now..hurricane Iniki took a sudden 90 degree turn in 1992 and hit the island of Kauai..but they say that the weather systems out there and our strong trade winds are keeping it on it's path and they are nearly 100% sure that it will remain the way it's going with out turning into us...I hope!:

Announcing Jonara Blu Maui's new Etsy clearance shop!

Have you ever wanted a piece of our jewelry but have been just a little too short on cash? Well now is your chance! We've opened a clearance shop on Etsy for our precious little pieces that have insisted on hanging on to 'mom' for just a bit too long. They need new homes so they can go out and experience life!

These little treasures are beautiful quality handmade pieces just like those you see in our regular shop Jonara Blu Maui...just ones we would like to see finally make it out there into the big bad world and do their job of brightening up someones day. Their creators here need to move on and make room for new designs.

So bookmark Jonara Blu Maui's clearance shop and keep an eye out for new sales to be uploaded ;-)

Here are some of our newest sale offerings:


Birds of Paradise - Multi Gem Beaded Earrings
Originally: $26
Now: $15



Barely Pink Coin and Shell Pendant Cord Necklace
Originally: $68
Now: $46


Sunrise Hoops
Originally: $32
Now: $18

New Logo..finally!

It's been long overdue...but I've finally updated the look of my logo....now I've just got to design new business cards and earring cards from it. Tags are easy because I just shrink it down. I'm embarrassed to say that for 4 years..I haven't had my shop logo and box tags match my business cards, jewelry tags and earring cards. So I'm pretty stoked to finally look a little more with it lol!

Everything will be designed using this:



My shop sign has already been designed and put up..and thanks to my son he figured out a way to use some more of the space allowed me by rubylane..I'm allowed 100 pixels high and 200 wide..so that put all this empty space on the side. He fashioned it in photo shop so that it looks like a frame. here is the pic of it..but check it out on my site Jonara Blu Maui because the white part is hidden with a white back ground and it looks better

Pretty new beads

My latest stash to play with

Earrings...

Some earrings that I made for part of a wholesale order this week..

pics from June

These pics are from June...Paul and Cameron entered an RC car race a few weeks ago..it was a long hot and very LOUD day with all the cars racing..but kinda fun nonetheless. I had fun taking pics of the cars crashing ;-)


Is it a boy car or a girl car?







I took this one of our friend Brice using the jump in our backyard..turned out pretty cool!





more pics from the day.....

Jamaican Lilikoi

At least that is what I was told these were....I don't know if they use the word lilikoi in Jamaica since it's Hawaiian..perhaps they call them Jamaican passion fruit because that is what lilikoi is. I LOVE lilikoi..it's a bit strong and tart with a certian special kinda flavor all it's own. My husband hates them..he thinks they smell like cat pee :\ However this new kind I got to try today..it does not smell strong and while it still has an essence of lilikoi flavor...it's not tart...it's all sweet like someone dumped sugar on it. Very YUM!

Kinda cool..I've lived here in Hawaii for 15 years and while I've tried some fuits that are totally new to me here over the years..I thought I'd tried all that was available here. Dragon fruit was the last new one I tried a couple of years ago...a very colorful fruit..almost seems fake..but it has nothing in flavor over these jamaican lilikoi.

Success! On Jonara Blu Maui's second corporate order!

I finally got word back that my latest corporate order was a success! The person in charge of organizing this with my company had two, back to back, corporate events so I had to wait to hear from her until she got back from the second one. I knew all must have been okay with the last batch of bracelets reaching their destination since there were no complaints...but to get the final word back that all the women loved the bracelets I designed for them and that all went smoothly is a very big relief. There is always a worry that something will get lost or broken in shipping or who knows. Especially since these were shipped from Maui to their offices on the mainland and then again out to the Bahamas. The order was so big and done over a period of time that I did it in 3 different shipments..shipping each batch out as that set of bracelets was finished.

Oh and I learned that shipping packages that large and expensive...it was cheaper to send it Registered mail AND it was watched much better in the shipping process. I can't remember exactly..but it seemed to save us about 20 bucks in shipping.

So since this was a success the company is looking to use Jonara Blu Maui again in 2008...I hope it works out!

Maui Spring Rainbow - Long Knotted Silk Cord Necklace

Fresh and colorful for spring this knotted silk cord necklace features lustrous freshwater dyed pearls, citrine and Swarovski crystals all hand knotted on lime green silk cord. Pendant is hand wire wrapped with 14k gold filled wire and hangs 1 3/4" from the base of the necklace.
Findings are all 14k gold filled. Necklace size is adjustable from 20" to 22"

Available at Jonara Blu Maui

Juicy Carnelian Bracelet

I tried out a new supplier and found these bright juicy faceted carnelian beads...they were so scrumptious I had to use a bunch of them together so they would keep their intensity. I've hand wire wrapped the little beauties together with 14k gold filled wire and added dangles of amber, light and dark carnelian, citrine and vermeil daisy spacers. The size is 6 1/2" to 7 1/4" and it's available here at Jonara Blu Maui

Happy Anniversary to us :)

June 2nd was me and my hubby's 19th anniversary..We were too busy to celebrate that weekend since my dad had his bypass surgery..which went great by the way! My sis flew out to the mainland to be with them and I helped watch the kids. So This last weekend my sis had a little dinner for us..yummy mexican food and of course chocolate deserts :-P

Then Saturday we went to the park with some friends and played baseball..I hung out with the little ones. We had a bbq after...it was good to get out and run around :)

My son Cameron


My nephew Kana


My nephew Koa

Crash and Dewey

My kitties...aren't they cute? ;)

Peacock Invasion!

We had visitors the other day! I knew there were peacocks roaming the other side of our little upcountry suburb..and I've been hearing them more lately. I walked past the dinning room and there they were out my sliding window! So I ran and got my camera and went around the back side. You'll have to excuse the yard..it really needs to be mowed. But the birdies are so pretty!

I saw a woman at this last craft fair I was in that was wearing a necklce with a peacock feather pendant..and she had taken little sections of it and beaded and glued little peacock colored sead beads on it. It was so striking!






Speaking of peacocks...here's one of my latest creations...a black silk cord necklace with black peacock petal keshi and semi round pearls and peacock coin pearls with a black lip shell mother of pearl hibiscuss carved pendant. I still haven't put it up on the website yet...still working on that..price for this one is $69

Pile O' Gems

So this was the pile of beads I had to wade through. Not that it wasn't fun..just a lot of work! While I was working on my big corporate gifts order..and buying beads for it...(I made about 12 different bracelet styles so had to search out whatever I could find to make these big batches of each style of bracelet..not the easiest task as bead strands often vary and aren't available in large quantities) I would toss in bead strands for myself on the order that I would need for next years line of jewelry. Usually I keep up with this as the beads come in..but I was too busy..so the pile grew and grew and grew lol! I really liked this pile though..they aren't nearly as fun all put away in thier plastic compartments.

Learning my new camera

so I got a new camera...a Canon Rebel XT....it also says EOS on the camera..not sure what that all means. My sister the photography buff at Aihara Visuals said it was a good deal...a special on amazon because they were coming out with the new one. This is an 8 megapixel..my old one being a 5 and just a point and shoot. This one is also an SLR..which I'm told is what professionals use. I'm not a professional photographer..so I've been getting a bit frustrated with it..but I'm learning little by little. I must say though, I do enjoy the little sound it makes when taking the pic lol!

I have some lenses of my sisters that she doesn't use anymore, one is a macro one and one is telephoto with macro on it. I thought I put the macro on and couldn't for the life of me figure out why everything was blurry through the lense when I was trying to take up close pics. I stood up from these flowers I was testing it on, called my sis to get some help and then tried to take a test snap pic of them from across the yard and walla...they came out so clear. Duhhh I had on the telephoto lense and not the macro on.



pretty cool! so I took another from far away of some roses in my yard:





and then later on I put on the actual macro lense and went outside to take jewerly pics..but this bumble bee came along so I took pics of it..I was afraid to get too close..I guess the telephoto lense would have been better for this one.

I am here...I promise!

Man..time sure did get away from me! Last post was December 2006...and I see that I already listed all the family stuff that kept me from blogging. Thankfully I had a huge corporate gifts order to keep me busy from thinking about my mom and dad moving away. I had to make 225 bracelets for Volvo Trucks. That was one crazy deal to put together..but I seriously enjoyed every second of it. I've done a corporate order before...but not quite as large.

Heres some work in progress:







I'm telling you...it was perfect timing. I've always said beading was theraputic...and this proved it beyond the shadow of a doubt for me. This large order kept me busy for about 3 months with not much time to create other then a few special orders I accepted. With it being right in the middle of busy shopping season, Jonara Blu Maui got stripped Clean! We went from 6 pages of inventory to about 2. So now I'm busy trying to stock the shop again and having fun creating new things with all the news beads I've purchased.

Okay..so what else has happened? My mom came out in February...that was fun! Heres some pics:


We went on a sunset cruise whale watching trip...it was my mom, my sister, my aunt and myself. Here you see me, my aunt Jackie, and my mom Judy. Mom has chocolate on her lip cuz we were eating chocolate cookies. It's okay to have chocolate on your lips, teeth, face...it's chocolate! Enjoy!








It was a fun trip...but not the greatest close encounters with the whales like we've had in the past. Still who doesn't LOVE a boat ride...it's so invigorating :)



This is as we are leaving Maalea Harbor..facing Haleakala ...thats the volcano I live up on. Oh and these are all snapshots my sister took...her camera is much better then mine..so I just let her do all the picture taking ;-)



and now for some eye candy... Black and White is in for spring..I've been having a lot of fun working with it.







Okay...thats enough catch up for today..I'm sleepy...night!