Monday, April 7, 2014

Montreal Je T'aime

One of the things I absolutely love about Montreal is how much creativity and talented artisans you can find. It's a beautiful thing: a vibrant community of creative people that thrive in making lovely things and those wonderful curators, that encourage creativity by surrounding themselves with carefully crafted, local, beautiful products, attending local craft fairs, shops and galleries.

The other day I made a treasury on Etsy featuring some of my local faves, just some of them as I have plenty! I'll share with you some of them. To see my complete list, click on this link to the Treasury!





Aah, this photo reminds me when we lived in Outremont and used to walk past these doors everyday. Miss my old neighbourhood! Photography by Ginette Brosseau.



Hope you like my Montreal picks! 

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

About special orders and being happy because SPRING




As I told you the other day, I've been so lucky on the special-order department lately as I've been getting those kinds of projects that are inspiring and make me try new ways to make my jewelry.

Some weeks ago I received an email from a person I admire asking me to my make a little pendant specially for her friend. She asked me for an ace of spades that, when you turn it over revealed a kind of a secret heart. I thought I could use two different cuts of silver, solder them together and then oxidize one side, polish the other for extra contrast. The one you see in this photo was a trial, I made a second one that came out beautiful.

I was super excited about this order, let me tell you why: Almost nine years ago I came from Mexico to join Alex here in Canada to start a life together. He came here first and was, as always, the one that found all local music that we both like listening to. The first Canadian bands I fall in love with (and still are) thanks to Alex discoveries were Arcade Fire and Stars, at that time with the albums "Funeral" and "Set Yourself on Fire" respectively. To say those two albums marked for me those first years in Canada, and made for our life soundtrack while getting to know this country, our life together, Montreal, the winter, is an understatement. We fell hard for arcade fire and stars. So, when Amy Millan from the band Stars stopped one day at my booth at Puces POP craft fair I was, well, fangirling. And then when Amy asked me to make this necklace for her friend, I was literally jumping, such an honor! And then when Amy told me the recipient was Emily Haines from the band Metric I was pretty much living the dream. And that's the little story of how special this order was for me.

So that experience make me happy and so does Spring and my red bouquet of ranunculus! Like, a couple weeks ago while everybody south shared their spring experiences I was sulking because it was so freaking cold and snowy and all around yucky here in Montreal. I honestly was feeling under the weather. But since a of couple days ago things are getting better for us Motrealers, we had a couple of very sunny days and mild weather, ahh, thank goodness. I feel hopeful again, I can see the light, the end of that tunnel that is Winter.

Thanks so much for reading this :)
Iveth