THE WEBSITE WILL BE UP IN TWO DAYS!!!

Yes! You really read correctly! January 1st, 2008, Cherry Runway will be up and running for business! Our full, shopping cart website will be beautiful, and easy to use. Please stop on by and tell us what you think of it!! I would love some feedback!

www.cherryrunway.com

Fly Away!

Seriously, who wouldn't love a hot air balloon necklace? I've come to figure out this is one of my best selling necklaces.

If my memory serves me correctly, a gentleman and his son create all these amazing clay charms. I found this one particularly stellar! I know you will too!

This is one of my best selling necklaces. Everyone thinks the balloons is a trip, and i don't blame them. It is a really cool necklace!

Busy Lives and Chocolate Potato Chips...

It has been an EXTREMELY busy month! I will never again complain when i work a measly 40 hours a week and only have one day off a week. For, the month of December 07, i only had three days off. Almost all of those wonderful three days were spent being responsible and getting what needed to be done, done. Never again, will i complain about only getting 5 hours of sleep, when this past week i worked three 16 hours shifts and only slept 13 hours combined for those three crazy days.

All of those crazy hours and hard work has [man, i hate to count my chickens] worked out for me though. I am not only being kept on staff at my new job, but i got promoted as well!! It's a great honor and was the MOST determined I've ever been at a job. Thank GOD it worked out!!



This year i tried to make chocolate covered potato chips, which was WAY harder then i anticipated, but everyone seemed to rave about them! This is the recipe i used;



INGREDIENTS
1 pound high quality milk chocolate, chopped
8 cups ridged potato chips

DIRECTIONS
Place about 3/4 of the chocolate into a heat safe bowl, and place over the top of a pan of simmering water. If you have a double boiler, use that. Heat, stirring occasionally until the chocolate has melted, then continue to heat the chocolate. Stir occasionally. As soon as the melted chocolate reaches temperature, remove it from the heat, and stir in the remaining chopped chocolate until melted. Continue stirring until the chocolate has cooled. Touching a dab of chocolate to your lip will feel cool.

Use tongs to dip potato chips one at a time into the chocolate. Place on waxed paper starting at the point farthest from you and working your way in so as not to drip on your finished chips. Cool until set. You may refrigerate if you like.

[I do have to tell you though, that 'use tongs to dip potato chip part is CRAP! I had to literally paint each chip individually because the chocolate was to think and the chips were to delicate. It took over two hours to paint all the stupid chips. They did come out great though.]

Amber Apple Earrings

Amber and Bullseye Onyx. A wonderful combination!

Amber is such a lovely stone, there are many shades, all of which are in the rich golden color spectrum. 8mm Bullseye Onyx makes an appearance in these earrings as well. Sterling Silver lever back closures protect your ears and the loss of these great earrings.

December is Gone?

Well..it seems as though, the Holiday season has slipped away from me. I didn't have nearly enough time to devote to Cherry Runway. I did pick up hundreds of hours between my two jobs, and oddly enough, after writing down all of my December sales, i did pretty dern well.

Strange...

So, hopefully i can get down to business again, writing about new artists, finishing my website and devoting more time to Cherry after i see where I'm working at the start of the new year. (Cross you fingers I'm still working at both places!)

I hope you all have a stellar Holiday, and a safe trip wherever life takes you!!!

<3 Jenipher and Cherry Runway

Dangle Dangle

These beautiful shades of pink dangles dance off of a silver colored chain. In a lariat type necklace you have the ability to wear this stellar gem in a variety of ways. Wear this jewel as is, or add a charm [or even your initials or sorority letters]!!

Knit This Time!

Can anyone guess what these bracelet charms are?? Oh come on, you must have guessed based on my blog title. These stellar jewels are made from knitting needles. So clever!!! Nancy has a shoppe called Sassafras Creations. She makes me want to take up knitting as my second hobby. Okay, maybe not, but they at least make me want to turn something ordinary into jewelry. :)



I have always crafted; I'm 46 now, so let's say 4 decades.

I did a lot of sewing in my teens and 20's and also learned to knit somewhere in my early 20's. In my late 20's I had 3 sons (#2 and #3 are twins), so I pretty well lost all my free time for a while. After my twins got out of diapers, I found I had a little more free time again and I got into beading and jewelry-making, then eventually came back to knitting. I was laid off from my 24-year corporate career in 2006 and I became determined to do something more creative with my time, so I took some metalsmithing and jewelry-making classes. Somewhere along the line, I got the idea of using aluminum knitting needles in my jewelry - they're colorful, come in assorted sizes and are very lightweight. So, for the past 6 or 9 months, I've been playing with that idea and just seeing what I can come up with.



Inspiration comes from all over - I read lots of knitting and jewelry magazines and books. I also have a tendency to try to apply whatever medium I'm currently working in to everyday situations -- a few years back I was heavy into working with polymer clay; when a plastic guide rail on my dresser drawer broke, I made a new one out of polymer clay. I also tried to knit with polymer clay - it could be done, and it was unique, but it was a heck of a lot of trouble to make the string. Now I'm using the tools of knitting and seeing what else can be done with them.



The challenges I'm facing right now are questions about my own capabilities and where I want this to go - I'm ramping things up slowly and trying to be very conscious of my production time - since I am making all of the little pieces that go into my jewelry, I have to try to calculate how much it costs to make each one, in order to ensure that I am really able to pay myself for my time. But I'm having a lot of fun and have really enjoyed the positive responses that I've gotten from folks all over.





Nancy has plenty more awesome jewelry items for you to look at, so head over to her Etsy site and tell her hello!!

New Etsy Items Up!!! Check um out!

Mytini, Yourtini

A cute Martini toggle makes a statement as a practical pendant. This toggle just cracks me up. I am in love with the bar with the olive on it, and the Swarovski crystal pimento is just a trip! Weather your a martini drinker, or just a fan of how cool martini's look, this necklace will surly express a statement.

Parties for Grandma's!!

Grandma Party is an event usually held early in the year. It's for local artists to self their handmade crafty items, and hopefully get some great exposure. Last April was my 1st Grandma Party and i honestly had no expectations to sell anything. I did wonderfully. This year, i had slightly higher expectations but i was a lot more prepared and organized. Although it was a rocky start, i did quite well, and for that i am very grateful.

I recieved great feedback too! So many people gave me AMAZING encouragement, which is brilliant! One girl even said i had the best quality, another said my jewelry was one in it's kind, that no one had anything similar to mine. Thanks for all your kind words folks! I appreciate them!



It's driving me crazy that i can't post my table picture, so above is the "fitted" version, and below is the real size one. :) My friend Devan made my Cherry Runway sign. Isn't it stellar!!!! She is amazing! She also made the cream colored boards my jewelry is on, but that might be hard to see.



I had the two coolest helpers a gal could ask for. Lindsey is great at talking with people and helping me convince them they need some Cherry Runway jewels, and Riley tried to help one poor slightly tipsy guy that if he gave a random girl a necklace maybe he'd get a girlfriend. :) Seriously, though, they were super awesome and supportive and great company.


Lindsey


Riley



This is the flyer for this year's Grandma Party. To my amusement, there actually were quite a few Grandma's wandering about this time.

Tiger's River

Brown and Blue is such a soothing combination.

When i had to choose a color pallet for my kitchen, i wanted something to relax me. These gorgeous earrings match my kitchen quite well now. :)

Smooth Tiger's Eye ovals and Blue Opal Swarovksi crystals hang daintily above a long Sterling Silver chain. Aqua Quartz faceted tear drops finish these earrings off beautifully.

Sadly Inedible Jewelry

It all started when i saw these adorable PBJ sandwich earrings, and had one of my 1st impulse buys in quite some time. I had no idea when they arrived that it would be love at 1st bite (har har) (Okay, i mean sight.) Two sisters, Jessica and Susan, own a shoppe called Inedible Jewelry. All of their pieces are so adorable!!



1. How long have you been crafting?

We've been sculpting miniature foods since we were children seriously over-feeding our dolls. So, about 17 years apiece. At some point, we decided that food on jewelry was cooler than food for Barbies, and we shifted to food jewelry.



2.Did you always craft in this genre?

The moment we first tried polymer clay, we began creating miniature foods. And the foods have always been polymer clay. In terms of crafting as a whole, however, we grew up in a very crafty and artistic household, so we've been making all kinds of things our entire lives. We still both have other types of crafty projects, and we both love tocook real food.



3.Who or what inspires you?

Food! Why food? So many reasons. Food is fun, colorful, brings back memories of specific people and occasions. Food is very personal since most people have favorites. And we come from a very food-oriented family. We both love to cook and bake real foods, so many cookbook authors are sources of inspiration. Nigella Lawson, Nigel Slater, the Food Network as a whole, magazines, restaurants, the grocery store- they're all fair game for material.

While we're crafting, we usually have on music or recorded books (check out LibraVox.org for a huge collection of free recordings of classic books!) When we craft together (which is rare, since we live in different cities), we can usually agree on 80s music- happy, melodramatic, pure synthesizer. Fabulous.




4.What challenges have you found while taking your craft into the business world?

There is a huge difference between crafting for yourself and friends, and creating products for buyers. We've really come to understand that presentation is a huge part of selling a product, whether that's online or at shows. Online, photographs are absolutely crucial, as are great descriptions. Since people can click away in a split second, that photograph has to capture their attention instantly. The description needs to give someone as much information as possible
since people can't hold the product in their hands.

At shows, having work displayed in an eye-catching and fun way has been key. It isn't enough to simply have a fun and well-made product- it needs to sell itself too. So, display and packaging truly are more crucial to the business than we ever imagined at first.

For all the challenges, though, it's been even more rewarding and wonderful than we could ever have predicted. Food truly inspires people to tell us fantastic stories: the couple who had to have the burger and fries cuff links because they got engaged at a burger place, the fig necklace that reminded a woman of how her grandfather brought over a cutting from a fig tree on the boat from Italy, the woman who wears the kiwi earrings every time she needs some extra bravery since kiwi fruit reminds her of being brave, and many others who simply see our work and enjoy a really good laugh. We love it.

Another aspect of our work than many people always assume is a challenge, but really is not is the fact that we're sisters. We both are totally involved in all aspects of the business, from sculpting the individual charms, to creating the finished pieces, to doing all the behind the scenes work. We do each have our specialties in terms of which foods we sculpt, but otherwise you'd be hard-pressed to figure out which of us created which pieces.

And because people always ask: no, we don't use a magnifying glass. Yet.

Thanks again for asking to interview us! It was a pleasure.



Seriously though folks, my new earrings really are even cuter in person. So check out their Etsy site and say hello to them. They'd love to hear it!

Go Fly A Kite

Do you ever just want to take a day off, go buy a kite, make up a picnic basket, grab a really great friend and run to the beach to fly kites? I'm sure you do, in some retrospect! The day you finally go, the kite will fly perfectly in the air, just to tell you "This was a day worth waiting for". Of course, with a busy schedule, you can't quite just take a "kite day" from work, so in the meantime, this necklace will hopefully tide you over.

Don't Just Pencil Me In

Come on! Tell me this isn't the coolest idea? When i saw these steller Pencil earrings i knew Jen Maestre had a brilliant idea! Jen has a shoppe with a name she'll never forget...her own. :) Jen Maestre.



1) How long have you been crafting?

I've always liked making things since I was a kid, but I've only been making the pencil jewelry for about 2 years. My 'normal' job is making sculptures out of pencils, I started with the pencils in 1999.



2) Did you always craft in this genre?

Nope! I was a beader. I taught myself a few beading techniques, in fact, I use some of them to construct my pencil sculptures.



3) Who or what inspires you?

I'm inspired by Ernst Haeckel's drawings, and by natural forms, and also, by the materials themselves.



4) What challenges have you found while taking your craft into the business world?

Well, learning how to run a business has been challenging. It takes a lot of organizational skills, and I am constantly playing catch-up with my paperwork. I'd rather be torturing pencils!



So head on over to her shop, or website and see all of the amazing pencil (and other medium) creations! She's a very clever gal, and would love to hear from you! :)

Tea Party!

Seriously! How much fun did you have playing tea party when you were little. Heck! I still have fun, only now my plastic cups are china. Carry the nostalgia of having your own tea party, but wearing this cute ecclectic necklace!

Would you like your tea with one lump or two?

Made - with love - in Lowell.

Liz has a sweet gift shoppe on Etsy called Made in Lowell. When i started looking more and more at the work, i was quite intrigued. Not only were there unique jewelry pieces, hand painted eggs and barrettes, there were these incredible drawings on greeting cards. Which i later found out, were her mother's drawings. I was immediately drawn to learn more.



How long have you been crafting?

1) I have made things since I could hold a pencil. My mom being an artist influenced me greatly, but I think I was born with the interest in creating and have spent the rest of my life honing my skills. When I was a little kid, my older sister showed me how to make miniatures for my dollhouse. I would make more than I needed and set up a table in the living room and sell the extras to my mom.

Did you always craft in this genre?

2) I’ve always refused to pick a medium, even in college I was considered unfocused because I took painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture, unheard of! I am always learning new techniques and media. I love applying my fine arts education to the creation of crafts. Currently I am interested in felt that I make myself and polymer clay which I have been working with for 20 years. I have a constant thirst to learn new skills.



Who or what inspires you?

3) Well, my mom of course, in the greater sense. But on a practical daily basis, looking at pictures in craft books and magazines is very inspiring to me. If I feel at all blocked all I have to do is see an image that fires my neurons and I am off and running again. I don’t mean to say that I make copies of what I see in these pictures, it’s just something about the colors, the lighting, the idea that something is being made that gets me going. Going to craft supply shops too, wow! I have to bring a notebook to write down the ideas that flood into my brain.




4) What challenges have you found while taking your craft into the business world?

The biggest challenge has been learning all the paperwork aspects; collecting sales tax, getting an account to accept credit cards, etc. Each of the tasks alone turned out not to be so difficult, but thinking of all the things you don’t know at once is very intimidating! I’m still in the start-up phase and setting up systems to keep track of the paperwork. I look forward to the day when it is all second nature!



Marilyn Smith Rosenfeld’s answers:

I had been painting with oil on canvas for about 20 years, then, in 1984, I took a class with the artist Claire Walker Leslie, "Drawing from Nature." Her approach was, "Keep a nature journal, and just draw!" She inspired me to try pen, ink, watercolor, and colored pencils.

When my daughter began choosing pages from my journals to make into note cards, I was delighted. Liz's interest in my work inspires me greatly, keeps me drawing, gives me fresh ideas.



There is honestly nothing i want more then to work with my mother in the future, so i quite envy Liz and Marilyn's work relationship. So, head over to Made In Lowell and shower them both with you love!

Not Your Mother's Pearls

Like the look of pearls, but want something a little more eclectic? This bracelet is for you!

A beautiful 7.5 inch strand of creamy 7mm Freshwater Pearls. A 10mm glass heart hangs from the textured silver colored heart clasp. This is not your average pearl bracelet.

I love you like i love.....Uccello Curioso

Andrea from Uccello
Curioso and I have just been chatting. I originally messaged her when i found this adorable Avocado card. My co-worker always stated that avocado's were her favorite, and thought it was so neat someone else thought so too. :)



How long have you been crafting?

1) I have been making things with my hands for ages, but the earliest memory I have of making greeting cards is in high school. Each one of my close friends and I were heading off to a different college, so at graduation I made a custom collage greeting card for each girl. I must have gotten hooked, because I have been making greeting cards ever since then.



Did you always craft in this genre?

2) Well, cardmaking has been the only craft genre where I have actually gone into selling what I create. Most of my cards are made on my trusty gocco, some even with some watercolor detailing.
I love exploring other forms of artwork and crafts, though, and have dabbled in ceramics(so therapeutic, but I find that 3D is much more challenging for me!). I also absolutely love printmaking--especially etching. Although that's stepping more into the realm of fine art, I just love the whole process of getting your hands dirty, and all the specific steps that go in to creating a finished print.



Who or what inspires you?

3) Oftentimes, I am very inspired by the everyday, sometimes even by things that others would call the mundane: restaurant tabletops, little creatures, edible things. I also pay a great deal of attention to food, as well as the change of the seasons, and the urban environment around me.


What challenges have you found while taking your craft into the business world?

4) I think my biggest personal challenge is balancing my 'real-life' job and my crafting. It is really easy for me to just get sucked in to the daily grind, and continuously push off the crafting for when I'll have 'more' time! Also, because I am not currently able to commit as much time and energy as I'd like to the card-making, it has been difficult to regularly add products to my etsy shop and properly build my brand. Oh, but when I am able to sit down and just put my ideas down and create, I completely lose myself in it!



Andrea also makes custom greeting cards, like these wonderful bridal shower cards (see above). She's also very nice, and would love to hear from you! :)

p+j = <3

I just bought these awesome earrings from Inedible Jewelry. Two sisters that make all of their own clay charms.





I can't wait to recieve them!