Spring flowers for all you winter people out there

Christina from This Girl Beads suggested I post some pics of flowers blooming here on my sunny little island. We have had cold weather but not near enough to stop all the plants from blooming. My plumeria tree does go dormant every year though. And my gerber daisy's..I thought they died because of the drought..but with two weeks of rain one popped up and said "Hello!" Perhaps they go dormant too? A lot of plants bloom year 'round here.



More flowers from the yard:


Strange alien plant I have no idea what it is. Hubby brought home from a job one day a bulb that grows on top of the ground..we planted it and this is what grew. The bulb is huge now..like a football size.


This rose was so bright..in the picture it looks like I photoshopped it onto the picture..I didn't!


Geraniums amongst some heleconia stalks





Now for some spring earrings:


I love the powdered almond color of the Swarovski crystal faux pearls. They match so nicely with the champagne colored plumeria shells I use in my jewelry. They are new in my shop, just in time for wedding season. these would be so perfect for an island bride getting married on the beach.Available here

Lime green and pink are the epitomy of spring colors. These plumerias are carved from the conch shell and have lime green dyed tuquoise accompanying them. Available here


White mother of pearl plumerias with spring green freshwater coin pearls. Available here

Weekend stuff

I planned to not touch my tax stuff this weekend..I worked so hard all week that I felt I deserved a break. But here I sit...working on tax stuff again..there is just so much to do. I literally drowned in receipts every year around this time. It's so overwhelming but little by little it starts coming together. The reason it's such a pain is that I fall behind with my bookkeeping for both my jewelry business and my husbands business (Offshore Window Tinting) every year..so a lot of receipts need to be imput into the books. I never ever learn my lesson. I need to rest my brain though so I thought I'd add a post to the blog.

I don't have any new pics to share so I will share some of what my husband does for work:

here are just a few pics of the many things he does...

installs sunroofs




paints and repairs bumpers:




window tinting...


So not much going on this weekend... the family has been home sick. It seems everyone is getting this cough. I'm finally feeling better after 3 weeks..but still have an afternoon cough. Funny I'm coughing in the afternoons..our son is coughing at night so none of us can get to sleep and my husband wakes up at 6 a.m. coughing and wakes us all up. It's been very tiring! At least it's finally warming up and drying up..we had like 2 weeks straight of pouring rain. Now we really need to get out and soak in some healing rays at the beach. Hopefully next weekend.

Yesterday I made a big order of coin pearls from one of my new suppliers I was really excited about. They started having problems so I wasn't able to use them for a while. They made a move though and are now back in business..so I hope this order works out. I'm really excited about these as I've never had this color of coin pearl before..I hope it's as teal green as the suppliers pictures shows it here..its hard to capture the true color on pearls. Thats why I take my pics outside preferably in cloud cover..if not on the edge of the shade next to the sun..but never full sun:



Also on Saturday I completed the last 2 of 5 special orders I've been working on over the last couple of weeks. I should have gotten pictures of them today..the weather was so nice..but I forgot. So I will do that in the morning and send them off to my customers for final approval.

Hubby worked on the yard all day Saturday. It looks so nice. The drought had gone on for so long there were big dirt sections in our lawn. But now with all this rain finally it's really over grown. It looks nice all freshly cut..but I have to say I do love all the dandilions and other wild flowers that show up when it's overgrown. We have the cutest little raspberry skittle colored wild flower poofs that grow out in the grass. I don't know what they are..but I love them. Amazingly a lot of my plants came back after the drought. A lot of my potted flowers that my husband has bought me over the years that we had planted in the ground all made it. :) 2 of my 3 gerbers died though..and my pink carnations died. They were strange though..just kept spreading and growing leaves..but never anymore flowers. Also our red impatiens in the front yard died..hubby just replaced them all for me with pink ones.

I hung out inside to finish some custom orders. I watched some old Babylon 5 tv shows on the computer at In2TV - AOL Television . They have a lot of old funky tv shows you can watch for free. I go through and watch them sometimes when I'm tired of listening to music while I bead...just another background noise as it helps me to focus. I made 3 pairs of cute earrings but 2 are with gold and I'm out of gold ear wires. So today I made more orders for that kind of not so fun stuff to spend money on...findings...which are things like ear wires, head pins, clasps..etc. That stuff adds up big time!

I've got another bracelet layed out with paua shell, amazonite and labradorite with Hill Tribe silver...a combo that I love to do..but this time I'm toying around with putting in some white coin pearls and other white nugget pearls. Not sure yet if I will keep it that way.

Then I started feeling guilty about playing and rembered how BADLY I want to finish all this up by the end of February..so I got back to work. If anything...all this bookkeepign makes me appreciate getting back to jewelry making all the more. I've got 1/2 an hour before I hit the sack..hopefully I can reach the bottom of this pile sitting in front of me!

Cool Retro Chairs from Craigslist

I'm always reading Christina's blog This Girl Beads and am jealous of all her cool thrift store finds.(Not to mention I enjoy her taste in etsy finds and beautiful jewelry projects) We don't have a lot of places to find cool vintage stuff on Maui though so I was very excited when I found these really cool authentic retro chairs through craigslist for only $25 for the pair!



I didn't realize the chairs were so authentic until we got to the sellers house..they actually fold...my aunt has a card table and 4 wood folding chairs that she has had ever since I can remember..these seem to work the same..



I want to change my living room from all of it's deep purple and olive green and it's hodge-podge of bohemian beaded lamps and frames to a more clean retro look..although I don't wanna go too over board with the retro. And I want color..it seems so dark in my living room. So about 6 months before I found the chairs..I got this pillow at Pier One Imports as an inspiration for my color palate. I'd like to have a base of dark brown so I can really toss in any color accents I want...change them up or whatever..kinda like I do with my jewelry.




Oh and I also love reading Frecklewonder's blog she is a vintage diva! Her pictures are so fun and colorful to look at and all her finds are so cool...for some reason it just makes me happy. Perhaps it's the childhood memories the images bring up. You catch glimpses of her own house and how it's decorated..even how their table is set for family meals with dishes and tablecloths my grandmother and mother used...it really takes you back. I wonder what she would think of my chairs? ;)

Keshi Pearl Charm Bracelet Spotlight

This is one of my favorites..it's hard to capture in a picture the amount of actual sparkle and the way the pink keshi pearls and aurora borealis play in the light. The Swarovski crystals are a color called 'light Colorado topaz ABx2' so they are a light topaz color with a double coating of the aurora borealis effect. It makes the crystals appear more pink then they do the light tannish color of topaz..yet the topaz base makes it a very natural pink..it looks great with warm tone of the 14k gold filled metals. If you are interested this piece is available here

Wedding Season

It's that time of year again...time when all the wedding requests start coming in. My sister of Aihara Visuals Photography just got back from the huge wedding fair on Oahu at the Blaisdell Center..it was packed!

In anticipation of this season I had begun to make more wedding oriented pieces..however my wholesale account in England snagged up all I'd made so far for a bridal show they will be going to over there. And now I've been busy with getting my tax papers together and working on special orders so my bridal jewelry selection is begging for more attention. So yesterday I made these..and hopefully will have more soon:


Beach bride anklet available here



Heres an alternative if white is not for you..perhaps a little pink. This and the earrings below have not been listed on my site just yet..so you are getting a sneak preview.

'Pink Splash' earrings available here


This one is from last year and on sale for 50% off...it's perfect for that beach wedding you have been dreaming about. Available here

And here is my first custom wedding request for the year... The bride picked out earrings similar to these in my shop only she wanted the olivine Swarovski crystal replaced with a fuschia one to match her green and pink garden wedding. We made her 6 pairs of these :)

Turquoise Medley

A fun bright mix of turquoise...




available at Jonara Blu Maui

Totally Handcrafted Ceramic Beads

I'm selling off my collection of hand crafted ceramic beads. I used to work with a ceramics/jewelry artist here on Maui and learned out to make these babies. They are a lot of work and very unique. I'm done with this craft though as I've moved on to other things. If your a jewlery artist and your interested in some unique beads to work with come check them out at Jonara Blu Maui's Etsy Shop

I'm selling them in sets of 5...so they would be good to use in bracelets. Here are a couple examples of what I have up in the shop. I will be putting more up...but supplies are very limited.





Here are a couple of examples of what I've made with these fun and interesting beads in the past:

Snow on Maui!

It's been so cooooold! Sometimes I think I forget how cold it can get here in the winter in upcountry Maui...but I really don't think it's been this cold for a while. Yesterday in Makawao it was 54 degrees outside at 10:30 a.m. I know thats not cold for most who live on the mainland..but my body is not acclamated to it nor do we have heaters. So I'm walking around in layers of clothing, double socks and my wonderfully warm chennel scarf that my friend Tina of Belle Adorn knitted for me.

We got snow too! It's way up on the volcano Haleakala...we do get it every once in a while. I've always heard that they close the road so don't even try going up there. I also heard that the only way to get to the snow is if the weather is acting like it is gonna snow up there possibly overnight..go up the day before and camp at Hosmers Grove and then you may be fortunate enough to wake up to snow. I'm not sure if it's true though. My son and my nephews have never seen the snow..I sure would like to take them up there. I'm not ready to turn into a popsicle in my tent for a couple inches of snow though.

Heres a pic my mom emailed me this morning..



and here are a bunch of pics on KITV.COM click on the link that says "see viewer photos" under the photo of snow covered Haleakala to the right.

family milestones/odds and ends to share

I'll start with the awesome rainbow we had at the end of our street. It was actually a double..you can kind of see it..but the pic did not do this amazing glowing rainbow justice. We have rainbows so much here on Maui..it's even on our license plates and drivers licenses..but I never get tired of looking at them. And sometimes they are just so intense they seem unreal.



Kobryn says hello! This is my newest nephew! One of my very very bestest ever friends..she's practically my sister..is having her first baby! And of course since our family adopted her and her hubby as our own..she's having a boy..our family only seems to make boys!



My son got his first car..it was a freebie he and his dad are going to work on. The woman got a new car and didn't feel like messing with figuring out what was wrong with this one. My husband is really good with fixing cars..so that will be a nice little project for he and Cameron to do. Now we just have to get Cam his drivers permit..just the thought is freaking me out!



My 4 year old nephew Koa finally decided he wanted to try and string some beads rather then toss them all around or tie up my superman action figure with strands of pearls ;-)


Thats all for today..next time I'll post more jewelry :)

Married on a Maui Catamaran - Robb and Erin

I had the pleasure of creating Erin's bridal jewelry as well as her bridesmaid's jewelry. Robb and Erin were married on a catamaran here on Maui..I can only imagine what a beautiful experience it must have been. I know the pictures they shared with me were amazing! They were also very thoughtful and sent me a few that featured the jewelry I made to share with everyone.











Thank you Erin and Robb and Erin's mom, Therese..for sending me these pics to share and for letting me be a part of your very special day!

here is a close up on the jewelry created for Erin and her bridesmaids

Flowers from a friend :)

My friend Angel stopped by today and brought me these flowers she said reminded her of me...they are so cool! So bright like crayola crayons!




the purple vase I put them in didn't show up..but it's all quite colorful!

Maui Storm

We had a whopper of storm last wednesday....my camera with the video on it is on it's last leg...but I managed to tape some of it:

*note...not sure why this video isn't showing up. It shows up when I go look at it in editing posts..I guess I'll leave it up for now and see if it corrects itself...

Sorry we missed the craft fair...

I wanted to apologize to our regular customers that we see each year at the Ben Franklin Craft fair. If you looked for my sister and I ..you are right..we weren't there. I worked really hard to bring lots of fresh new designsto this years fair..however I had some health issues with my heart that put a damper on things. I've dealt with palpitations off and on my whole adult life...but recently they've gotten worse. Longer bouts of them and more frequently throughout the day. This recent episode has lasted me a month. A few days before the show I had some major ones that almost caused me to pass out. So needless to say I didn't think the craft fair would be such a good idea for me right now. I'm fine..they are harmless...the docs got me on an event recorder for a month. I've had EKG's and the heart holter..but never was able to capture one for the doc to review. with this new little deal I'm catching tons of them for them. They say they are early heart beats and are minor. Just unsettling..so I hope they go away soon.

I do have lots of new jewelry that I'm putting up in the shop little by little..so keep checking back.

It's late and I'm sleepy so I'll have to share pics later ....night!

Winter time FINALLY!

It's finally cold and raining here..we've been under a 10% water restriction since the summer. My plants are all croaking and my car is always dirty :\ But today we are finally having an awesome storm. I saw it coming this morning..but figured like they always do that it would just pass right by us. Nope..it's been pouring all morning..even thundering! I love it! I only feel bad for all the visitors to the island..this is not way to spend your Hawaiian vacation. Sorry!



But with winterime that means lack of fruit. We do still get our pineapples and mangos and papaya..but I've grown really tired of them. I love the nectarines, peaches and plums from the mainland..but dont' like to buy the ones that come from Chile...they use that pesticide that the US has outlawed..then the US goes and buys produce grown with the stuff. I just don't understand it. So I try to stay away from fruit and vegies from mexico area during the winter. Thankfully I've come across a few generous souls lately willing to share fruit they've grown themselves locally. Here you can see my fruit bowl with a yummy jabong aka pomelo..it's like a grapefruit but with out the bitter taste and we have lilikoi in purple and yellow...thats also called passion fruit. Those are my fav :P and I have to admit our apple bananas are much tastier then reg bananas.

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.